Dionysia

Half man and half horse, satyrs were the legendary companions of Dionysus, the Greek god of wine and theater. In Dionysia, Poor Dog Group uses ancient drama, lore, and imagery found on clay pots, to reinvent the “satyr play.” Based on fragments of these plays, many by Euripides, Dionysia relates the myth of Thyestes and Atreus and delves into the ritualistic, unstable, and sometimes hilarious behavior of satyrs. Commissioned by EMPAC and created during a three-week residency including the work’s premiere, Dionysia channels forgotten rites into a full-blown physical expression of the bestial qualities inherent in contemporary life, revealing a world both barbaric and beautiful. 

Poor Dog Group is a Los Angeles-based collective of performance and media artists committed to nurturing a distinctive aesthetic through adventurous collaboration in the creation of new work and through the radical reexaminations of existing texts.

Quote Unquote: Experiments in Time-Based Text was an interdisciplinary series presenting works by artists that use an existing text as a departure point for time-based works including installation, film, and performance.