Colette Sadler: Oracle Leaves - Portraits of Daphne

Following 2019's Temporary  Store (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 4 stars, The Herald), Colette Sadler returns to Tramway with a radical re-imagining of the classical myth of Daphne and Apollo.

Inspired by balletic traditions of libretto and choreographic storytelling, Oracle Leaves sets out to radically expand the classical mythology of Daphne and Apollo through a series of portraits in motion that rewrite agency, multiplicity, and alternative continuations into this story of transformation.

As acts of escape or as punishment for the actions of men and gods, women in classical mythologies are routinely transformed into ‘un-sensual’ natural forms. In the case of Daphne fleeing from the ardent advance of Apollo, her relentlessly pursued body becomes suddenly rooted to the soil as she turns into a Laurel tree, stoic and silent.

In Oracle Leaves, Daphne’s life, and transformation to tree, is re-envisioned as a rejection of ownership and an embrace of plurality. Embodied by different performers, these portraits coalesce in ways that attempt to blur boundaries and dislodge patterns of power through the strange intimacies and entanglements that appear between multiple ways of being.

Running time - 1 hour

ACCESS: Transcript will be available

Artistic Direction and choreography - Colette Sadler
Performance - Leah Marojevic, Mickey Mahar, Jia-Yu Corti & Sophia Burandt
Dramaturgy -Maxwell McCarthy
Music - Cassandra Miller 
Sound design -Heiko Tubbesing and Samir Kennedy
Light and Light Object - Veli-Velis Siven
Objects - Valentin Hertweck
Costume - Flint James McDonald
Production -Dag Lohde
Producers - Feral 

Supported by NATIONALE PERFORMANCE NETZ - STEPPING OUT, funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and Media as part of the NEUSTART KULTUR initiative and Creative Scotland. Co-production Tramway, Glasgow. In collaboration with Ebensperger and Luxoom Lab Berlin. Kindly supported by City Mushrooms. Special thanks to HAU.