Orpheus and Eurydice
Story Themes
My themes: Love and Trust
I have been focused on the moment of the scene when Orpheus goes to Underworld and want to get Eurydice back to life. And I prefer to focus on the theme of love and trust referring to this moment, which I find it meaningful. Love is a powerful motivator. It can make people do irrationally amazing things and irrationally stupid things. In the Orpheus and Eurydice myth, we find instances of both amazing and stupid things done in the name of love. Orpheus is so heartbroken when he loses Eurydice that he travels to the Underworld for her, which is irrational and awesome. But then, as they make their way to the upper world, he turns around to look at her. This is irrational and way less awesome, since he knows that doing so will send his wife plummeting back to Hades. This second example is definitely an exercise in trusting the ones we love. Orpheus can hear his wife's footsteps, but he's never quite sure that she's there. Had he been able to hold out, and simply trust that Eurydice was behind him, they might have made it back to Earth and lived happily ever after. Eurydice had been drawn to Orpheus enamored by his voice and such was the spell of beauty in music and appearance that neither could cast their eyes off each other. This is how their story began and culminated in the moment when Orpheus must not look back to see her until they both made it out of the underworld.
Costume Film Performance,
Orpheus and Eurydice
Eurydice by Justine Pickering,
Concept design and realisation by Dea Martini,
Shooting by Stephanie Hargreaves,
Music by Mark Luli,
Choreography by Ensa Llaci,
Make up by Xin Qu
Assistant Sarah Carman, Sanjna Umesh
Project leadership by Agnes Treplin
University of Arts, London College of Fashion
The relation of being close and far from each other and the opportunity to see each other in light (life), but not in the dark(underworld). I want to represent the Underworld as a place that we can notice what happens. I’ve chosen shadows, smoke and blur effect as key words for my performance. The character is not noticeable, is a costume that moves into darkness. A figure, that starts the performance all gathered inside the costume looking solid and then trying to change shape. Focusing on the moment that Orpheus want to take Eurydice back to his world, but I what to show Eurydice’s state. The change she gets from being a dead body into living and then she end up dead again and back to Underworld. My idea is to express her condition through costume movement. I want her to look as a transparent soul, trying to find out her state. As she is part of the underworld, I chose to show the process of decomposition of the body through some bits over the costume, looking as rotten. I find it very interesting using texture manipulation through puff binder, because of the effect in different fabrics that I experimented. In addition of the smooth and soft lays of the costume, that represent her beauty and innocence of a nymph, the manipulation of the fabric shows us about her dead state. The main thing for me was to use the right fabric for this costume, because my idea was depended from the movement of the costume. I wanted to represent the performance through a contemporary dance, showing the changing of the Eurydice’s state, floating in the space, through darkness, making figures into costume without notice that a body is inside this costume. Going over different fabrics, I think that the pure silk was the best chose, because it behaved just as I had in my mind. I wanted to represent a nymph, and her main feature for her is the beauty, so my costume will present a beauty nymph in underworld, a nymph that died shortly after her marriage, and this gave me indication to use the white and pale grey colours for the costume. To keep in mind that the history is from Greek myth I added an element of drapery considering that from the Greek costume. Also I decided to have a special make up, having a pale white face, white eyeliner and eyebrows, and adding some bits of puff binder in a part of her face and in some areas of the hears, all these in the continuity of the costume.