The Master’s in Theatre lasts two years. Halfway through their studies, students in directing and scenography carry out a project in real conditions, on stage and in front of an audience. This allows them to face the concrete realities of their future profession by experiencing the challenges of creating a performance.

This workshop is organized in collaboration with the Martigny Theatre School.

For this edition, the project takes inspiration from the lost tragedy Niobe by Aeschylus. Only twelve fragments of text and a few painted vases remain, fragile traces of an ancient theatrical work. Rather than focusing on the murder of Niobe’s fourteen children—a story widely told by mythology—this adaptation explores the silences that surround the myth: the moments before the offense to the goddess Leto, and the petrified silence that follows the tragedy.

The rewriting process draws from both literature and visual arts, influenced by painters such as Bacon, Munch, Hopper, Hammershøi, and Vermeer, to build a vocabulary of silence, color, and violence. Structured in five acts, the piece reimagines Niobe’s voice through what is missing: her childhood, broken ties, and the weight of words that lead to muteness.

The work was developed collectively with the students, beginning without a fixed script. Through reading, discussion, and experimentation, each participant brought their own imagination, perspective, and generational experience. The final performance emerges as a reconstruction piece by piece of a fragmented tragedy, blending ancient myth with contemporary voices.