Soto/Chemin/Wassman/Gui

Discipline:
Performance, Theatre
Country:
United States, Italy, Switzerland, France

This collective of highly accomplished and eclectic artists includes Luisa Gui (producer), Charles Chemin (director), Carlos Soto (director), and Christian Wassman (architect). They have come together to create this theatrical performance that was held at the Teatro of the Italian Academy on November 11, 2009. The piece inaugurated the symposium Beyond Futurism: F.T. Marinetti, Writerorganized by Paolo Valesio and the Department of Italian at Columbia University, and will be featured in PERFORMA09, the biennial for new visual performance art. The work was developed as part of the Fall/Spring Residency program at The Watermill Center from October 15 – November 1, 2009.

GIRLMACHINE is a free theatrical investigation of Futurism’s ambiguous vitality and its complex relationship to the modern body, exploring notions of masculine identity and mechanized erotics. This inaugural performance unfolds an associative journey through various texts ranging from Futurist poetry and manifestos to contemporary sources, through the neo-Renaissance-style Teatro. Taking as its main focus certain conceits of Futurist masculinity as hyperbole, the performance presents an adaptation of Una Parentesi Luminosa by Marella Caracciolo Chia. Fragments, vibrant tableaux, still and moving images, silence and orchestrated words, repeated and sudden actions, bodies, voices, decor, lights, and texts all create layers that could erect or destroy in an antagonistic escalation.

 

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