The Hero’s Tears is inspired by the last chapter of the Oresteia, Eumenides, perhaps the most complex act of the tragedy to be transferred to the stage. Eumenides celebrates the birth of democracy. It does so through the acquittal of a matricide. The drama has already taken place and the action unfolds mainly through the dialogues of a trial, brought here through the confrontation with a specially designed artificial intelligence.

The artificial intelligence, instructed through the text of Aeschylus, the proceedings of maxi-trials, news reports, and extracts from essays on political philosophy, is interrogated in the creation of the final verdict. The confrontation with the theme of guilt linked to matricide is tackled through the format of the choreographic installation thanks to the construction of a clinical, mirrored and glacial visual set that refers to the panopticon and refracts the power and topicality of the drama.
power and topicality of the drama.

In the work, the theme of divine control moves into a reflection on the invasion of surveillance and digital tracking into everyday life, revealing its alarming arbitrariness and vulnerability in error. Reflections on the role of democracy today, on post-truth, on the use and importance of algorithms and bots in the creation of the image in the present, opening up the tragedy to the contemporary.

Duration: 55’