Joanna Parker

CARMEN VIDEO LANGUAGE

​

As a creative team of director, designers and writer we set out to question the necessity of Carmen's death. In our version; she is attacked savagely, pulls out the knife, gives it to the narrator and leaves the theatre. Don Jose is left with a single black shawl. Grief is not resolved through  the " death" of Carmen. The drama plays out  the conflict between love as possession and love as liberty; a conflict that is intrinsically patriarchal. We didn't aim to solve or to absolve ;moreover we hoped to reveal.

The video language evolved over a year; post an intensive workshop that set out to question and develop the dramaturgical approach to Bizet's score and to the narrative derived from the Merimee. The dialogue between  paint and surface through projected light has evolved from designs and video for  The Commission and Cafe Kafka through to the painted score for Chenier. For Carmen we added the recognisably filmic language of The Crow; the bird that hovers on the axis between love and grief. The musical bridge between Don Jose's aria 'La Fleur' and Carmen's aria 'La Morte' is identified through the language of black paint and the body.