Dionysos. Madness pours upon my lovely face

20.01.2023

Student project

Could Dionysus be a queer trans* deity? What if their companions simply do not conform to any norm and are not mad at all? Cat Jugravus Performance DIONYSOS. MADNESS POURS UPON MY LOVELY FACE invites us to reinterpret the myth as a manifesto for otherness and queerness. With the Maenads - the dissident entourage of Dyonisos - the audience tries to approach a life without the norm in ritual, dance and rave.

Master's Project of the Master's Programme Applied Theatre by Cat Jugravu

11 & 12 January 2023 at 7:30 pm
ARGEkultur Salzburg

DIONYSOS. MADNESS POURS UPON MY LOVELY FACE is performance, ritual and rave. The spectators enter a series of liminal spaces, both physical and metaphysical, in which an attempt is made to reconstruct the divinity of ritual madness and slaughter. At the same time, the myth of Dionysus is demystified through the lens of otherness, violence, transcendence and (re)birth.

DIONYSOS. MADNESS POURS UPON YOUR LOVELY FACE is a performance, a ritual and a rave - and finds a gap in Euripides' ancient play 'The Bacchae'. This gap is the liminal space in which both women* and LGBTQIA+ people find themselves today. In the name of Dionysus, the deity of ritual madness, we invite you to participate in transforming your world - critically and creatively. Be guided through a series of liminal experiences: Climb the contemporary mountain of Kithairon, where solidarity and revolutionary practices of care are brought into focus through storytelling, listening, meditation and ecstatic dance. DIONYSOS demystifies what we know about Bacchanalian rites through a lens of otherness, violence, transness, disruption and (re)birth. Come and experience queer theatre as an expanded (hetero inclusive!) field for communication and transmission of radical care and solidarity. You are cordially and queerly invited.

DIONYSOS. MADNESS POURS UPON MY LOVELY FACE will take place in two phases. The first phase is a five-hour dissident movement and group-building workshop that trains participants in contemporary queer maenadism. In the second phase, which follows the next day, participants will have the opportunity to act as facilitators and agitators on stage and thus be part of the performance DIONYSOS. MADNESS POURS UPON MY LOVELY FACE. The project is Cat Jugravu's final project in the Master's programme 'Applied Theatre - artistic theatre practice & society' at the Thomas Bernhard Institute of the University Mozarteum Salzburg and also part of Jugravu's broader artistic research on queer and trans bodies in exile and on building communities in border spaces through applied theatre practice.

In German and English

Performance and text
Cat Jugravu

Performance (Maenads)
Yuk Yu Wan, Luisa Jäger, Ronja Seyfried

Set design
Magdalena Hofer & Toni Ofner

Choreography
Andrea Givanovich

Live Music
death obsesion and Matija Chlupacek

Music composition
Andrei Raicu

Costume design
Mascha Grimminger

Hair
Flora’s Hair Studio Salzburg

Creative Production
Maximilian Lehner

Production
The Real Office / Universität Mozarteum

Photography
Johanna Mayrhofer