In the stage space, the sacred function of the cross merges with the intimate dimension of the chamber, in a relationship of diamorphic transparency in which Karen's vanitas reveals its inevitable penitential nature. The protagonist of the performance is the extraordinary actress_dancer Sara Monferdini, a shining presence_absence of Lenz's works.
In her dramatic Way of the Cross, ordeal, Karen passes through six chambers of double sinful and remissory capacity, wearing the double tongue of the scourge, wood, and blood. Once the mouth is sealed, the verb of pleasure is only thought and the beauty of its genetic golden lotus – little Lolita of Nanjing – intoxicates and confuses the modesty of men and women without more desires.
Always adopted as a research method, the Kleistian sliding of one author into another (from Kleist to Shakespeare, from Shakespeare to Calderón de la Barca, from Goethe to the Grimm) through dramatic elements that already herald the future work, led Lenz Fondazione (which in 2005 was still called Lenz Rifrazioni) to Hans Christian Andersen's two fairy tales: The Red Shoes (De røde Sko) and The Little Mermaid (Den lille Havfrue). The staging of the Grimm tetralogy – Snow White, Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood and Tom Thumb - and the three-year Faust project gave rise to the profound aesthetic motivations for the scenic translation of Andersen's two works, among the best known in the world.
From the red slippers worn by Margrete in Lenz Fondazione's Urfaust and originating from the Grimm fairy tale Under the Juniper, to the sequence of “dolphins, algae and whales” in “Faust II”, up to the shadows/man/wolf of Little Red Riding Hood, prophetic references to Andersen's fairy tales were already present in the dramaturgies previously explored. The presence of great sensitive actors in theatrical productions enhances and perfects this tragic energy, dragging it beyond the margins of the stage, beyond the threshold of the sentimental. The mystery of mutation, metamorphosis, difference then becomes a subjective experience recalled and resurrected as a new epiphany of the world.
NEVER IDEM
The body of the fairy tale is not an inert object of a stable sensory perception, but a transitive category of the aesthetic experience of the living. Formae mutatio. The physiognomic contour does not confine itself to the representative deputation of itself, but out of a desire for rebirth it is a mutant trait of the transcendent action of sentimental ecstasy. The fairytale body does not perpetuate the image of cognitive installation but sacrifices itself to the dynamic verb of metasific dramatization. Losing the emotional limitation of its appearance, the body is disposed to the expressive martyrdom of its organic essence. The supreme moment of the end manifests itself with the loss of bodily fluids; the body of the fairy tale begins its dissolution, leaving a new psycho-physical silhouette as an organic testament. Soul foam? The form of ecstasy blessed by trial is at work in changing the body born ungoverned by the enduring form queen in history. In the fairy tale where the time of loss reigns supreme, the misfortune of the two-headed lambs does not appear to be the showcase of the seen, but the glassy power of corporal diamorphosis.
In the stage space of The Red Shoes, the sacred function of the cross merges with the intimate dimension of the chamber in a relationship of diamorphic transparency in which Karen's VanItas reveals its inevitable penitential nature. In her dramatic Way of the Cross, ordeal, Karen passes through six chambers of sinful and remissory dual capacity, wearing the double tongue of the scourge, wood, and blood. Once the mouth is sealed, the verb of pleasure is only thought, and the beauty of its genetic golden lotus-little Lolita of Nanjing-intoxicates and confuses the modesty of men and women without desires. An orphan destined for the resurrected appetite of old ladies, an effeminate little boy due to the emotional measures of elegant shoemakers, a young girl ready to receive the lustful and evil touch of deformed soldiers, Karen summons the Vertigo of silent passions hidden beyond the door of moral heaven. It strikes and distorts the sacredness of the sacraments by chanting the wake of modesty for dying mothers and raising his tiny red faith to Eucharistic mystery. Having changed pleasure into punishment, he awakens within himself the passion for pity and forgiveness, transfusing the grace of punishment in the end of death into ecstasy of angelic blond penances.
THEME_THE CROSS AND THE CHAMBER
THE THINGS THAT FOLLOW ONE, AS EFFECTS, ARE IN ANOTHER. IN THIS SENSE, THEY ARE DELIMITED BY A SHAPE.
THINGS THEREFORE THAT ARE IN SOMETHING, ARE WHERE THEY ARE; BUT HOW MANY ARE NOT IN A WHERE, THERE IS NO PLACE WHERE THEY ARE NOT.
PLOTINUS
NE EVACUETUR CRUX CHRISTI_SO THAT THE CROSS OF CHRIST MAY NOT BE MADE VAIN.
BLAISE PASCAL
SHORTLY THEREAFTER SHE MADE HIM CROSS A GREAT STONE ARCH: ON THE VAULT PAO-YÜ READ THIS INSCRIPTION: “ILLUSORY KINGDOM OF THE GREAT EMPTINESS”; AND ON THE PILLARS ON THE RIGHT AND LEFT: “FROM THE APPEARANCE OF BEING, FROM BEING THE APPEARANCE; FROM NOTHING COMES THE ONE, FROM THE ONE COMES NOTHINGNESS.
TS'AO HSÜEH-CH'IN
WOODEN_CONDUCT MY RED SENTENCE SHINES THROUGH
THE BOASTFULNESS. Admiration has ruined everything since childhood: “oh, as is well said! how well he did it! how judicious!” etc. The children of Port_Royal, who are refused this sting of emulation and vainglory, fall into indolence.
BLAISE PASCAL
CAPACITY AND PENITENTIAL VOLUMES:
N. 1 CHAMBER OF LOVING MADNESS.
N. 2 CHAMBER OF JEALOUSY.
N. 3 MORNING TEAR CHAMBER.
NO.4 CHAMBER OF NIGHT SIGHS.
N. 5 CHAMBER OF SPRING'S TROUBLE.
N. 6 AUTUMN AFFLICTION CHAMBER.
REVELATION_6,15 The Seven Seals
6. When the lamb opened the first of the seven seals, I heard in a vision the first of the four living say as with a voice of thunder: “Come!”
PSALMS_109 Psalm of the Master of the Singers of DavÍd
God of my songs do not be silent/ an evil mouth is open against me/ a double tongue speaks to me
THE GNOSTIC APOCALYPSES_CODE V, 17.19 – 24.9
They placed it at the door ( of the fourth heaven. And the angels whipped her.
The soul spoke saying: “What sin have I committed in the world?”
CARL THEODOR DREYER_ DIES IRAE, 1943
ROBERT BRESSON_MOUCHETTE, 1967
KENJI MIZOGUCHY_THE LIFE OF O-HARU, 1952
STANLEY KUBRICK_LOLITA, 1962
ACTOR DAN<THE LOTUS FLOWER FOOT
The dan ei “wooden feet”
One of the roles in Chinese theatre was the dan, that of the actors who played the female characters.
In 1777, in fact, by imperial order, women had been forbidden to act alongside men (however, there were some companies that were only female), a ban that persisted until the twentieth century.
Having to behave like women, these actors received a particular lesson.
The first thing concerned the education of the voice, they had to recite and sing in falsetto (la “false voice”, jiasangxi), with a thin tone and .a little’ high; they then had to learn to move their hands delicately, to smile at “rosebud” (yingtao xiaozui) and so on.
However, the most painful thing for young people (they were always children or adolescents) who played dan roles was walking. Ranked Chinese women were typically crippled and bandaged their feet to make them smaller, measuring seven or eight centimeters. The deformation, which began in childhood, consisted of folding four toes backward, under the sole of the foot, leaving only the big toe protruding.
The custom, which dated back to the Song era (960-1279), was intended to be dictated by canons of beauty and eroticism.
The Chinese ladies therefore always walked insecurely, in small steps, swaying and often supported: their price was high in arranged marriage contracts if they owned the feet called “lotus flowers” (sancun jinlian). This tradition declined in the early twentieth century.
The imitation of women therefore led the actor to walk on special wooden clogs or “feet” (qiaoxie) that held the end vertically, almost at the tip: in this position the feet were bandaged and tucked into tiny shoes. The unusual gait created deformations in the spine and pelvis.
Naturally, the use of dan actors, who were generally pretty and effeminate children, favored the spread of homosexuality and prostitution which, thanks to the use of opium, caused scandalous episodes, sometimes even bloody ones, out of jealousy or betrayal.
If the actor was at the bottom of the social ladder, the dan actor was, if possible, classified even worse: today the favorite of this or that powerful man, petted as the diva of the moment, equipped with carriages and horses, like nothing the next day he could end up in the pillory and carried around the public streets with the sign of “corruptor of morals”, or, scarred, fall into the worst brothels in the city or expelled from it.
from De rede Sko by Hans Christian Andersen
text | imagoturgy || Francesco Pititto
direction || Maria Federica Maestri
scene | costumes | visual elements || Maria Federica Maestri
music || Andrea Azzali
performer || Sara Monferdini | Matteo Ramponi |Elisa Orlandini | Sandra Soncìni
light design || Rocco Giansante
costume design || Manuela Barigazzi
production || Lenz Rifrazioni
duration || 70 minutes
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