Virgil’s book of ten Eclogues were written between 42 and 39 BC as a collection of interrelated pastoral poems. Each of the poems being very different in tone and structure, they combine the politics of the day with very distinct poetic voices. Eclogue VI tells the story of two satyrs and a Naiad who find the mythical Silenus, the teacher and companion to Dionysus, passed out drunk in a cave in Arcadia. They tie him up and insist he sings them a song. The song he sings to them starts with the beginning of creation and leads through a mythical landscape of disasters, passions and transformations.

 

The Song of Silenus is re-imagined in a residency that inhabits hidden rooms above a shop of oenological and wine making. The work developed over the course of three nights as the space becomes an echo chamber to the poem and the erotic cosmology that surrounds it. It took the form of a durational installation, midnight performance and live stream.

 

 

concept, space and choreography Simon Vincenzi

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performer Kath Duggan


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sound Will Saunders


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with the participation of Lucio Apolito, Valentina Cencetti, Irena Radmanovic

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production assistants Paolo Gabriotti, Perla Degli Esposti

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scenography assistants Filippo Tappi, Elia Amaducci

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production Xing/Live Arts Week

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presented at Palazzo Pezzoli, Bologna 11th 12th 13th April 2019
as part of Live Arts Week VIII