Lamentum Temporum - Léllé Demertzi
Léllé Demertzi
During her residency at ZK/U, Léllé is presenting the first two parts of her ongoing performance trilogy on environmental loss, grief and immaterial cultural heritage.
Lamentum Terrae (2024) revives a Dionysian ritual at the site of the largest documented wildfire in the EU, in Thrace. First documented in the 5th century BC, the custom has been passed down from generation to generation, with the sound of bells signaling the rebirth of nature. Amidst the devastated landscape of embers, it becomes the rite of a spring that may never come.
Meanwhile, Lamentum Temporum (2026-) explores the transformation of grief from private experience to collective ritual. From the birth of ancient theater, the emotion was an architecture of power, created through breath and movement, and performed for the collective upliftment and redemption of the audience. The lament carries through the balkan musical traditions turning grief into a communal gathering.
Bringing forth the restorative powers of the performing act, she tries to unpick the threads: in a world without pause, how do we create space to process the loss? When language fails, what’s left of our memories? What ancestral wisdoms do we carry in our bodies? What forms of resistance are born through softness, ritual and release?
