Enzo Cosimi's 'Glitter in my Tears, Agamennone' Merges Ritual Violence and Tragedy

Enzo Cosimi's new performance 'Glitter in my Tears, Agamennone' debuted at Teatro India in Rome in May 2019 as part of the Grandi Pianure festival, and later returned for the Armunia festival in Castiglioncello. The work confronts the political valence of sadomasochistic ritual, channeling it through the bodies of dancers Alice Raffaelli, Giulio Santolini, and Matteo De Blasio, who reenact Aeschylus's tragedy. The narrative centers on Clytemnestra as an unyielding, pre-Christian heroine. A brechtian distancing effect, reminiscent of Michael Haneke's 'Funny Games,' introduces the performers as contemporary youth before they enter a ritual space. The choreography incorporates a cut-up text combining fragments of Aeschylus, original material, fetish literature, and poetry by Giulia Roncati, set to music by Georg Friedrich Haas. The piece explores themes of transformation, hybris, and liberation through rule-breaking, culminating in a scene with an army of mannequins—a dead class of broken bodies—with no redemption.