First day of working for Antigone Cantica with a diverse group of artists from different countries: Spain, Poland, Iran, Albania, Italy, Greece, Finland, Cuba… And with the absence of precious friends that are not now with us but are important for this journey that has already started more than one year ago. Salamanca with all the springs colours and lights that are warming us, a daylight even during the night that makes you forget about time. During the trip from Salamanca to L’Alberca you can see all the colours of the spanish region, so common in all the mediterrenean Land, expect from the herds of bulls that appear  often: green, emerald valleys, pure blue sky until you enter to the forrest of L’Alberca. You can smell the mountain fresh air. The small city is untouched by the time. Mediaval period where Don Quixote with Rocinante will appear. A woman ringing a bell at 21.11 calling for praying for the dead. The first meeting of the group about Antigone it was really important: we are a peculiar mosaic of different origins, with significant past that will work all together for exploring the myth of Antigone, the figure of resistance. Stories of war, of civil war, immigration will create the “bread” of our experience. The training was intense: songs, phisical work, sharing. It’s always great searching for new eyes, different eyes that recalls you of something that is yours. What’s the relation between Life and Death, Love and Death (Έρωτας και Θάνατος), how you value your life and death? Fabio makes a line Maria Zambrano to our greek popular songs (δημοτικά τραγούδια), where there is a connection really deep: a woman is sacrificed in order to build a house, a bridge. It reminds me of Γεφυρι της Άρτας, where three sisters sacrificed to build Danube, Euphrates and the bridge of Arta. Looking forward to explore more this connection.

Σ’ αγαπημένο πλάι αγαπημένη θα κείτομαι, άγια κριματισμένη…

Giovanna Kapodistria

Second day of working: the day started with the Press conference in the beautiful old theatre of the city of L’Alberca. What’s the meaning of the word proud (περηφάνεια) that Is the title of our project Antigone’s Proud? A word with a double meaning, positive and negative. The conference ended with a hug from and to everyone. Then we started the rehearsals with a strong Pa Tuan Cin. This time I feel that everyone Is getting stronger and more focus in the breathing, in the wonder of being together, of working together, of the responsibility of creating a circle and staying focus to It. Then we work on the tiger movement and dance that Is connected to the Heart and the feeling of anger. Eyes wide open, silent movement, feeling the energy in every inch of the body are elements of this animal. How important Is to observe the animalistic world, that is also our world, that is a part of us ancient and forgotten. In the afternoon we went on a silent walk in the mountain of L’Alberca that was a moment of deeply concentrating into the nature, the colours, the mountain fresh air and the presence of the water all around. The landscape reminds me of the small greek villages, with the stones full of green grass due to the humidity: in the white stones there is always a song, like Antigone says. With the experience of group silence you can notice a new reality: how important is being together focus in just the common experience of walking. We need each other in order to create, to believe in each other even in a silent mode. Sound of birds, of water and strong air are the acoustic environment before the the end of our walk. In the forest we see a statue of a pig and a long poncho full of cold water and leaves. Simonetta and Roberta are singing one μοιρολόγι from Cyprus, a funebral song that takes part of the funeral ceremony in many parts of Greece and Mediterranean areas. Antigone is starting to be created.

Giovanna Kapodistria

Third day journal: Today the artistic work was really intense, like 8 hours full of training, singing, expressing, finding out about the material. Pa Tuan Cin, separate the water, movement in the space and a lot of singing work especially in finding the vibration and the resonators of our body. A really detailed work. We have a variety of material that is always around the theme of abandonment. Fabio asked from everyone to sing a song in the mother tongue for abandonment and everyone sang in a really profound way, the emotional movement was more than clear. We maybe don’t understand each other mother tongue but the vibrations and the feeling are something in common. Waves, to hold, heaviness, enlightenment, shut up, mountain, fear, songwriter, team, hesitation, alone, roses are some keywords from our memories. Fabio explained a lot about the need to express our sensitivity deeply and outside, to involve always the other with an impulse to the outside world, remembering that we are all parts of the History from our little stories. The war is always around us and in our group we have people that lived in their own skin the experience of war and that makes our work of Antigone even more necessary than ever before.

Giovanna Kapodistria

The day was really intense and full of emotions, opening new questions that have to do with the work that we are doing here regarding always at the aspect of the conflict and war that surrounds our life in many ways. Antigone is a figure of the antiwar resistance against the power and the unfair law, something that can speak to anyone in different ways. Today the work of training was pretty intense as we did also karate and of course the tiger dance. It’s important to get close to our violent parts, animalistic part of our self, in order to understand more qualities of our body that are part pf our nature. We are not one dimensional creatures, we have many dimensions and this aspect is essential. We did a silent walk in the forest to search for objects. I think that the most crucial subject that this technique of silent walks learns you is the silent coolaboration and concentration that the colllective process creates. We sometimes need only our partners breath and pase to continue. The forest creats other dimensions, the colours of the trees and flowers, the fresh terrain, the clear air that you can taste. Another important part of our work Is the singing in chore that is a really opening procedure. We have learned the songs of Simonetta and Carla, in dialetto of South Italy and in Spanish and today we started in russian Song with Valentina. Then we shooted in the old theatre some images for the final demostration. Everything we are doing is a challenge to express without hiding, to open up and to sharing with our commerades our truth.

Giovanna Kapodistria