Chiara Guidi on Màntica as an Observatory and the Enduring Enigma of Oedipus

Chiara Guidi, co-founder of Socìetas Raffaello Sanzio and artistic director of Màntica, discusses the festival's ninth edition, which concluded on December 5. She describes Màntica as an "observatory" rather than a traditional festival, emphasizing a slower, more contemplative engagement between performers and audience. During the festival, Guidi and composer Scott Gibbons led a six-day workshop with fifty participants, exploring Sophocles' Oedipus through voice, percussion, and movement. Guidi explains that the workshop deconstructed the text into questions, commands, insults, and answers, centering on the phrase "You will kill your father and marry your mother." Participants, none professional musicians, worked with instruments like the txalaparta and focused on the sonic and grammatical essence of language. Guidi connects the Oedipus myth to folklore, agriculture, and the cyclical renewal of land. She views the enigma as central to art, separating questions from answers, and insists that art dies if definitive answers are provided. The workshop yielded no final outcome, only ongoing inquiry. The interview also touches on coincidences within the festival program linking Oedipus to other works.