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Can theater really be a kind of experimental archaeology? In The Women Who Celebrate Thesmophoriae, Odete revisits one of Aristophanes' lesser-known texts, Thesmophoriazusae. Written in 411 B.C., the original presents several Athenian women gathered in the temple of Demeter and Persephone to celebrate the festival of Thesmophoria, an occasion in which the presence of men is forbidden. In this sacred space, they plan to take revenge on Euripides for the way they are portrayed in his tragedies.

In Odete's proposal, the cast works with the text as if it were an archaeological experiment. It is excavated and removed from Demeter's earth to be polished by the drenched tongue of the present. Terms are analyzed, instruments, clothes and Athenian sayings are tried out.

This work will have its premiere during the Portuguese Platform for Performing Arts. More information soon.

Credits

Creation
Odete

Based on
Aristófanes

As part of the project
STAGES

Performed by
Ângelo Custódio, Cru Encarnação, Odete, Puta da Silva, Tita Maravilha

Research Support
Gisela Casimiro, João Paulo André, Pedro Augusto, Puta da Silva

Production
Parasita

Co-production
Teatro Nacional D. Maria II

Odete

Odete works between performance, text, visual arts and music. Her work is obsessed with historiographical writing, using erotics and paranoia as two somatic ways of relating to the archival materials. She writes through her body, speculating biographies of historical characters through epidermic pleasures: fashion, personality, presence, fragrance, grace, sensibility. She claims to be a bastard daughter of Lucifer, descending from the medieval practice of satanic pacts to alter one’s gendered body. Lately she has been researching and working around building connection points between “effeminate” histories, from the baroque Castrati to the 19th century dandies.