The word “democracy” comes from the Greek dēmokratía, formed from dêmos (“the people”) and kratos (“power”). While it suggests equality and participation, the term also has a dark side: in mythology, Kratos personifies the force that imposes power. Even if it promises freedom, democracy is not devoid of violence and exclusion. Born of compromise and conflict, it rests on a fundamental tension: citizens construct the rules that govern them. But what is a bridge for some can become a wall for others.

In this new piece, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui explores the contradictions of democracy and the way a community is given shape. For their sixth collaboration, visual artist Antony Gormley envisions a shifting space that the performers shape using elements evoking the stones of an agora, cobblestones erected as barricades, or the limbs of a body. Dimitris Skyllas provides these transformations with a score blending ancient and contemporary texts, conducted by Margaryta Grynyvetska.