Progress and Melancholy is a poetic new physical theatre work based on Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard.
Chekhov’s play is an exquisite, funny and sad exploration of people’s behaviour during a time of monumental upheaval. It is both deeply political and also light and human.
Bringing together theatre, dance and live music to depict profound social change and disorientation, themes which are cogent in the present, Progress and Melancholy intricately blends these different languages to impart a sense of the transience of all things.
This project ventures into new territory in that it brings together new performance and dance with a classic theatre text. Marrying the non-narrative beauty of dance with the emotionally connected power of theatre, Progress and Melancholy is humorous, fresh and surprising
Media...
highly accessible... beautiful, engaging and innovative... a deeply textured and visually satisfying experience...Herein lies the brilliance of this play: there is an almost seamless interplay between classical theatre, physical theatre, dance and farce, with a fun breakdown of the fourth wall thrown in...MacDonald is a powerhouse in this play... The entire cast is strong Simonne Michelle-Wells, www.theaustralianstage.com.au
Striking images combine with excellent movement pieces and some snippets of Chekhov’s masterpiece to create a thought provoking and honest presentation well worth seeing. Paul Knox, Artshub review
With Progress and Melancholy, director Bagryana Popov takes an intricately verbal work of art and translates it into a form where physical expression is dominant. Cameron Woodhead, The Age
Bold, sophisticated performances John Bailey, Sunday Age
THE BLOODY MARVELLOUS 'Progress and Melancholy' - the latest physical theatre show created by director/choreographer Bagryana Popov. She took Chekhov's play 'The Cherry Orchard', delicately dismembered it and sewed it back together again with its own movement language and a cast of performers who were allowed to simultaneously play themselves AND the characters in the play, constantly blurring the lines between the two....The ensemble cast of actors from a diverse range of ethnic backgrounds brought their own rich emotional and cultural provenance to the production. The third wall crumbled, the audience talked back, the violinist serenaded us and Chekhov would have been waltzing with joy to see his play so (dis)respectfully treated at the end of the twenty-'noughties. Sian Prior www.sianprior.com
Who...
Bagryana Popov DIRECTOR
Bagryana Popov is a theatre maker, director and choreographer, who works in an interdisciplinary way, intricately combining theatre and dance languages. Most recent works include Progress and Melancholy, a new physical theatre work based on Chekhov’s the Cherry Orchard, at fortyfivedownstairs. She was actor and co deviser The Lower Depths with John Bolton, Brian Lipson and Joseph Sherman and participants from the St Kilda Drop in Centre, staged at Theatreworks, 2009. In 2008 Bagryana directed Antigone: Tonight I will be Brave, translated into Macedonian from the piece by Australian writer Jackie Bassanelli, a theatre solo in Macedonia which has toured to Albania where she won a best actress award. She collaborated with Simon Ellis on the award winning dance film Anamnesis in 2008, as well as a creative development of a solo for Simon as part of his trilogy Conversations with the Dead.
Other theatre projects she has directed include: Subclass 26A(2005), a physical theatre work on the subject of refugees in detention with three actors, three dancers and a percussionist,Yerma, by Lorca for the Macedonian National Theatre in Bitola (2002), The House of Bernarda Albaat Charles Sturt University, Wagga Wagga, the production receiving 4 CAT awards (2004) and Stage Door(2006). In 2003 she completed a postgraduate diploma in choreography. Her choreographic work since then includes UNProtected Zone,Somewhere Else, (performed by Simon Ellis Dancehouse 2004), No Words, solo for Meredith Blackburn, Studies in Being HumanDancehouse 2006 with 6 women dancers. Bagryana also directed a number of community based theatre projects: Spinning Weaving Trees and Songs, Hogshairs and Leeches by Patricia Cornelius, Home, andStories from the Hidden City, 2002, a multi-media performance at Melbourne Museum.
Progress and Melancholy 6 min video edit
DIRECTOR Bagryana Popov
CAST Todd MacDonald Natasha Herbert Majid Shokor Sara Black Paea Leach Christophe Le Tellier
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