Imagoturgia, imago in érgon. In Greek érgon is a word that comes close to the meaning of “work”, but at the same time has a narrower and broader meaning. Érgon indicates the work of the worker, of the athlete but it also indicates the operation in itself, the being in action, at work, of an inanimate or animate thing.
Seeing is the ergon of the eyes, being loved and respected is the ergon of the human being. When our sensitive actors and actresses recreate a text, gestures, movements, relationships what is the ergon of the image? The eye of a camera refracts those in front of it, the dimension of the soul, of what the soul should be, the darkroom of vision and feeling, of memory, of dreams. The eye of the beholder within this eye carves the formless matter that cries out for redemption and liberation, slowly hammers the hard shell of the supposed disease, down to the center. The image sculpture then expands for the filmic framework regaining hardness and beauty, thus certifying the possibility of theatrical art not having already died in the cage of the theatrical institution. Without sentimentality, but shaped by feeling, the image returns to the real time of the experienced, the practiced, the tried.
LENZ
From Georg Büchner's novella
“On January 20, Lenz walked into the mountains...”
dramaturgy | Maria Federica Masters
imagoturgy | Francesco Pititto
director | Maria Federica Maestri | Francesco Pititto | Bruno Stori
interpreter | Bruno Stori
Shots in 16mm film. at the San Cataldo Cemetery in Modena, a new part, designed in 1971, in rationalist-metaphysical style according to the unfinished project by Aldo Rossi and Gianni Braghieri entitled “The blue of the sky”. Premiere || Parma, Lenz Rifrazioni, 28 March 1986
Inspired by FILM by Alan Schneider with a screenplay by Samuel Beckett, his only work for the cinema. Starring Buster Keaton.
«Esse est percipi. Once every foreign, animal, human, divine perception is suppressed, self-perception continues to exist. The attempt not to be, in escaping from any foreign perception, is nullified in the face of the inevitability of self-perception». (Samuel Beckett, Film).
CATHARINA VON SIENA
BY JMR. LENZ
16 mm film. live original film extracts from “Café Müller” by Pina Bausch.
LIFE IS A DREAM: Madrid. In the square the statue of Caldéron de la Barca seems to look at the shoulders of the statue of Garcia Lorca from a distance. They both watch the theater which in turn watches them. In Plaza Mayor square people pass by and walk away from its many corners and passages through the streets of Madrid. In the rooms of the Academy of San Fernando rest, among others, the two works of Goya “El Entierro de la Sardina” and “Casa de Locos”. Two places of the mind where our female figure vanishes, two visions that scream the pagan festival and the madness of reality.
Della Pietà. Overimpression, sum, with/fusion of memory states, mixing of signs and dreams. Antonello's Pietà and the Theater Pietà. Chlorylene. The Mother who is not there, the “Tiger Absence” who pervades everything, who determines everything, dying.
Plaza. In the square of statues, the seventeenth and twentieth centuries, Caldéron and Lorca never meet their gaze. Tuxedo. Semíramis de “La hija de l'aire”, Julia de “La dévocion de la cruz”, Angela de “La dama duende”. The image implodes until it vanishes into the red of the fire. Rosaura blue. The warrior woman, between swords and scimitars, claims her being a woman. A faint blue and gray light dominates the neutral place. Academy. The works of the Great Image Creators flow and struggle with different movements. Sardine.Theatre and Madness, Profane and Sacred, Carnival and Lent. The Burial of the Sardine and the House of Fools attract, suck, into/corporate the Nurse Actress. Together they dance and laugh. It's always a time for celebration. It's always life time and dream.
BRUNO LONGHI footage of historical documents and Togliatti's funeral, fragments from “Uccellacci and Uccellini” by P.Pasolini.
CONCIERTO A LO DIVINO Sequences of naked bodies rotating on the ground within luminous crosses and physical superimpositions in a tracking shot from above.
THE CONSTANT PRINCE Filming in Morocco (Tangier and Fez), Ceuta, Seville, Madrid, Burgos, Cordoba and Barcelona. Film sequences of attoral actions on beaches, alleys, Genet's tomb, a party with children next to a mosque, on Roman finds, in hilly exteriors, on towers and squares.
HIGH SURVEILLANCE Reproduction through the installation of monitors with film sequences made in Barcelona with actors, in different points of the city, indoors and outdoors.
RADICAL CHANGE 7 EPISODES FROM OVID'S METAMORPHOSES Creation of imagoturgy for each individual episode: Phoenix Death and Phoenix Birth, Narcissus, Eurydices, Hecuba, Alcyone, Pyramus and Thisbe, Daphne.
IO DA LE METAMORFOSI DI OVIDIO, imagoturgia on body and jelly.
DELIVER US CHILD YOUR EYES imagoturgy on multiple red eyes, bodies of actors, attoral actions in dialogue with the corresponding live actions.
CHAOS imagoturgy on close-ups of shaved heads, overlays with material elements, chromatic modifications.
OVID'S EXILIUM DA TRISTIA Filming in Bucharest and Constance in Romania. Landscapes, marine and city environments, classical parks and concerts, squares, people.
EXILIUM THE BIG SCAR Imagoturgy with film sequences of exteriors and interiors by Lenz Teatro. Actoral actions communicating with live actions, reproduction on a transparent cylindrical scenic element.
DIDO FROM OVID'S EPISTUAL resumed in Carthage in Tunisia and Cartagena in Spain. Film sequences with attoral actions in marine interiors and exteriors.
DIE SCHACHTEL Imagoturgy created with actors and musicians, close-ups with choreography of the head in rapid and repeated movements. Reproduced during the performance of Franco Evangelisti's work on four transparent walls, containing the entire instrumental ensemble.
HAMLET AT THE ROCCA DI SAN SECONDO Imagoturgia created inside the Lenz Teatro, attoral sequences in direct dialogue with the live sequences, reproduced in the different spaces of the medieval fortress then a Renaissance residence.
THE ISLAND OF DOGS. BURIAL.MATCH.BURNING.AGUA.THUNDER.
Imagoturgy created before the theatrical rehearsals of the different sequences, on a large mobile armchair, with an aberrant effect of the physical body and reproduced on large transparent scenographic scenes together with chromatic compositions of material and floral elements.
HAMLET AT THE PALACE OF COLORNO Imagoturgy created inside the Lenz Theater and in the interiors of the palace, attoral sequences in direct dialogue with the live sequences, reproduced in the different spaces of the Farnese ducal residence.
AENEIS (SIX EPISODES) Imagoturgy for each episode communicating with live actions, animal elements with chromatic modifications, chromatic compositions with material, bodily and informal elements.
HAMLET AT THE FARNESE THEATER Imagoturgia created indoors at Lenz Teatro, attoral sequences in direct dialogue with the live sequences, reproduced in the different spaces of the Pilotta Monumental Complex, in particular at the Farnese Theatre.
AENEIS IN ITALY (from books 7-12 of Virgil's Aeneid) Shots indoors in Lenz Teatro, with compositions of fruits and vegetables. Imagoturgy for each episode in dialogue with the live actions, chromatic modifications, compositions with plastic, bodily and informal elements.
THE BETROTHED Imagoturgy created indoors in Lenz Teatro, supine attoral positions, sitting and standing with movements in circles, with repeated gestures, in particular the sign of the Cross. Body modifications with height aberrations and intense chromaticism, reproduction on large transparent sheets – with wall function –within a large space divided into rooms. The vision of the public, at large, followed the perimeter of the installation within which the actors acted.
VERDI RE LEAR_THE WORK THAT DOESN'T EXIST Imagoturgy characterized by bodily movements of an old man in a fetal position, with changes in paintings and angles, reproduced from the back on transparent sheets in series up to the proscenium. The actions of actors and singers took place between the transparent screens.
AN HOUR OF ANY DAY Feature documentary totally in subjective, in the internal and external places of Pier Luigi Bacchini's country house. The seating points, the views and landscapes, the work room, the kitchen. Environments, angles, perspectives and visual spaces of his writing.
IL FURIOSO LA FUGA, THE ISOLA Imagoturgia created in the interior and exterior of the Guatelli Museum, sequences of multitude of objects collected in different shooting levels, attoral actions in the environments prior to the live. Indoor and outdoor reproductions communicating with live actions.
THE FURIOUS MAN, THE PALACE Imagoturgia created in the interior and exterior of the Rasori Pavilion, attoral sequences in different spatial and chromatic situations, both internal and external, in environments prior to the live. Indoor and outdoor reproductions in dialogue with the live actions in the different environments of this historic abandoned hospital building.
VERDI RE LEAR Imagoturgy identical to the one created in 2014 for a single room, and in addition second Imagoturgy, with first close-ups of actors and singers characterized by black and gray dominance, for the second room where the second part of the work was carried out. Reproduction took place on two large screens, from the proscenium to the back of the scene, with the effect of doubling and superimposing the images.
THE FURIOUS THE ILLUSION, THE MADNESS, THE DEATH, THE MOON Imagoturgy carried out in the interiors and exteriors of the Time of Cremation, attoral sequences in different spatial and chromatic situations, both internal and external, in environments prior to the live; both of the Temple and of Lenz Theatre. Reworked scientific sequences of the Moon and planets. Indoor and outdoor reproductions in dialogue with the live actions in the different environments of this great structure of farewell and silence.
AUTODAFE’ Imagoturgy created in Lenz Teatro, attoral sequences in the foreground with facial modifications, reproduced inside today's cell of this ex-Napoleonic prison. Playback was by monitors placed inside the cell and near the actor. Other sequences of elaborate and aberrated close-ups of old and historic actors were reproduced on the vaults of the long corridor where the main actions of choral singing, singing and attoral performances took place.
THIS WEAK FORCE (from Oedipus the Tyrant and Hyperion's Song of Destiny by Hölderlin) Imagoturgy created in Lenz Teatro, full-length, rotating attoral sequences, reproduced next to the Roman statues of the Hall of Statues of Veleia, inside the Archaeological Museum of the Monumental Complex of Pilotta. Duplication and repeated rotational motion produced an effect of holographic epiphany and memory.
PURGATORY Imagoturgy made of large numbers: 1, 3, 7, 9 reproduced at the vanishing point of the central nave of the former Old Hospital of Parma. Symbolic relationship with the path of Dante and Virgil in Dante's Purgatory.
PARADISE. A SACRED PIECE Imagoturgy reproducing on the floor a flow of blades of light like the water of a flowing river. Higher up, on the upper floor of the imposing structure of the North Bridge, a roundel containing figures of black holes, a child in the mother's womb, a divine and aberrated image, rotating together with the roundel/world/sphere, in the figure of the Scapigliata by Leonardo da Vinci.
THE GREAT THEATRE OF THE WORLD Imagoturgy reproducing two figures belonging to the Betrothed, one, aberrated and with accelerated movement, reproduced on the large entrance door of the Farnese Theatre and the other, with identical effects, enveloping the monumental statue of Maria Luigia by Canova in the Hall of Columns where, in length, the performative action took place. The third sequence, original, created in Lenz Teatro and reproduced on three large surfaces of the stage of the Teatro Farnese, reproducing in slow three close-ups, all different, of the Author/God, played by a child actor. One and Triune as the God of self-sacramental.
IPHIGENIA IN AULIDE Imagoturgia reproducing figures of frescoes by Correggio taken live and at close range, reproduced on a small transparent screen in the Oratory of S.Quirino.
LA VIDA ES SUEÑO The Job by Antonio de Pereda, (1611/1678), a painting present in the renovated north wing of the National Gallery, becomes the object of dramaturgical and visual investigation for the implementation of the auto sacramental. Our Man, for self-sacramental, will have the features of an adolescent in the same posture as the painting: holding the shard, his hand resting on his heart and his gaze turned upwards, towards God. The difference between the fixity of the picture in the penitent figure of Job and the movement of the Man/Child, in the young body of those who look towards the future, will act as a distinction between the freedom granted whether or not to betray the Faith and the freedom to be gained as life progresses. What is the boundary between the free will of one and the other? Then in place of the Child, to merge with Job, the figure of a man whose mind has suffered a gap over the course of life, to whom the boundary between dream and real world, between fiction and reality, has become subtle, interchangeable, between an inside and an outside that determines the freedom to decide, as well as not to decide.