Excerpts from Shakespeare’s plays and sonnets illustrated with renaissance music and dance
To celebrate this Shakespeare anniversary year, Timedance Hansa and Wroclaw University Early Dance Group are presenting a programme of Shakespeare scenes and sonnets with dance and music from the period.
The light-hearted bickering of Shakespeare's lovers Beatrice and Benedick is set against the more sombre tone of the sonnets and their theme of love betrayed. We have set the show in an English Jacobean court. Love in Shakespeare is always a complex issue, and we present two couples dealing with different problems in their own way. The Earl and the Countess, long married, find their love disturbed by the arrival of the Dark Lady; while Beatrice and Benedick argue, fight, and eventually agree to admit their love.
Our usual principle is that text should be performed in the home language of the audience – but within the context of the Wrocław University's presence and the support of the Institute of English Studies, we have chosen to present the sonnets in English, although the scenes will be in Polish. This enables us to welcome guest actor David Middleton from London as the Earl, while Jane Gingell, Konrad Przybycień and Kaja Gomez-Cabrero play the other speaking roles.
18 May 2016, 20.00, Oratorium Marianum (1, Uniwersytecki square), Wroclaw