DIE LIKE A COUNTRY is an artistic experiment to experience the manifestation of the Angelus Novus. The Angelus is a young woman with a strange, unidentifiable accent, she speaks something imponderable. She is here to tell us the historical era of a future past, recalling the last ruthless events of the country. And she exposes them with the meticulous scientificity of someone who has observed the unfolding of events outside the natural course of time. Where are we? When is all this happening?
DIE LIKE A COUNTRY invites the spectators to assist to a sci-fi metaphor, detailed by archaic elements, of a society that has lost itself and which has died in itself. It takes the form of an intimate and radical site specific walking performance guided by the artist Gemma Hansson Carbone.
DIE LIKE A COUNTRY is a trans-disciplinary project which crosses different practices and sciences (walking, architecture, cartography, archeology, performing arts, anthropology and poetry). It is structured around a text written by the contemporary author Dimitris Dimitriadis, and the figure of the Angelus Novus that Walter Benjamin described in his homonymous essay dated 1940. Today, more than ever, the power of memory does not simply pass through cognitive and informational processes but is part of us in the most literal sense: we are our places with all the signs they hold, we are the soil on which these traces are imprinted. Our own epigenetics is our country, just as our landscapes are the stratigraphy of our history. What is the occult yet vibrant relation between Nature and Art? Ground and Identity? Architecture and Memory?Trying to answer these questions means accepting that every walk will be different, every performance will be a unique piece of experience. Every time the city, the landscape, their analysis and reading, and, consequently, the writing of the dramaturgy – and, consequently, the involvement of the performer and the engagement of the audience – will be different and totally unpredictable.
based on “Πεθαίνω σαν χώρα” by Dimitris Dimitriadis
by and with Gemma Hansson Carbone
architect Vasilis Mavrianos
special thanks to Mr. Theodoros Terzopoulous and Aglaia Pappas
production Naprawski
supported by Konstnärsnämnden – the Swedish Arts Grants Committee (SWE), ABF (SWE), Space A and KIAR 2023 (NEPAL) PARC – Performing Arts Research Center (ITA), Fondazione Fabbrica Europa (ITA), Gathenhielmska Kulturhuset (SWE), Art del Caminar – Walking Art and Relational Geographies (ES), walk – listen – create (BE)
duration 60′
itinerant performance with limited number / starting from Teatro Rasi
Gemma Hansson Carbone is an Italian-Swedish performer and theater director. She studied Theater and Stage Arts in Italy, Sweden and the UK. She met and worked with international artists such as Romeo Castellucci, Theodoros Terzopoulos, Mixail Marmarinos, Rodrigo Garcia, Tomi Janesic, Pavol Liska and Kelly Copper (Nature Theater of Oklahoma), Julie Stanzak (Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch), Chiara Guidi, Fabrice Murgia, Dead Center and Elli Papakonstantinou. Between 2013 and 2014, she collaborated with Socìetas Raffaello Sanzio for the shows Natura e Origine della Mente (Biennale di Teatro di Venezia, Theatre de la Ville – Paris and XING) and Uso Umano di Esseri Umani (La Volpe disse al Corvo – Ex Ospedale dei Bastardini, Bologna, a Socìetas Raffaello sanzio and XING production). In 2015 she founded Naprawski, a trans-national platform of artists. With this new ensemble, she directed YOU ARE HERE (so don’t take things so seriously), a sci-fi musical show based on Isaac Asimov’s Foundation novels, co-produced and supported by Cinnober Teater of Göteborg (SW), PIT Festival and Grenland Friteatret (NO); GUL – a shot in the dark a thriller performance about the murder of the Swedish PM Olof Palme, written together with the Italian author and Assize’s judge Giancarlo de Cataldo and co-produced with Armunia and Teatro Koreja (IT); TU – ovvero chi è quella stronza? created together with Riccardo Festa and the Italian theater critic Attilio Scarpellini and based on Ennio Flaiano short novel Melampus. She is awarded by the Italian national grant DE.MO./MovinUp, by MiBACT Ministero dei Beni e delle Attività Culturali and GAi – Associazione Giovani Artisti Italiani and since 2017 she is supported by the Swedish National Art Council Konstnärsnamnden. She played in some of the most avantgarde and prestigious stages in Europe, such as Piccolo Teatro di Milano (IT), Ancient Theater of Epidaurus (GR), Biennale di Venezia – Teatro dell’Arsenale (IT), the Ibsen Festival of Oslo (NO), the Athens and Epidaurus Festival (GR), Operadagen Festival (N), IRCAM – Centre de Pompidou (FR), Romaeuropa Festival (IT), Göteborg Stadsteater (SWE), Göteborg Dans&Teater Festival (SWE), National Theater of Rome (IT), National Theater of Napoli (IT), Teatro Elfo Puccini (IT), Festival Castel dei Mondi (IT), Istituto della Enciclopedia Treccani (IT) and Armunia – Festival Inequilibrio (IT), In 2018, she participated in an international project for young pupils in Iran about theater practices and freedom of expression, she was called by the International School of Teheran to put on stage The Birds of Aristofanis and to lead a one-month theater workshop. Since 2018 she has collaborated with Pontus Stenshäll and Göteborgs Stadsteatern as assistant director, especially curating the international productions. In 2023, for the European Capital of Culture Eleusis 2023, she will curate and direct Narrative Archeology – a project for fragments and shadows across time and space, a site specific experimental work based on the dialogue between archeology and performing arts.