The article looks at a singular theatrical experience which was inspired by the dramatic civil, political and religious situation of Ethiopia in the later 1990’s at the end of the civil war (Derg). The aftermath of the Derg gave the idea to Ariane Baghaï, the writer and anthropologist of Swizz-Iranian origins, to write and stage in Addis Abeba (1996) the dramatic text Sheba’s Doors. This was an ‘ethnodrama’ which aroused a lively debate in the audience (which is analyzed) it touched the most intimate and sensitive chords of the Amharic culture: the zar rites, the curative trance and the founding myth of Solomon’s Kingdom, the relationship between Sheba, Solomon and the theft by their child Menelik of the Ark of the Alliance. Many years later, in Puglia, the second life of the play took form. The author wanted to help young people get to know other cultures from the inside, creating theatre without adjectives, in a historic moment that was showing a slide towards intolerance but above all a terrible lack of aesthetic elaboration: and so began her contribution to the theatre workshop of the ‘Calamo’ secondary school of Ostuni, which won the young actors of Sheba’s Doors the Silver Delfino Prize of 2013.
Le Porte di Saba di Ariane Baghaï
Laura Budriesi
2018
Abstract
The article looks at a singular theatrical experience which was inspired by the dramatic civil, political and religious situation of Ethiopia in the later 1990’s at the end of the civil war (Derg). The aftermath of the Derg gave the idea to Ariane Baghaï, the writer and anthropologist of Swizz-Iranian origins, to write and stage in Addis Abeba (1996) the dramatic text Sheba’s Doors. This was an ‘ethnodrama’ which aroused a lively debate in the audience (which is analyzed) it touched the most intimate and sensitive chords of the Amharic culture: the zar rites, the curative trance and the founding myth of Solomon’s Kingdom, the relationship between Sheba, Solomon and the theft by their child Menelik of the Ark of the Alliance. Many years later, in Puglia, the second life of the play took form. The author wanted to help young people get to know other cultures from the inside, creating theatre without adjectives, in a historic moment that was showing a slide towards intolerance but above all a terrible lack of aesthetic elaboration: and so began her contribution to the theatre workshop of the ‘Calamo’ secondary school of Ostuni, which won the young actors of Sheba’s Doors the Silver Delfino Prize of 2013.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
