Approaching (ch)orality: Agamemnon (Theatre Organisation of Cyprus, 2021)

Aeschylus’s Agamemnon was Theatre Organisation of Cyprus’s first-ever production in 1971, and the play was staged again in 2021, as part of the celebrations marking the organization’s 50th anniversary. The author was part of the creative team as composer and musical director. The article aims to unpack the process of the practice-research project and especially considers how the notion of (ch)orality – critical and process-oriented – can help us re-engage with notions of community, identity and political responsibility in a contemporary staging of Greek tragedy. It can also be read in conjunction with the sound-paper ‘Aurality and (ch)orality in the sonic world of Agamemnon (State Theatre of Cyprus, 2021)’, which includes recorded excerpts from the choric parts discussed here (audio paper submitted for the hybrid conference: Theatre Sound as Collaboration: Distributed Creations, Shared Agencies) .