Lucia’s Room: A World Premiere Ballet
The James Joyce Centre is delighted to present a Bloomsday Festival highlight Lucia’s Room, an extraordinary dance expression of Lucia Joyce’s hallucinatory world and her spiritual connection with James Joyce, on Thursday, June 12th at 1pm & 3pm. Created and choreographed by Georgian choreographer Mariam Aleksidze and Professor David Maziashvili, Lucia’s Room is inspired by Lucia Joyce, the daughter of James Joyce, and the works of her father.
Lucia’s Room is a hallucination born within the unconscious of Lucia and tells a story of an invisible artistic connection between the father and the daughter. Like Ulysses, the performance unfolds in the course of a single day. This will be expressed through diverse forms and styles of reciting Joyce’s various texts, music and the language of contemporary choreography as the audience move through different rooms throughout the James Joyce Centre building.
Lucia’s Room was originally staged especially for film and filmed by Prof. Maziashvili and Mariam Aleksidze in the contemporary environment in Tbilisi, Georgia in 2020. Mariam Darchia, the Principal Dancer of the Giorgi Aleksidze Tbilisi Contemporary Ballet, will play the title role. The original soundtrack based on the texts by James Joyce and created by Georgian artist Anamaria Burduli, with participation of British musician Patrick Hammington. Lucia’s Room was first seen as part of the Bloomsday Film Festival 2022 in Dublin.
Dr. David Maziashvili is Associate Professor at Iv. Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University, Academic Fellow at REES, University of Oxford (2019-2020), and a trained literary historian. He is the author of over 30 academic articles on Shakespeare, Postmodernism, Posthumanism, Tom Stoppard, and British and Georgian theatre and monographs.
Mariam Aleksidze is a dancer, choreographer, the chairwoman of the Giorgi Aleksidze Foundation and the Artistic Director of the first contemporary ballet company in Georgia, the Giorgi Aleksidze Tbilisi Contemporary Ballet. Her original contemporary ballets feature musical genres from Baroque to electronic music.
Mariam Darchia is a Principal of Giorgi Aleksidze Tbilisi Contemporary Ballet. She joined the Company as a soloist in 2016 and was promoted to Principal in 2020. After graduating from Vakhtang Chabukiani Choreographic School in Tbilisi, Georgia and Moscow Bolshoi Theatre Ballet School (Russia) in 2011, she continued her studies at the Ballet Academy of the University of Music and Performing Arts Munich (Germany).
Giorgi Aleksidze Tbilisi Contemporary Ballet
Tbilisi’s innovative dance company led by choreographer Mariam Aleksidze was founded with the support from Tbilisi City Municipality in 2016 and named after great Georgian choreographer, Giorgi Aleksidze. The first contemporary ballet company in Georgia is notable for its special quality, aesthetics, search for contemporary forms, artistic vision and original repertoire. The excellence of Tbilisi Contemporary Ballet is the result of Company Director, Tbilisi State University Professor David Maziashvili’s remarkable ideas and thorough knowledge in several spheres and Mariam Aleksidze’s artistic vision to maintain the unique style characteristic of the Georgian choreography and to present it in a contemporary way. The company unites dancers of distinctly individual, outstanding appearance and technical skills.
Tickets are €15. Each performance is 30 minutes.
