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The Myth of Europa, the Myth of Europe

Preparing the Creative Workshop in Bologna curated by Teatro dell’Argine Here in Athens, we do things this way. Our government favours the many instead of the few: that is why it is called a democracy. [...] Our laws provide equal justice for all [...] and poverty is no obstacle [...] We are free to live exactly as we please [...] Our city is open to the world, and we never expel a foreigner. Here in Athens, we do things this way. — Pericles, Speech to the Athenians on Democracy, 431 BCE Europa and Athens The Bologna — more precisely San Lazzaro — session of The Legend of Europa will draw inspiration from the part of the myth that unfolds in and around the city of Athens. King Aegeus has made a terrible pact with another king, Minos: to avoid the destruction of his city, he agrees to send every year seven young men and seven young women to Crete, to be sacrificed to the monster held in the Labyrinth of Knossos — the Minotaur. This creature, called Asterion, is none other than the son ...
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A bridge from Performing Possibility to The Legend of Europa

Alongside THE LEGEND OF EUROPA, Border Crossings and Teatro dell’Argine are also collaborating on a Youth project under the Erasmus + programme, called PERFORMING POSSIBILITY, together with the YMCA in Cork and Opera di Padre Marella in Bologna.  Although this is a self-contained project in its own right, PERFORMING POSSIBILITY is also proving hugely helpful in researching material for the professional theatre work.   The young people in Cork, many of whom live in very remote rural areas of the county, have little experience of European travel, and few opportunities to encounter people their own age who live in different countries and diverse communities, particularly migrants and refugees. The young people at Opera di Padre Marella have often faced huge challenges in their journeys to Italy, and continue to encounter prejudice and bureaucratic difficulties as they attempt to forge new lives in Europe. The encounter between these very different groups is hugely valuable i...

When Maeve met Europa.

I was asked to write this post in the week following our workshop in Sligo. It is an impressionistic account, written before the dust has had a chance to settle.   From Monday 12th to Sunday 18th May, Blue Raincoat Theatre Company generously shared with us their home at the Factory Performance Space in Sligo (which is also the Registered Office of the more nomadic Border Crossings). Each morning Sandra O’Malley (Cre-Actor, Border Crossings team) welcomed us through the doors and we had the run of the place for the day. There was uninterrupted sunshine for the seven days we spent exploring mythic narratives with settings in present day Greece and along the Mediterranean coast of Türkiye and Lebanon. We made much use of the theatre’s warm courtyard which has along one of its sides the studio of the sculptor Bettina Seitz. Through its large windows were visible various wax sculptures of the draped outlines of figures. In 2020, her ‘Underwave’ installation had featured such sculptures ...

Towards Sligo

THE LEGEND OF EUROPA begins outside Europe (at least as the continent’s geography is conventionally understood), on the beach at Tyre, in modern Lebanon, on the Eastern edge of the Mediterranean. Our journey with the story begins on the other side of the continent, at its extremest West, in the town of Sligo on the Wild Atlantic Way. This feels appropriate. Europa’s name derives from ancient Greek, and implies a wide gaze, looking beyond the self. Europe has always been defined by that which is outside it, or on its edges. It is a continent with a history of reaching out beyond itself; a space which many from outside crave to enter, while others arrive by dint of force or despair. Our continent is named after a woman from western Asia who was kidnapped and raped by our white gods. I’ve wanted to make this piece for more than 20 years, ever since Josip Rainer sent me his gloriously insightful paper called Europa: negotiating border myths for contemporary playwrighting. It could have bee...