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oapen-20.500.12657-861592023-12-15T02:26:17Z Dancing with Philoctetes Akavia, Abigail Sophocles;Philoctetes;Greek tragedy;theater;dramaturgy;contemporary performance practice;translation;disability;embodiment;grief;empathy;voice bic Book Industry Communication::A The arts::AN Theatre studies::ANF Theatre direction & production bic Book Industry Communication::D Literature & literary studies::DB Classical texts bic Book Industry Communication::D Literature & literary studies::DD Plays, playscripts Abandoned by his community, doomed to a solitary existence with his voice as sole companion: can Sophocles’ Philoctetes still speak to us? What do his screams have to say? Dancing with Philoctetes: Reflections on Pain and Remembrance juxtaposes a new adaptation of Sophocles’ play with an essay describing the process of bringing it to life in a world on the brink of a pandemic. Akavia investigates Sophocles’ nuanced portrayal of the fragility of empathy in the face of suffering, and also shares the challenges of embodying and vocalizing Sophocles’ text onstage. She proposes that the pandemic and its aftermath offer a renewed perspective on Philoctetes’ thematization, not just of empathy and disease, but of the longing to return: to home, to health, to what memory holds. Akavia’s treatment of Philoctetes starts out from his body and voice and journeys on to loneliness, toxic masculinity, nostalgia, cancer, dreaming, parenthood, language, ballet lessons, siblings, music, and growing up. Here, scholarship and creative non-fiction combine to tell a story of reading, performing, thinking about, and living (through) tragedy. 2023-12-14T13:28:50Z 2023-12-14T13:28:50Z 2023 book 9781685711405 https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/86159 eng application/pdf Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International 0450.1.00.pdf https://punctumbooks.com/titles/dancing-with-philoctetes-reflections-on-pain-and-remembrance/ punctum books Tangent 10.53288/0450.1.00 10.53288/0450.1.00 979dc044-00ee-4ea2-affc-b08c5bd42d13 9781685711405 ScholarLed Tangent 117 Brooklyn, NY open access
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Abandoned by his community, doomed to a solitary existence with his voice as sole companion: can Sophocles’ Philoctetes still speak to us? What do his screams have to say?
Dancing with Philoctetes: Reflections on Pain and Remembrance juxtaposes a new adaptation of Sophocles’ play with an essay describing the process of bringing it to life in a world on the brink of a pandemic. Akavia investigates Sophocles’ nuanced portrayal of the fragility of empathy in the face of suffering, and also shares the challenges of embodying and vocalizing Sophocles’ text onstage. She proposes that the pandemic and its aftermath offer a renewed perspective on Philoctetes’ thematization, not just of empathy and disease, but of the longing to return: to home, to health, to what memory holds.
Akavia’s treatment of Philoctetes starts out from his body and voice and journeys on to loneliness, toxic masculinity, nostalgia, cancer, dreaming, parenthood, language, ballet lessons, siblings, music, and growing up. Here, scholarship and creative non-fiction combine to tell a story of reading, performing, thinking about, and living (through) tragedy.
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