LA TEMPESTA (Ita)

MULTIDISCIPLINARY RADIO-DRAMA LIVE PERFORMANCE based on THE TEMPEST from W. SHAKESPEARE Directed by: Guillermo Giampietro

THE POEM

The Tempest is a play by English playwright William Shakespear, probably written in 1610–1611 and thought to be one of the author’s last works. After the first scene, which takes place on a ship at sea during a tempest, the story is set on a remote island. This island is the domain of the sorcerer Prospero, a complex and contradictory character, who lives with his daughter Miranda and his two servants: Caliban, a savage monster, and Ariel, an airy spirit. The play contains music and songs to reinforce the magical and oniric atmosphere of the island. Many themes are explored, including sorcery, betrayal, revenge, and family. Although The Tempest is listed in the First Folio as a comedy, it deals with both tragic and comic themes and modern criticism often puts it in a category of its own. Several different interpretations have been proposed for this play, from those that see it as a fable on art and creation – with Prospero representing Shakespeare and the author’s farewell to the stage – to those that consider it an allegory of European colonialism.

THE PERFORMANCE

The performance is based on 45 minutes of radio-drama style recordings, with different languages used to voice different characters. These recordings are then processed in real time, with the addition of sounds to create the dream-like atmosphere of the opera. Every step of the story is explained by (English subbed) visuals while dancers and a live music trio interact to create the musical and performative side of the show. The project was born inside the mental health and addictions treatment facility in Gorizia (Ita) known as “Parco Basaglia” and managed by La Collina coop. soc. ONLUS. This lead to the creation of different teams involved with the making of the performance, including patients of the facility who took part as actors, musicians, dancers, etc thanks to the cooperation of Radio Fragola Gorizia, AREA 174 and the local youth center Punto Giovani. Shakespeare’s text has a lot of characters and scenes full of great and powerful dreamy images. We have selected the most significant of them to create a solid and comprehensible tale to the audience. Many of the actors – all amateurs – came from different parts of the world (Spain, Argentina, Portugal, Ukraine, Slovenia…) so it was really easy to change the Italian-only first draft into something different, to enhance the multicultural and international aspect of the team while also making it more accessible to an international audience.

Visuals

The original play has, as stated before, a strong dreamy connotation with multiple abstract and magical images described to the reader. The visual side of the performance follows this lead, building upon several short video portraits of the different characters using gestures, dance, strong colours and fast-moving lighting effects. Videos produced by Radio Fragola Gorizia and Vj/mapping by Head Made Lab.

Music

The musical part of the performance is curated by A Vessel Full of Void collective. The current version of the show sees a trio composed by Marco Pilolli (Synths, DJing, live electronics), Matteo Mancini (strings, live electronics) and Luca Mirai (voice, live electronics) interacting with the prerecorded prose and improvising new material on top of it to explore and expand the sorcerous mood suggested by Shakespeare’s text. The musicians try to replicate the feeling of an otherworldly underground club, drawing deeply from their background in shoegaze, tecno, and ambient/noise music.

Dancers

In La Tempesta we like to let the Dancers. performers express themselves freely according to their experience. There’s no fixed crew for this role. Having local modern dance troupes, body performers and the likes involved in the performance with just some pre-show rehearsal time is a treasured part of the experience that we like to include when possible. There’s no need of a specific space for the dancers, because they move around the audience and interact with the performance site, adding a unique feel to every show by including both local arts scene and site specific elements to the performance. 

Gigs

The first draft of the show was produced in the months between March and July 2021 to debut at Lunatico Festival – Frontiere dei Lunatici 2021 in Gorizia. A second draft was developed for Bagnare le Rose/Cambiare le Cose in Trieste.

Producers: La Collina cooperativa sociale ONLUS (Trieste). Radio Fragola (Gorizia). Area 174 (Gorizia). A Vessel Full of Void collective (Ita/Slo). ASUGI (Trieste/Gorizia).

Collaborations: ASUGI (Trieste/Gorizia). Area 174 (Gorizia). Comune di Gorizia (Municipality of Gorizia) with Youth Center Punto Giovani. Le Macchine Celibi soc. Coop. (Bologna). Head Made Lab (Trieste).

RADIO FRAGOLA

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Sajeta 2022