This is a remarkable, challenging and bravely original work.
A ritual of spellbinding beauty, staged by Sellars, these two women, of different generations and continents, stand up to Shakespeare.
AUSTRALIAN PREMIERE
Director Peter Sellars
Desdemona Tina Benko
Desdemona is the most fiery angel in Shakespeare's creation—a radiant and radical woman of independence, courage, and love.
She is now given an astonishing and provocative further voice by Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison, who reveals secrets in Othello that will change forever our reading of the play.
In a time outside of time we discover the other African in Shakespeare's play—Barbary, the maid who raised Desdemona on African stories and songs, stunningly embodied by the great Malian singer Rokia Traoré.
As women's voices fill the night air, we are in an intimate, spellbinding theatrical séance, both haunted and liberating, that moves in words and music across continents and centuries, connecting Elizabethan England to the Courts of Timbuktu to the future of the race—the human race—on this earth.
ARTISTS IN CONVERSATION
PETER SELLARS
FRI 16 OCTOBER at 1PM // FREE
Theatre director and Professor of World Arts and Cultures, Peter Sellars will share experiences from over three decades of work. Facilitated by Miriam Cosic.
CREDITS
Text Toni Morrison
Music and Barbary Rokia Traoré
Director Peter Sellars
Desdemona Tina Benko
Ngoni Mamah Diabaté
Vocals Fatim Kouyaté
Vocals Virginie Dembelé
Kora Toumani Kouyaté
Lighting Design James F. Ingalls
Sound Design Alexis Giraud
Sound Engineer Antoine Audibert
Production Stage Manager Anne Dechêne
Assistant Stage Manager Pamela Salling
Producer Diane J. Malecki
Desdemona was commissioned and co-produced by Wiener Festwochen, Théâtre Nanterre-Amandiers, Cal Performances, Berkeley California, Lincoln Centre for the Performing Arts, New York, spielzeit'europa I Berliner Festspiele, and Barbican, London, Arts Council London and London 2012 Festival. The premiere performance, directed by Peter Sellars, took place on 15 May 2011 at the Akzent Theater in Vienna, Austria.
Image: Mark Allan
