Bioinstallation

 

                                                  Broogarden, A water meadow shaded by the birch trees

Text and photo by: Francesca Romana Rietti

 

Build and Break

Break and Build

 

Ringkøbing, Friday, 9^th of August 2024 - Teatret Om, working room Itsi Bitsi

 

My first working day is the third one of rehearsals for the site-specific performance Wu Xing, inspired by the interaction of the five agents of Chinese Taoist culture: water, metal, earth, fire and wood. It will be presented in five different open-air places - located around the area of the Ringkøbing’s fjord - from the 14^th until the 18^th of August - in the frame of the research project “Art-Nature Lab Workshops and Lectures” curated by Antonella Diana, visual artist, scenographer and co-founder in 1989 with the actress and director Sandra Pasini of Teatret Om.

Four of the five actresses, Hisako Miura (Japan), Sandra Pasini (Italy/Denmark), Jori Snell (Denmark/Netherlands), Ana Woolf (Argentina) presented their sequences of three minutes each to the musician Paolo Cozzolino and to Antonella Diana. Just after, a rich and unforeseen dialogue came out.  A melting-pot of visions, practices, points of view, aspirations, provocations, words in many languages, actions, confusion, misunderstanding, suggestions, desires, performers’ techniques and spectators’ needs and expectations. A big question merged: which of the laws of the theatre space will the actresses have to abandon in order to follow those dictated by nature? A change of mentality is needed to jump from the room to the landscape.

Antonella said: “I’m not a director, I’m a visual artist, but as curator of the project I just want to remind you something. For sure, you will go in the nature with your character, but when you will be there the task will be feeling the landscape to enter in dialogue with it and grasp its suggestions. It is very good that you fixed your own sequence following your dramaturgy made by actions, objects, costumes, but remember: this is an experiment. Do not think too much, let the natural landscape lead you. I’m not asking you to improvise, but listening the nature. Have a nice work in your inner landscape”.

How will the actresses react to this creative challenge?

What kind of new constraints will they discover experimenting this feeling of freedom?

Could it be that their scenic behavior, artificially built, creates a dialogue with the artificial nature of the landscape?