Ask me if I’m happy

Sisyphus, king of Corinth, known for the cunning with which he deceived the gods, was condemned by Zeus to push a huge boulder to the top of a mountain—only for it to slip from his grasp each time he neared the summit, forcing him to begin again from the bottom. More than a punishment, it was a true torture: a trap of endless, futile effort. This myth offers a metaphor for life itself—a modern snapshot of the human condition, caught in a constant, repetitive cycle of laborious actions devoid of meaning.
The performance presented by Nuovo Balletto di Toscana as a world premiere at the 19th Biennale Danza is inspired by the 1942 essay by Albert Camus. In this work, the Nobel Prize-winning writer offers a penetrating view of existence: scientific and, at the same time, caustic – “To live is to give birth to the absurd.” Yet within this paradox, with cold clarity and sharpness, he proposes a radical option: suicide as a conscious choice, an escape from a game that offers no reward.

Conversely, choosing to exist means accepting the consequences. It is watching the stone fall again and again – but it is also imagining Sisyphus happy. And indeed, he is happy, for by submitting to that perpetual motion, he achieves a kind of immortality, elevating himself to the level of the divine. But Camus, being human, cannot be immortal. With philosophical finesse, he changes direction, softening his position: he chooses to cling to life by identifying three reasons to remain in it – revolt, personal freedom, and passion. Dance is a powerful language, one of the oldest forms of expression – a redemptive means through which forbidden emotions have long been disguised.
Sisifo felice, the performance by Nuovo Balletto di Toscana choreographed by the company’s new director Philippe Kratz and the Spanish choreographer Pablo Girolami, offers a diptych – two distinct yet interconnected pieces – that allows us to physically experience the existential musings that haunt us when we are no longer distracted by effort. Through the flowing motion of bodies – material vehicles of emotion and psyche – we are invited to probe the meaning of existence.
As spectators, we drift like sleepwalkers into the lines drawn in the air by the dancers’ movements. And in that rarefied state, we may glimpse the happiness that Camus imagined for Sisyphus – and for himself.