Romeo Castellucci
Romeo Castellucci Retrospective
  • Cesena
  • Film Screening

11.4.Sat 14:00
Epic of the Dust 113 min
11.5.Sun 14:00
Tragedia Endogonidia Part I 143 min
11.11.Sat 14:00
Tragedia Endogonidia Part 2 197 min
11.12.Sun 14:00
Inferno/Purgatorio/ParadisoThe act of Seeing. A selection of extracts 188 min


Screening Time: 14:00 / 18:00 (every date)


  • Yonsei Univ. Seong-Am Hall

  • 5,000 KRW
  • Italian/Korean

Replacing dramatic narratives with overwhelming images, Romeo Castellucci has established himself as the world’s most significant director today. This year’s retrospective holds screenings of his works from the past two decades, tracing the trajectory of his thought.

Epic of the Dust
The research directions explored in the nineties were for Castellucci an occasion to radically rethink the tradition of western drama. Denying any legitimacy to a theatre conceived as the illustration of a text, he engaged in a complete and rigorous immersion into the great classics of western theatre from Aeschylus to Shakespeare, discovering a theatre of the body.

    • [Works included]
    • 「Amleto, la veemente esteriorità della morte di un mollusco」(1992)
    • 「Orestea. Una commedia organic」(1995-2015)
    • 「Giulio Cesare」(1997)
    • 「Genesi. From the museum of sleep」(1999)

Tragedia Endogonidia
「Tragedia Endogonidia」 is the colossal dramatic cycle conceived by Socìetas Raffaello Sanzio a period of three years (2001-2004), producing 11 Episodes in 10 European cities. The cycle’s dramatic structure retraces the exoskeleton of Greek tragedy in order to probe into the presence of the tragic in today’s world.

    • [Works included]
    • 「Part 1」
    • #01 Cesena
    • #02 Avignon
    • #03 Berlin
    • #04 Bruxelles/Brussel
    • #05 Bergen
    • 「Part 2」
    • #06 Paris
    • #07 Rome
    • #08 Strasbourg
    • #09 London
    • #10 Marseille
    • #11 Cesena

La Divine Comedie: Inferno/Purgatorio/Paradiso
As an associated artist of the Avignon Festival 2008, Castellucci staged a trilogy freely inspired by Dante Alighieri’s 『Divine Comedy』. Filmed extracts allow us to revisit the three performances: 「Inferno」 sets out on a voyage through what it is to be human; 「Purgatorio」 portrays a small family unit whose routine expands into a series of psychological and dreamlike tableaux; and 「Paradiso」, shows only a glimpse of a region that never allowed human acces.

    • [Works included]
    • 「Inferno」(Cour d’honneur du Palais des papes, Avignon, 2008)
    • 「Purgatorio」(Parc des Expositions, Avignon, 2008)
    • 「Paradiso」(Église des Célestins, Avignon, 2008)/(Chiesa di Santo Spirito, Cesena, 2008)

The act of seeing. A selection of extracts
This program is made up of extracts from five recent creations by Romeo Castellucci, through which he dives deep into the forbidden extremes of human experience through not only visual but also aural and tactile senses.

    • [Works included]
    • 「Hey girl!」(Festival d’Automne, Paris, 2006)
    • 「Sul Concetto di volto nel Figlio di Dio」(Theater der Welt, Essen, 2010)
    • 「Io penso」(Taipei Arts Festival, Taipei, 2010)
    • 「The Phenomenon called I」(Tokyo Festival, Yumenoshima, 2011)
    • 「Le Sacre du Printemps」(Ruhrtriennale, Duisburg, 2014)
Romeo Castellucci Retrospective
© Luca del Pia

Hommage to Romeo Castellucci

Since launching Societas Raffaello Sanzio in 1981, Romeo Castellucci has investigated and expanded multifaceted aspects of tragedy as the origin of Western theater. The theatrical stage according to the visually proficient Italian stage director trained in fine arts, serves as the ritualistic ground with shards of logic and worldly time among other inventions of the modern civilization, calling upon that which had been expelled from norms and order. Thrown in the face of the spectators are weary signs of innermost fear and anxiety. The stage often houses nameless mechanic apparatuses as specters of unknown industrialized power, through which the divine Other looms in unpromising utter materiality. Not unlike a scapegoat returning from the desert of sins to devastate the logos, his mise-en-scene restores the awe of the theatrical stage as the sublime object by annulling the dichotomy of good and evil, leaving behind a massive question mark for the unemancipated spectators to absorb within the ruins of their spiritual integrity that they are in.

Past Works

  • 2007, Springwave Festival ‹Hey girl!›
  • 2008, Nam June Paik Festival Presented by NJP Art Center NOW JUMP: Station 2 ‹Paradiso›
  • 2013, Festival Bo:m ‹On the Concept of the Face, Regarding the Son of God›, ‹Divine Commedia›, ‹Tragedia Endogonidia’s Film Cycle›
  • 2015, Asia Culture Center Theater Opening Festival ‹The Rite of Spring›
  • 2018, MMCA Performing Arts ‹Romeo Castellucci Retrospective›
  • 2018, MMCA Performing Arts/Songnam Arts Center ‹Democracy in America›