Stephen Shropshire
Stabat Mater

Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater vividly depicts the Virgin Mary’s sorrows at Jesus’ crucifixion, utilising text from a friar’s thirteenth-century poem.

Shropshire’s choreography transcribes this poem into three distinct movement scores, each reimagining the text to embody different aspects of the Mother’s iconography. Performed simultaneously, these scores create a complex interplay of harmonic variation that captures both the singular and universal aspects of human grief and grace.