Unsettling dance, The Great Tamer, to take Hong Kong audiences on mythical journey into heart of darkness
- Greek director and choreographer Dimitris Papaioannou draws on Greek classics and his visual arts background to examine life and death and search for the sacred
- June’s production just one of tantalising tales featuring Orpheus and Eurydice, Zeus, Hermes, Elektra and Apollo that continue to captivate global audiences
The Greek myths – full as they are with cruelty and death, mystery and perversion – have never shied away from mankind’s most disturbing imaginings. Indeed, these stories, told by the ancient Greeks dating from 1100BC revel in the unsettling.
Take Tantalus, for example. He killed his son, roasted him, and served him up to the gods at a dinner party.
The gods were so enraged that they made him stand, thirsty and ravenous, for eternity in a pool of water with a heavily laden fruit tree nearby. Each time he reached for the water it would recede and the tantalisingly close fruit was always just out of his grasp. This is the origin of the word “tantalising”.
Prometheus’ punishment was more violent: after stealing fire from the gods and giving it to man, he was bound to a rock, where each day an eagle would eat his liver, only for it to grow back overnight and be eaten again the next day.
In Greek tragedy, which was a big civic festival art form, the tales took the people to the darkest places you could ever imagine as a way of helping them to dream better as effective citizens of a democratic community
Bringing darkness into the light of shared storytelling was key to the function of these myths.
