Miserere.

When night fall they will be covered by it

La Phármaco Luz Arcas Compañía de Danza Contemporánea Miserere
Miserere. When night falls they will be covered by it is pandemonium, mourning, liturgy and rite of passage: a pagan ceremony involving the figure of the sacrificial lamb, where violence is celebrated as an anthropological mechanism needed for the construction of a group identity: a belief system and its folklore are always rooted in, and are strengthened by, the dead.

 

Inspired by Elias Canetti’s Crowds and Power and Violence and the Sacred by René Girard, we look at rites (from prehistoric times to more recent times), ceremonies (from religious to sporting and military) as well as in folklore across times and cultures to explore the universal, internal workings of collective thought.

 

The music, inspired by universal folklore as well as by cult songs, is original, performed live on piano, wind instruments, percussion, guitar and voice, accompanying six dancers of different generations, in a choreography with aspects of theatre, moving from deep tragedy, through irony, to celebratory.
La Phármaco Luz Arcas Compañía de Danza Contemporánea Miserere
La Phármaco Luz Arcas Compañía de Danza Contemporánea Miserere
La Phármaco Luz Arcas Compañía de Danza Contemporánea Miserere
In this way the dance recovers its social, religious and political power, in its decisive and transformative capacity towards a community’s destiny: from fertility to the harvest, victory in battle or peace among the dead. To a time when public space and justice where civil instruments governing the body.

 

Miserere. When night falls they will be covered by it is structured into three acts inspired by the three essential moments of all myth, cult, religion (from the pre-historic rites up until christianity).

 

LIBRETTO:
ACT I. THE SACRIFICE
ACT II. THE FEAR
ACT III. THE WORD

DIRECTOR AND DRAMATURGY

Luz Arcas and Abraham Gragera

DANCE

Luz Arcas, Elena-González, Begoña Quiñones, Ana Catalina Román, Raquel Sánchez, Paula Montoya

CHOREOGRAPHY

Luz Arcas

CONCEPT, MUSIC DIRECTION AND LYRICS

Abraham Gragera

MUSIC COMPOSITION , PIANO AND PERCUSSION

Carlos González

BRASS

Cristian Buades

VOICE

Laura Fernández

LIGHTING

Jorge Colomer

PHOTOGRAPHY AND VIDEO

Virginia Rota

AUDIOVISUALS

Virginia Rota, Jorge Colomer and Abraham Gragera

GRAPHIC DESIGN

María Peinado

CUSTOM DESIGN

Heridadegato

SCENOGRAPHY

Xosé Saqués

La Phármaco Luz Arcas Compañía de Danza Contemporánea Miserere
“La Phármaco has created its most abundant and complex performance. The work of the six dancers, in a project that so ragefully woman on all levels as portrayed in Miserere, is monumental in its power, its forcefulness, its technical skill, its generosity and its bravery, that nothing is left unspoken. You leave the performance healed, conscious that a few demons have perished in the theater. The violence, bearing knives, furnishes its effect: but beyond the customary unreserved work of art. The tears that spread across the audience last night gave proof to the work’s power”
“This work, Miserere, is an unforeseen event, where tradition is taken on via modernity, placing us in a diffuse zone, one that is atemporal, lacking geographical affiliation. There is not even language here, as if we were brought back to the purest roots of our very existence.”