Placebo or Is There One Who Would Not Weep
Eia mater, fons amoris! - Hail, mother, source of love!
Placebo is a point of departure: Virgin Mary – the most significant religious image of the western world who officially never gains the status of a Catholic goddess. Mother Mary – as a social construct, not as objective, historical reality, as an instrument of supervision and control. Christianity – a symbolic construct in which femininity is confined within the limits of the Maternal. The Lady and the Virgin as an absolute authority. Mother Mary – an object of imaginary love, as a substitute for suppressed male libido. Paradox: Virgin, yet mother. Question: to fall or not to fall. Mary who defies death. A female figure who has attained the status of a myth – a myth that for nearly two thousand years has coursed through our culture, spirited and often imperceptible. Mary of seven sorrows. Mary of seven joys. Mother Mary – and the male worshipper turns away from bodily, lower needs and dedicates himself to a more noble, divine love. Mary, full of grace: the law of downward movement. To humble oneself is to rise in the sense of moral gravity. Due to moral gravity one falls upward.
Photo gallery
Photo: Rudi Uran
Photo: Rudi Uran
Photo: Rudi Uran
Photo: Rudi Uran
Photo: Rudi Uran
Photo: Rudi Uran
Photo: Rudi Uran
Photo: Rudi Uran
Photo: Rudi Uran
Photo: Rudi Uran
Photo: Dejan Bulut
Photo: Rudi Uran
About the project
Stage Concert in 14 Tableaux
The subject tonight is love
and for tomorrow night as well.
As a matter of fact,
we know no better topic for us to discuss
until we die.
Man surmounts death, the unthinkable, by postulating instead – in the stead and place of thought as well as death – maternal love. That love, of which divine love will be no more than a not always convincing derivative, mother love as the primitive shelter that guarantees the survival. The representation of the maternal is established on the site of that tempered anguish known as love.
Placebo is a meditation inspired by the suffering of Mary, Jesus's mother, during his crucifixion.
Pain is something most secretive, numinous, awe-inspiring, and at the same time something that attracts us.
Suffering, deprived of sensual enjoyment, freed from passion and selfishness, expecting death at any moment – this is how we should always be. Transcending pain and fear leads to a full, emotionally filled life.
Christianity put suffering and death at the heart of its service which uses a cross and suffering to reveal a positive message. Crucified Jesus is the proof of imperfection and worthlessness of human existence; he transcends them with hope and love that are more than human. The latter is most purely embodied in maternal love.
Music: Giovanni Battista Pergolesi, Jacob Cooper, Johan Sebastian Bach, Jacob Cooper, Antonio Vivaldi, Peteris Vasks, Gavin Bryars, Karmina Šilec, Stabat Mater, Tom Waits
Texts: Julia Kristeva, Jacopone da Todi, Paul Valéry, Jean-Pierre Siméon, Jean-Luc Nancy, Joy Harjo, Walt Whitman, Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt, Hafis, Matjaž Briški, Karmina Šilec
Performed by:
Vocal Theatre Carmina Slovenica
Slovenian Chamber Choir
Musica Cubicularis
Sabina Cvilak, soprano
Bernhard Landauer, countertenor
Jožica Avbelj, actress
Olga Kacjan, actress
Karmen Pečar, cello
Marko Hatlak, accordion
Kaja Lorenci, dancer
Concept: Karmina Šilec
Light: Andrej Hajdinjak
Set: Karmina Šilec
Costume and stayling: Belinda Radulović
Stage: Kaja Lorenci, Karmina Šilec
Premiere: 2012, Choregie aka Choregie and European Capital of Culture 2012, Maribor
Press
… the performance ''Placebo'' is a brilliant prelude to the year of culture …
Večernji list
... a highly stylised and aestheticized inscenation ...
Večernji list
... an outstanding scenic project in fourteen tableaux …
Delo
... Karmina Šilec certainly knows what she is doing, what she wants, what they all know, what they can do and offer ...
Delo
... with long, warm and spontaneous applauses and ovations, suited to the days ...
Delo
… the girls’ choir Carmina Slovenica extremely well prepared, as always ...
Delo
... sophisticated harmony of classical sonority ...
Večer
... a magnificent closing performance of the third Choregie festival ...
Večer
... the grand finale of the Choregie aka Choregie festival focusing on the subject of pain and leaving ...
RTV Slovenia