The Curious Bards

Íorna is a show created collectively by The Curious Bards ensemble, with singer Ilektra Platiopoulou and dancer Marine Easzy. The play follows the life of an 18th-century Irish woman, a spinner and weaver, at the heart of the domestic and social economy. Through her daily life, punctuated by work and repetitive movements, the show explores her life experiences and emotions, combining struggles, moments of joy, and flashes of creativity. Music, voice, and body intertwine to convey the intimacy of this female figure and the world she inhabits.

Eighteenth-century Irish and Scottish folk music is the show's guiding thread: passed down orally, it carries the rhythm of work, the intimacy of homes, and stories of labor, exile, and desire. Dance embodies both the gestures of work and the freedom of the body, while song gives voice to unspoken words. On stage, the arts intermingle: music structures, voice materializes, body animates. 

The sober and refined scenography and lighting highlight the presence of the performers and leave room for the audience's imagination. Íorna is neither a concert nor a historical reenactment, but a hybrid form in which ancient music dialogues with contemporary stage language, weaving a sensitive link between past and present, between ancestral gestures and today's creations.

Cast

Ilektra Platiopoulou, mezzo-soprano 
Marine Easzy, dance & choreography 
Pierre Gallon, virginal 
Bruno Harlé, flutes 
Louis Capeille, triple harp 
Jean-Christophe Morel, cittern 
Sarah Van Oudenhove, viola da gamba 
Quentin Viannais, bagpipes 
Alix Boivert, violin & conductor