DEMOCRACY is a play on the insurmountable difficulty of distinguishing right from wrong, good from bad, and the lengths humanity is willing to go in order to defend themselves against the Other. This is a unique and intimate performance experience (in English) where you are only only one of four spectators in the audience.

“The man who introduced the tribes and the democracy…”

The modern world that we inhabit champions the democratic principle that all citizens have the right to vote and maintain their integrity within the city, state or nation that they belong to. By default this also implies that the democratic principle is entitled to defend itself against that, or who, which does not belong to its own city, state or nation.

Acts of violence towards the Other was, and is, legitimate within a democratic system. That Herodotus emphasised that Cleisthenes was the man who introduced the tribes and the democracy – in that order – is telling. The ten tribes of Athens that would become the Assembly of voting free men was primarily a tribal system that would enable a redistribution of wealth across Attica, but more importantly it would supply the city-state with a strong military force to defend itself against Others.

In our current climate the old Athenian moral is making itself known to us once again. The main difference is that we today cannot yet pierce through the veil of centuries of imperial and colonial rule which have all muddled the once clear waters of democracy into a swamp. The clarity of the first democratic principle, although brutal, was transparent in its inherent injustice towards the Other. In the swamp of democracy that we find ourselves trudging through today the democratic principle has made sport of covering itself in the shimmer of progress all the while operating as a hungry wolf.

Created by

Josephine Gray & Anmar Taha

Performed by

Lena Dahlén, Josephine Gray & Anmar Taha

ibodies

The impetus for the work of ibodies is based on the fundamental insight that theatre – as an arena in which performance takes place – demands a unique and radical language that is useless and in the disservice of any agenda other than its own primacy as a form of language. As such, the poetics of awareness is an absolute given in their continued search for a radical scenic language.

ibodies are based in Gothenburg, Sweden, led by Anmar Taha and Josephine Gray. Their work has been presented at venues and festivals across Europe, Maghreb, Mashriq and Asia since 2009.