dancing with witches

dancing with witches

Anio landIn this book Valls d’Àneu CeremoniesSince 1424, Peterna is the name of the devil who heads the witches’ gathering. biterna It is also the name of the show that opened on Saturday the 33rd. Dansanyo Festival This year marks the 600th anniversary of this legal text, the first document in Europe to condemn a crime that does not exist: witchcraft. A show in which sound and dance form an almost perfect symbiosis, dragging the audience into moments of collective madness where the crowd points at someone and decides that he deserves to die.

In the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries, most of the victims of the madness of the neighbors were women. As we can see in the performance presented by the young dance company of the Theater Institute, directed by Catherine Allard and choreographed by Alex Martínez, the persecution of someone, usually the most vulnerable, knows no age. It has always happened. The performance has moments of great intensity, in which bodies move feverishly while the voices of the National Youth Choir of Catalonia, conducted by Mireia Barrera and with music by Arnau Obiols, intertwine with the mysterious and popular music of the Estonians Viljo Tormes and Arvo Pärt. There are few scenographic elements but they are loaded with meaning: the apple that Eve ate, Pandora’s box, the ropes that paralyze the women and, above all, the pitchfork.

The sounds and the whole dance form

The pitchfork is a working tool but it has disturbing connotations. A practically invisible plowman appears at the beginning of the performance and continues to plow. There is a moment when the pitchfork scratches the ground and also becomes a weapon, when it is taken by an angry mob convinced that the woman has the power to do harm. All this is combined with voices singing traditional Catalan music, such as the folk tune from La Segarra that speaks of plowing. Magic can mean many things, and the fear of the enemy within is ancestral.

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biterna It is above all a journey into madness that leads one to believe that the fault of all one’s ills is the neighbour, or above all, the neighbour. It is not easy for the voices and the body of the dance to be complementary, but Peterna succeeded and the proof of this is how, at the end of the performance, the chorus and the company gave each other a warm greeting.

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