« Many things are terrible, but of all the most terrible is man. » Sophocles

Antigone’s gesture – throwing a handful of earth on the body of her brother, who was denied burial by King Creon – contains the very essence of the theatrical act: repairing the past through an action in the present. What form might this performative act, which connects the living to the dead, take today? How to reconstruct what the law of the state has broken? Antigone, conceived with artists in exile or who have lived the experience of migration, proposes to actualise this antagonistic and necessary act, opposing the government of men to obedience to the values of the Earth.

At a time of “solidarity crime”, identity tensions and the fantasy of a demographic “great replacement”, we feel it is imperative to remind ourselves of these universal laws based on ethics and human rights. Sophocles’ play will provide an opportunity to tackle some urgent questions: what does it really mean to be a community? What pact binds human beings together, and what is the limit that this pact cannot cross? Above all, can these bonds exist without being nourished by spiritual energies?

ANTIGONE
Based on Sophocles’ Antigone
Directed by Luca Giacomoni
Dramaturgy Linda Souakria
Translation Paul Mazon
With (cast to be announced)

Produced by Hagia Sophia / co-produced by Artavism / With the support of ARTCENA, CENTQUATRE PARIS, Agency of Artists in Exile and the Observatory of Refugee Camps and Fondation Humanités, Digital et Numérique.