“Being absent to its passage is what would make me sad. But the fact that it passes is a phenomenon among others for me. How I love those lines of Celan! Jahre (one line, new line:) Jahre, Jahre. Years. But what is years?” *
The performance follows the resonances of its title: years, years. The passage of time, journeys, heritage, being lost, fear and desire are contemplated themes within an assemblage of a multiplicity of sources in proximity to a poetics of the forest and the fairy tale.
A still image and soundtrack of a modern version of Cinderella, text taken from W.G. Sebald, Franz Kafka, Arthur Rimbaud, Charles Bokowski and Russel Hoban, as well as plot lines from Werner Herzog’s Dracula film Nosferatu constitute sources within a fragmented narrative that oscillates thematically as well as structurally from efforts to get lost and to navigate.
“The first half of the show takes lightness as its element. There is a choreographed hunt in the woods in which the performers embark on a series of ridiculous journeys from one side of the stage to another: an arrow shoots up in the air – it falls to the ground – someone screams. There is a man who unexpectedly strips naked out of frustration with a coachman who speaks in slides; we then hear a broken voice singing a song about homesickness. The performers paint and inhabit an upside-down fairytale world in which echoes trigger the call, and departures and arrivals become exchangeable(…). Then a presence, or an absence, arrives unexpectedly. A sense of disquiet makes itself felt. Just like in fable, the descent of the night engenders the transformation of the laws of the living.” Augusto Corrieri
Devised and performed with Joanna Brown, Antoine Fraval, Simone Kenyon and Mary Southcott.
Commissioned by Nuffield Theatre, Lancaster. Funded by Arts Council of England. The performance was developed in series of residencies at Dartington College of Arts, Cube microplex, Bristol, Nuffield Theatre, Lancaster and BAC, London.
Performed at Alsager Arts Centre, Nuffield Theatre, Lancaster, Winchester University, Dartington Arts, Phoenix, Exeter, green room, Manchester, BAC, London, Navigate Festival, Baltic, Newcastle, Arnolfini, Bristol, Leeds Met Studio and Gallery Theatre, The Junction, Cambridge.