Diaspora Inferno: From My Grandmother's Kitchen at Drayton Arms Theatre

Diaspora Inferno: From My Grandmother’s Kitchen

A physical theatre performance by De Insomniis Theatre
Directed by Elona Gagani

Diaspora Inferno: From My Grandmother’s Kitchen is a multilingual, physical theatre journey through exile, memory, and rebirth — a woman’s descent into the many circles of diaspora. Inspired by Dante Alighieri’s Inferno and reimagined through the lens of migration, the piece weaves together Albanian, Italian, English, and German languages to embody the fractured yet resilient identity of the immigrant body.

Rooted in real testimonies from immigrant women in London, the performance merges Augusto Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed, Pina Bausch’s emotional physicality, Mario Banushi’s poetic imagery, and Jacques Lecoq’s corporeal storytelling. Each “circle” explores a different sin or wound — Limbo, Envy, Lust, Wrath, Greed, Sloth, Pride, Gluttony— reframed as the emotional landscapes of migration: nostalgia, invisibility, assimilation, anger, and survival.

The stage transforms into a living kitchen — a ritual space where language, gesture, and memory cook together. Pots boil over like buried emotions. A red thread ties women across continents. Through movement, silence, and sound, Diaspora Inferno becomes both confession and resistance — a reclaiming of voice against systems that demand silence.

At its core, the work asks:

How do we rebuild ourselves after exile? How do we speak when the tongue of our grandmother is no longer understood?