Supernatural Wife is an adaptation of the Euripides’ play Alkestis using Anne Carson’s spare, surprising, and accessible translation. The production penetrates Euripides’ piercing exploration of death, grief and self-sacrifice via a free-wheeling mix of theater, music, dance and video, thriving on the interplay of genres and sudden shifts in mood to reveal the cellular life of Euripides play. The play is taken from the mythic tale of a King, who avoids death by arranging to send a surrogate to the world below in his stead. His wife volunteers. At its core Supernatural Wife is about big complex ideas: our desire to live, against the immutability of mortality; our desire to be autonomous in the face of our undeniable inter-connectedness; and the playful nature of theater against the innate tragedy of reality. Sourcing and re-thinking the pulsing, profound nature of dance and music in tragedy, the Chorus restores dancing to its rightful place in Greek drama.

PREMIERE:
March 3, 2011 | Théâtre National de Chaillot (Paris, France)

HISTORY:
November 29 – December 3, 2011
Brooklyn Academy of Music – Next Wave Festival
BAM Harvey Theater
Brooklyn, NY

November 17 – 19, 2011
The Walker Arts Center
Minneapolis, MN

July 27 – 31, 2011
Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival
Becket, MA

April 7 – 8, 2011
La Filature
Mulhouse, France

March 31 – April 3, 2011
Les Subsistances
Lyon, France

March 25 – 26, 2011
Le Quartz
Brest, France

March 3 – 5, 2011
Théâtre National de Chaillot
Paris, France

CREDITS:
Directed and Conceived by Annie-B Parson and Paul Lazar
Choreography: Annie-B Parson and the Company

Set: Joanne Howard
Lights: Joe Levasseur
Sound: Jane Shaw
Video: Jeff Larson
Costumes: Oana Botez-Ban
Music: ‘men’ (2001) David Lang
Choral / Vocal music: Chris Giarmo
Additional Music: Brunk / Bert Vanden Berghe
Production Management: Aaron Rosenblum
Technical Director: Josh Higgason
Project Producer: Estelle Woodward Arnal
Performers:
Molly Hickok, Tymberly Canale, Chris Giarmo, Elizabeth DeMent, Aaron Mattocks, Pete Simpson

“Devilishly fine art tends to happen when Paul Lazar and Annie-B Parson take on Anne Carson’s translations of the ancient Greeks.” – New York Times

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“Each medium is perfectly mastered. Dance, video, theater and song combine in making this tragedy a complete and hybrid form— the ancient aligns with modern technology.” – Le Trois Coups

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“A sublime reimagining of Euripides’ “Alcestis” by this unclassifiable company. The co-directors evoke its slippery moods to poetic effect, using Anne Carson’s spare translation and their usual multimedia wizardry.” – New York Times

Supernatural Wife was co-commissioned by the Walker Art Center, Théâtre National de Chaillot, Les Subsistances – Lyon, and Le Quartz – Scène Nationale de Brest.

Supernatural Wife was made possible by the New England Foundation for the Arts’ National Dance Project, with lead funding from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and additional funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Boeing Company Charitable Trust.
Production Residency for this work was supported by the National Dance Project of the New England Foundation for the Arts, with funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Support was also provided by The MAP Fund, a program of Creative Capital supported by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation.

Supernatural Wife is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature. This program is also supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.

Additional support was provided by the Lambent Foundation Fund of Tides Foundation and the Mental Insight Foundation. Individual support was provided by Nancy Crown, Micki Wesson, Mary Sharp Cronson, Hope Hickok and Barbara Parson, Jenny Sewall, Brian Rogers, Mim Rosen, David Parker, and Sean Elder, among others.

Supernatural Wife was developed, in part, in residence at the Baryshnikov Arts Center. It was also made possible by Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s Swing Space program; space at 14 Wall Street is donated by Capstone Equities. Further residency support was provided by a space grant from BRIC in Brooklyn, New York.

General operating support was made possible by the New England Foundation for the Arts and the MAP Fund with funding from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation.