O gods, spare me the sight of this thankless breed,
these politicians who cringe for favors from a screaming mob
and do not care what harm they do their friends,
providing they can please a crowd!
Tell me,
on what feeble grounds can you justify your vote of death?
Euripides Hecuba
There’s something raw and uncompromising happening in these frames, bodies twisted into shapes that feel like they’re mourning in slow motion, or maybe it’s rage frozen mid scream. I’m catching the chorus not as decoration, not as some academic footnote to the main event, but as the actual goddamn story unfolding through Aleta’s choreography. These aren’t dancers prettying up ancient misery; they’re embodying it, and my lens doesn’t lie about what that costs.
The staging strips everything down, no gilded bullshit, just bodies in Roble, harsh light carving out shadows that Euripides himself would recognize. There’s this brutal honesty in how Aleta orchestrates the collective grief of Hecuba, the collective delusion of Helen. The chorus becomes a single organism writhing through positions that look uncomfortable as hell, because comfort has no place when you’re channeling women watching their city burn, their children murdered, their lives reduced to property.
You see the awkwardness, the strain visible in shoulders and spines. That’s the whole point, these ancient tragedies weren’t meant to go down smooth. They were meant to scrape you raw. Each shot documents not performance but transformation, bodies making themselves into living arguments about power, necessity, and what happens when the mob gets its way.
Nothing has more strength than dire necessity.
Euripides Helen
