Film and Theater Project Reimagines Greek Tragedy through Today’s Diverse and Multicultural Reality
Bridging gaps between the arts, literature, race and identity, Yale Schwarzman Center (YSC) is proud to join Yale Department of Classics; The Yale Center for the Study of Race, Indigeneity, and Transnational Migration; and The Whitney Humanities Center in hosting Uprooting Medea, a virtual presentation by Shivaike Shah, producer, writer and founder of Khameleon Productions. On Monday, February 21 at 4:30pm (register) Shah will discuss Medea, a reimagination of Euripides’s Greek tragedy with an all-multicultural cast and crew. Afterwards, there will be a virtual roundtable conversation with University of Minnesota Professor Juliette Cherbuliez, author of In the Wake of Medea: Neoclassical Theater and the Arts of Destruction, and Assistant Professor Adjunct of Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism Eric Glover.
Khameleon Productions was founded in 2020 at Oxford University, where writer/composer Francesca Amewudah-Rivers originally adapted the play. Their Medea reimagines Euripides’s tragedy with an all-global majority cast and crew, and features original compositions, movement and spoken word commissioned by the company. Shah’s presentation at Yale will explore the creative practice of elevating global-majority artists through multimedia forms including theater, film, music, and poetry. He will also discuss Khameleon Productions’ upcoming short film project, which will be released later this year. To register for Uprooting Medea, click here.
The following events will also be open to the public:
- Medea: A Manifesto—Feb. 17 from 4:30 to 5:30 p.m.
This virtual session explores why we should be thinking about Medea and taking her as a model—if not for positive action, then perhaps for politics itself. Sponsored by Whitney Humanities Center and Department of French, this session is led by Professor Cherbuliez. To register, click here.
- Radical Imagination, as part of the YSC series Sessions—Feb. 22 from 11:15 a.m. to 12:15 p.m.
Shah, Professor Glover and members of CLASSIX, an organization devoted to exploding the classical canon through an exploration of Black performance history and dramatic works by Black writers, will host an in-person lunch conversation on how radical imagination spans disciplines: theater, classics, history, sociology, science, philosophy etc. with a group of 12 participants from a cross-section of New Haven and Yale. Only nine seats remain! To reserve one of these spots click here. Due to the limited space, those who do not land a seat in the in-person session will automatically be enrolled in the virtual conversation on March 1.
- A Virtual Conversation with Shivaike Shah and Prof. Glover—March 1 from 10:30 to 11:30 a.m.
For those who want a deeper dive into Medea or were unable to attend previous sessions, this intimate and interactive dialogue with Shah will serve as the culmination of this deep dive into the Classics through the lens of today’s society. To register, click here.
Uprooting Medea at Yale is part of the larger Uprooting Medea Intercollegiate Tour from February to May 2022, co-sponsored by the Brown Arts Institute (BAI). The four-month tour, curated and produced by BAI Visiting Artist Shivaike Shah, has commenced at Brown and will visit 30 leading colleges and universities across 12 states. Khameleon will visit classes, work with students in script workshops and participate in roundtable conversations around multiple topics related to the project. At the conclusion of the tour, Khameleon will return to Brown to host a virtual gathering for participating institutions.