Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper depicts the reactions of the twelve disciples to Jesus’s words, “One of you will betray me,” on the night of their last supper together two thousand years ago. Although other painters also depicted this scene, In Leonardo’s painting, however, Jesus’s face remained unfinished. The gestures and expressions are so vivid that the painting seems like a scene from a play. Leonardo da Vinci brought the biblical passage to life with theatrical immediacy.

The dance work The Last Supper explores universal human attributes and the human condition through the disciples’ reactions after Jesus speaks. Their responses resemble our own: their figures are our figures. The work portrays the sorrow common to human relationships, in which loyalty to a teacher, faith, and trust can fracture over a small difference of opinion and rapidly become betrayal and conflict.

The world we inhabit often appears beautiful and peaceful, but beneath its surface, reality is less beautiful than it seems. Even small things can provoke disappointment and anger; faith and trust can turn into betrayal and conflict in an instant. The Last Supper does not aim to recount a religious episode. Instead, it addresses the sorrow that runs through our society and all human relationships. We wanted to focus on the duality behind our attempts to appear fine and unaffected, and to speak of genuine change—a transformation of being that finally makes changed relationships possible. Through this masterpiece, we wanted to focus on the personal stories of its figures: their stories that resemble ours, and ours that resemble theirs.

The creative direction of the work is to bring imagination to an unfinished masterpiece and pursue a series of questions: How did they gather? Did they pledge obedience and submission to their teacher? Did his unexpected words make them turn against one another and argue? Focusing on changes in relationships through the twelve disciples’ reactions and feelings, we sought to recreate our own stories on stage through movement and video, as a living painting.