Choreographic duo Igor × Moreno premiered their latest work Karrasekare at this year’s Romaeuropa festival. They proposed their own ritualistic version of Carnival as an amalgam of their distinct cultures and folk traditions (Igor Urzelai Hernando is Basque, Moreno Solinas Sardinian) in dialogue with the present.
Karrasekare is rooted in individual mourning; yet a prolonged grief section in the piece promises that this ritual will gradually soothe pain, like ice melting as winter glides to spring and light succeeds darkness at the end of the Carnival season. Crying binds these individuals into a collective that gradually finds redemption in the rhythmic and vocal transformation of lamentation, the power of being together and indulging in an almost Dionysiac ritual of excess approached through a minimal choreographic language. Stomping feet ecstatically, holding hands in circular patterns, spinning until falling from dizziness, incorporating traditional Carnival props, such as animal fur, handcrafted masks and horned hats and even a pair of ultra-long hands, all seek to awaken and celebrate human instincts and superpowers. Earthy, carnal and enigmatic, the piece holds a queer imagery and evocative elements full of symbolism.
The minimal set design performs its own dramaturgy as part of a Gesamtkunstwerk towards catharsis. In the climax of the ritual, all human pain is symbolically gathered in a single mass: an undulated sheet initially covering the whole stage as a snowscape is folded into the shape of a large stone that, as it is lifted up dripping water, evokes a rainy cloud that relieves the human burden.
It is rare to see a work in which the origin of place is so well embedded in the artistic outcome: choreographic research on cultural identity is usually overshadowed by a European contemporary identity that tends to erase cultural specificity and local traditions. Exploring the roots and the meaning behind Carnival traditions that today’s commodification has rendered a waste-producing feast, the piece courageously addresses the commonality of carnivalesque folk traditions and their thrust for communal ways of renewal and reconciliation with the multifaceted human nature.
