SIRENEN
August 2026
Theatre Basel
Basel, Suiza
Coproduced byTheatre Basel, Suiza
Centro Cultural Gabriela Mistral (GAM), Chile
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In antiquity, sirens were hybrid beings—half-bird, half-woman, and later possessing fish-like traits as well. They were creatures that defied any clear classification, moving along the boundaries of the known: between the human and the animal, nature and culture, seduction and danger. With their song, they lured sailors to their doom. They embody a worldview in which boundaries are permeable and identities become fluid.
Taking this figure as a starting point, Manuela Infante conceives a contemporary *Odyssey*. At its center is a European engineer who has spent twenty years working in the Atacama Desert—a key site for the global extraction of lithium destined for "green" technologies. What initially appears to be a controllable and technically intelligible environment becomes increasingly destabilized. The desert no longer presents itself as an inanimate space to be controlled and exploited, but rather as a living, mutating, polyphonic, and spectral landscape—permeated by the traces of past and present interventions and by repressed histories.
The work highlights the contradictions of so-called "green colonialism," in which resources from the Global South are exploited to enable sustainable technologies in the Global North. The notion that the consequences of this violence can simply be externalized proves fragile. In a world of radical interdependence, human beings, bodies, and landscapes can no longer be viewed as isolated units. Instead, they emerge as part of a continuous process of becoming, in which identity arises from relationships, dependencies, and interpenetrations.
Following evolutionary biologist Lynn Margulis, this perspective can also be understood in biological terms. According to her, complex life does not arise primarily through competition and random mutation, but rather through association, interpenetration, and entanglement. Sirens can be reinterpreted as hybrid, monstrous figures that embody transitions, mixtures, and indeterminacy. In contrast to the myth of the autonomous subject—exemplified by the figure of Odysseus—sirens propose a different logic. Odysseus represents the heroic subject and the idea of linear progress. Sirens undermine this model: like ghosts, they traverse haunted landscapes and remind us that no life exists in isolation. As monsters, they shift attention away from the individual and toward symbiotic assemblages in which bodies interpenetrate.
Credits
Director
Manuela Infante
Set and Costume Design
Robin Metzer
Lighting Design
Stefan Erny
Dramaturg
Kris Merken
Cast
Elmira Bahrami
Giannina Fruttero
Nicole Sazo Cariola
Antoinette Ullrich
Gala Othero Winter
Musical Improvisation
Susana Santos Silva
Manuela Infante
Set and Costume Design
Robin Metzer
Lighting Design
Stefan Erny
Dramaturg
Kris Merken
Cast
Elmira Bahrami
Giannina Fruttero
Nicole Sazo Cariola
Antoinette Ullrich
Gala Othero Winter
Musical Improvisation
Susana Santos Silva
General Production (Basel)
Lena Lappat
General Production (Chile)
Carmina Infante
Technical Manager (Chile)
Pablo Mois
Assistant Director
Viviane Kübler
Set Construction
Amorescénico
Lena Lappat
General Production (Chile)
Carmina Infante
Technical Manager (Chile)
Pablo Mois
Assistant Director
Viviane Kübler
Set Construction
Amorescénico
Co-produced by Theatre Basel, Switzerland, and Centro Cultural Gabriela Mistral (GAM), Chile.