Mal - Embriaguez Divina

Last year her poetic and strictly formal choreography Bacchae – Prelude to a Purge was enthusiastically received at the Ruhrtriennale. Marlene Monteiro Freitas is inspired by mythological tropes, skillfully referencing both high and pop culture, and polarized between beauty and the horrendous.

For Mal – Embriaguez Divina she will work with a mixed ensemble of dancers and actors for the first time. The group turns on a tribune into a chorus in order to explore varieties of evil. The title makes multiple references to the ambiguity of evil. The Portuguese word “mal” has no single, direct translation: it can mean unease, sorrow, torment, a lack of something, horror or simply bad; “embriaguez divina” characterises evil as a state of divine delusion, and contrasts it equally with the escapism of boundless ecstasy.

For George Bataille art is always evil – the opposite force to a reason that keeps everything under control: The abysm of evil as a prerequisite of art. Evil turns out to be a decisive force in cultural history – with the theatre repeatedly being the site where it is revealed.