A life cycle.
Collaborative work with Daisy Mae Smith, Fatima Rodriguez and Ken Nakajima.
CONSTELLATION OF AWAKENING [V2]
2024
“No longer enough to contain life,
The horizon disappeared,
vanished,
faded into one.
Ground and sky became one.
Darkness.
The darkest darkness.”
Constellation of Awakening is an audio-visual performance about a world plunged into eternal darkness; a reality interrupted by dreams. The audience is invited to count sheep, fall asleep, and traverse through surreal landscapes, while being confronted by a world of contradictions. Constellation of Awakening is an invitation to a shared dream, an attempt to make this reality - less painful. And who knows, maybe in the morning the world will be different.
Running Time: 40 mins
Writer/Director: Nefeli Kentoni
Performers/Devisers: Maria Masonou, Santi Guillamon, Tomio Shota, Fatima Rodriguez, Ludovica Tagariello
Light Design: Itching Tian
Music Composition: Manos Stratis
Sculpture: House of Babt
Photography: Valeria Poholsha
2024: Resolution Festival, The Place UK
"The first few minutes of empty stage in darkness was occupied by a soporific and poetic voiceover and if that hadn’t worked, five performers then played (comically) at being the proverbial jumping sheep that people count when sleep eludes them. [...] A seated man expelled pearls from his mouth which was a neat metaphor for this bracelet of innovative and well-articulated ideas."
Graham Watts
"Constellation of Awakening viscerally creates a world of darkness and discomfort, inviting the audience to close their eyes for the entire performance. My eyes stay open, and I am condemned to witness scenes of a person plummeting to death (which the audience laughed at), and a naked girl in a spotlight (which the audience was too tense and ashamed to laugh at). As much as the narrator describes the world of darkness as a painful, unseeing place, in that moment I wished they had turned the spotlight off. Because in darkness lies not knowing and not acknowledging. Audiences as observers, will never acknowledge the sheep bleating for their lives. We much rather have our eyes shut, never waking, never asleep."
Brian Toh
