Life Drawing Theatre – ‘Through me is the way to the sorrowful city’

An interactive life drawing performance at Abney Park Cemetery in which sonnets from Dante's Inferno are narrated while models hold poses for attendees to sketch.

Life Drawing Theatre combines storytelling with drawing: Paul McGill narrates sonnets from Dante's Divine Comedy, including the tale of Odysseus from Canto XXVI, while models hold fixed poses inspired by each sonnet for five to ten minutes. Seated in a semi-circle around the stage, attendees sketch each pose or respond to the poetry's meaning and folkloric analysis, building their own storyboard. The Gothic, overgrown setting of Abney Park Cemetery is presented as a fitting backdrop for Dante's descent into the underworld.