Nuvolario

contenuto

“Clouds are the philosopher’s nemesis. Throughout the history of philosophy, caves, mountains, islands, rivers, and earthquakes play host to a myriad of thought experiments and theoretical arguments. But one searches in vain for a cloud that is an aid, rather than an impediment, to understanding.” Dehlia Hannah

Cirrus, clouds and breaths follow one another, creating a taxonomy of the sky that crosses the stage and its celestial artifices.
nuvolario (Italian word for Cloud Atlas) is an exploration of the ephemeral and transformative power of theatre that invites us to look upwards, a tribute to the visual power of clouds in the simplest of theatrical actions; to see what is not there, a theatre of air.

Banished to the domain of vagueness because of their tendency to conceal celestial references, clouds have long been perceived as the enemy of clear thinking, the nemesis of philosophers and scientists. However, they have always deciphered reality by revealing the deceptive transparency of the air and signalling other atmospheric phenomena; an aspect that, combined with their changing nature, has made clouds the obsession of painters and photographers.

In line with the ghosts of his artistic research that transfigures the outer landscape into the inner one, OHT explores the elusive vertigo of celestial landscapes and their plummet into our present. Clouds are the rare moment when the atmosphere materialises by condensing air and water around impure particles and, in nuvolario, they become the stratagem to bring theatre back to its original evanescence.

“This combination of breathes one after the other, gradually rising like waves against the constant rhythm of the pianos and wind instruments.” Steve Reich

nuvolario transforms the breaths of Steve Reich’s masterpiece into clouds. Music for 18 Musicians [Mf18M] begins with a series of pulsations that rapidly multiply into a breathtaking sound vortex. Once triggered, Mf18M uses air and breathing to modulate and reverberate. The breath of the female voices becomes the measure of the track’s pulsations, creating an incredible sonic vertigo, a polyrhythm of breaths, a continuous movement of air within repetitive beats. Air, declined in its different mutations (from clouds to breaths), is a transformative agent that in nuvolario manifests itself in all its invisibility and visibility; in the appearance and disappearance of a cloud as well as in the moment of suspension between inhalation and exhalation.

OHT’s new work is a performance made up of variations, overlappings and slight phasings. Free of breaks and joints, it brings Steve Reich’s rhythmic dynamics to theatre. Historically sunk in its own weight, in the physics and metaphysics of its bodies, theatre has not had a light fate, has forgetting the air. It didn’t go any better to the orchestra, literally buried in a pit or cast into an abyss; ‘mystischer Abgrund’ in Richard Wagner’s words. Yet, in theatre, the audience’s heartbeat disciplines itself on a common rhythm, while the audience’s breathing remains slightly out of sync; just as in Mf18M, in the theatre, breathing gives the measure of our heartbeat.

year

2024

running time

0:70:00.0

genre

music theatre

press

not yet

credits

NUVOLARIO
music theatre version

by Office for a Human Theatre [OHT]
music by Steve Reich / Music for 18 Musicians
performed by ensemble Sentieri selvaggi

> direction, set and writing Filippo Andreatta
> dramaturgy collaboration Veronica Franchi
> video CGI Francesco D’Abbraccio (Lorem)
> assistant director Thaiz Bozano
> stage director Cosimo Ferrigolo
> development and communication Anna Benazzoli
> photographs Giacomo Bianco
> creative producer Chiara Boitani
> administrator Lucrezia Stenico
> international development Job Rietvelt

> production Office for a Human Theatre [OHT]
> co-production Fondazione I Teatri / Festival Aperto Reggio Emilia, Romaeuropa festival, Sagra Musicale Malatestiana, Ravenna festival

> artistic residence Centrale Fies, Teatro alla Cartiera Rovereto

> with the contribution of MiC, Autonomous Province of Trento, Caritro Foundation of Trento and Rovereto