In the background

Diana de Sousa

The story of Penelope in Greek mythology is one of the most dynamic and disquieting images of femininity: that of a woman waiting for her love and who patiently and painstakingly embroiders and weaves while she waits and keeps the world at a distance.  However, as the dialogue with the original text of ‘Odysseus’ becomes clearer and more intense – especially with regard to Penelope – the myth simultaneously shifts to a context that is touched by anxieties closer to today’s and, in particular, the situation of emigration and the status of women.
Ulysses, the adventurous hero, has emigrated and is taking a long time getting back home; Penelope, his resilient wife, remained behind and waits for him, weaving stories and questions.  If Ulysses emigrates while Penelope waits and changes into another woman, what transformations are these?  What happens when one waits for someone for an unspecified period of time?
Will Penelope still be the woman who for centuries has provided an example of chastity and faithfulness?  How many Penelopes are there? Could it not be Ulysses who is waiting for her? Or is Penelope waiting for herself?
These questions arise in this project and the legend of Penelope and Ulysses will be used as a narrative that crystallises and evokes the situation of many couples all over the world.  Penelope waits in the same manner that we all wait.  Waiting to be happy, to be loved and desired; waiting to achieve some financial and professional stability; waiting for happier days.  In the end, we are left with a testimony that reminds us that love is not just exaltation, it is also contradiction.

 

bela_adormecida is a performance that conjugates the traditional popular tale of "Sleeping Beauty" and its insidious connection with somnophilia, calling upon other literary references, but also evoking protocols of submission and domination. Sleeping Beauty" being an extraordinarily polysemic tale, we seek in it the marks of female maturation, in a context of enchantment, eroticism and puberty. But this association also serves to summon up the relationship between the established powers - traditionally patriarchal - and the prevailing (traditionally phallic) culture of surveillance. The show focuses on the way in which art and technology ("surveillance art") can serve to dismantle, unmask and subvert power. Thus, aiming to evoke an aura of fragility, exposure, perversion and voyeurism, bela_adormecida aims to interrogate the ways in which power is established between observer and observed, between spectator and actor, and in the ways in which this power can be negotiated.

Duracional Version

A small room. Somewhere we see a table alarm clock that rings every morning, always at seven. It is midnight. A woman, with a wig of black strands of hair falling slightly below her chin and lips painted red, sleeps in a bed. She is ready to be visited.

bela_adormecida (durational version) is a performative installation where a person is invited to enter and spend a night with a "sleeping beauty". Each guest will have access to a "sleeping beauty" through a virtual platform, where they will be able to "chat" and set up the details for the encounter.

Conception, Artistic Direction, Dramaturgy | Diana de Sousa

Performers | Ágata Pinho, Andresa Soares, Beatriz Dias, Diana de Sousa, Diana Niepce, Erica Rodrigues, Lucília Raimundo, Marisa Bimbo, Margarida Bakker, Mónica Calle, Rita Carolina Silva, Sofia Dinger, Vânia Rovisco e Xana Lagusi (rotating) (part of the version presented at Atelier Real and in the two times presented at Hostel do Largo Residências in Lisbon)

Image | Bruno Simão

Support | ORG.I.A/Self-Mistake

Duration: 00h00 - 07h00

Age classification: M/16

 

 

Foto Bela Adormecida de Diana de Sousa

Teaser de bela-adormecida (versão palco)

Vasco Mendes

Foto Bela Adormecida de Diana de Sousa