The 12th labour. The encounter with the shades.
It is the most radical of the twelve labours. This time Hercules does not simply have to face a monster: he must cross the threshold of Hades, enter the realm of the dead and, above all, manage to return.
The last trial is a journey to where strength is no longer enough. It is a confrontation with what has no body, with what remains, with memory, absence and shadow.
Martin Rindlisbacher, Roberto De Luca and Francesco Micieli will take on a performance project entitled:
Parola-Segno-Immagine = Suono
It took three of them to accomplish the same Herculean task. In their artistic interpretation of the twelfth labour of Hercules, De Luca, Micieli and Rindlisbacher seek a link between image, word and sign that can also turn into sound.
Into the sound of slaves’ labour. Hercules was not only a demigod: he was a slave more than once and had to carry out tasks whose only purpose was to punish him. The dog Cerberus is captured for the sole purpose of proving that the slave Hercules can complete this mission, and is then returned unharmed to the world of the shades.
This “useless labour” is the starting point of the three artists’ performance. Image, word (here as a manifesto of the shades) and sign await sound, which, as in the old work songs, is meant to bring a kind of inner liberation.
