Premiere: WED, 5 Feb 2014 at 7 pm Repetition: THU, 6 Feb 2014 at 7 pm
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Keeping our eyes open and reacting to the facts like wolves in the forest, fast, without leaving traces, venturing alone, away from the pack, or moving in a pack as a single body… Building shelters, other-spaces from which to observe and, in the unfathomable, manufacture new docks, to re-locate Today and imagine fluorescent Tomorrows.
We are wondering: what is the future prefiguration that scares us the most? The answers found are many and manifold, but they all share a common core: control, and material or surreptitious reduction of (political and artistic) freedom.
In When, the performance presented at Aksioma Project Space, Motus’ director Enrico Casagrande is sitting on a table with a laptop controlling three security cameras and writing in real time considerations about what he’s watching (a prelude to Prospero, character of “Nella Tempesta”, their latest theatre production). The video devices shoot two settings out of the gallery: the sidewalk in the front and the backyard including the backstairs. Actress Silvia Calderoni moves among these three spaces; she communicates with Enrico and the audience through a wireless microphone (worn in order to amplify the heartbeat); she reproduces experiences of being under-control in the same way of a “domestic animal” (like in airports, banks etc.); she conceives different states of oppressions and consequent escape; she directs Enrico too, so he is “etero-directed” and he interacts with the audience in the venue. Like in a Chinese boxes game, or like in Philip K. Dick’s novel A Scanner Darkly, it’s impossible to understand who controls whom, and who is controlled. The relation between inner space and outside became more and more complicated by plunges in philosophical thoughts, in particular in Foucault (“Surveiller et punir: Naissance de la prison” et “Le Corps utopique” are the main references here); while the audience is closed in and physically absorbed in the digitalization of the spaces.
When is a fast-paced contradictory between director and actor about scenic freedom, about the dichotomy between inside and outside, movement and control, disobedience and compliance, and about the controversial proliferation of surveillance equipments (in all fields, theatre included). Who controls whom? Who decides what is normal and what isn’t? Which behavior is to be considered suspicious? And, most specifically, is the perimeter-setting of public spaces, the continuous mapping transforming our city centers into immense Panopticons, truly reducing the so-called deviant behaviors? Statistics do not confirm it…
The loss of control on one’s own time, space, body… are prodromes to a lot of dystopical sci-fi-like reality. We have decided to start an experiment, preluding and announcing future developments.
When is part of the work in progress “2011<2068 AnimalePolitico Project”, an ongoing series of performative actions, residencies and workshops presented widely in Europe and North America. Started in 2011 with The plot is the revolution, a contradictory between Silvia Calderoni and Judith Malina, it goes on with the trilogy W. 3 atti pubblici, that includes Where, When and Who. Presented in theater in 2012 (Drodesera Festival, Dro and Short Theatre Festival, Rome, Italy) as part of the trilogy, When will be for the first time implemented into a unique installation - performance for the presentation at Aksioma Project Space.
Motus, was founded in 1991 by Enrico Casagrande and Daniela Nicolò. The collective has always sculpted its projects by action and reaction with regard to everyday facts large and small, feeding on the contradictions of the contemporary, translating them and making them active material for reflection and provocation. It independently produced numerous theatre shows and space-specific events/happenings conceived for unusual venues.
With the productions Occhio Belva (1994), Catrame (1996), O.F ovvero Orlando furioso (1998) and Orpheus Glance (2000) Motus’s theatre in perpetual transformation gained considerable fame at home and abroad. Prizes include the Riccione TTV Festival (1999), The Young Talent Prize organized by the magazine Lo Straniero (1999), and three prestigious Special UBU Awards (1999, 2000, 2002).
Works on Beckett, Pasolini, and Fassbinder preceded the project Syrma Antigonés, growing out of the idea of analyzing the relationship/conflict between generations and taking the tragic figure of Antigone as archetype of struggle and resistance. Alexis. Una tragedia greca, produced in the frame of that project, had a Mondial tour and was awarded the price for Best Foreign Performance for the season 2011-12 by the Association of Theatre Critics of Quebec (A.Q.C.T.).
In 2010 performer Silvia Calderoni, who has been with the company since 2005, won the Ubu Prize for best actress under 30.
Meanwhile, in 2010 Enrico Casagrande, on behalf of the whole company, was artistic director of the 40th Santarcangelo Festival.
In 2011, a new theatre adventure has begun with 2011<2068 AnimalePolitico Project: a itinerary that led to Nella tempesta a theatre production premiered at Festival TransAmériques in Montréal (Canada) in May 2013.
All Daniela and Enrico’s artistic work goes hand in hand with an intense programme of public meetings, lectures and master classes at Italian and foreign universities, precisely in connection with the company’s complex theatrical and video projects.
When at Aksioma (video)
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