nuvolario #Helen

content

nuvolario is a project that looks upwards, an observation of the transformative power of clouds in the most illusory mechanisms; seeing what is not there. Relegated to the domain of vagueness by their tendency to conceal celestial references, clouds have long been perceived as the enemy of clear thinking, the nemesis of philosophers and scientists. Yet they have always deciphered reality by revealing the deceptive transparency of the air and signalling other atmospheric phenomena; an aspect that, combined with their shape-shifting nature, has made them the obsession of painters, photographers, meteorologists and the military.

Filippo Andreatta explores the elusive vertigo of celestial landscapes and their precipitate into our present. Visible only from afar, clouds are the rare moment when the atmosphere materialises, a taxonomy of sky forms getting through the stage and its celestial artifices.

Evanescent as a cloud, the project constantly changes shape while remaining unchanged in its name: nuvolario.

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“In psychology, pareidolia are images of clouds in the sky to which the human mind ascribes meaning. It’s a precursor to hallucination. But you would know, wouldn’t you?” Adrian Sauer

 

According to one version of the myth, it was due to Helen, to her beauty, that one of the most violent, bloody and mythicised wars in Western culture broke out. According to an alternative version of the myth, Helen never went to Troy. It was an eidolon that went there, a cloud, a piece of sky, a ghost of air in the guise of Helen; a celestial deception.

Pareidolia is a stratagem, a faint hallucination or a cloudy excuse to start a war. Cloudy arborescence penetrate the passing atmospheres of Filippo Andreatta in a dilemma that from Helen onwards lurks in every patch of sky:

“and for a cloud have we suffered so much, just for this?” Euripide

Helen’s body becomes a meteor and investigates the violence inherent in deceptive cultural taxonomies that seek to grasp and reduce what is by its nature irreducible.

year

2026

time

0:40:00.0

genre

theatre

credits

NUVOLARIO #HELEN

by OHT / Filippo Andreatta

> direction, set and writing Filippo Andreatta
> with Maria Isidora Vincentelli
> text Prathima Muniyappa
> music and sound Davide Tomat
> associate set designer Cosimo Ferrigolo
> dramaturgical research Veronica Franchi
> technician Marco Filippone
> creative producer Kseniia Prokofeva
> administration Lucrezia Stenico
> photographs Giacomo Bianco
> curatorial oversight Aditi Kapoor
> animal spirit yún (云)

> co-production Office for a Human Theatre [OHT], La Contrada Teatro stabile di Trieste
> artistic residency Saari Residence - Kone Foundation (FI), Teatro alla Cartiera Rovereto, Grand Theatre Groningen (NL), Centro di Residenza delle Arti Performative del Friuli Venezia Giulia / La Contrada Teatro stabile di Trieste

> supported by MiC, Caritro Foundation, Provincia Autonoma di Trento, Comune di Rovereto

production history

27.X-02.XI.2025 > teatro alla Cartiera, Rovereto > residency
18-20.II.2026 > La Contrada Teatro stabile di Trieste > residency + open studio
1-6.III.2026 > Grand Theatre Groningen > residency + open studio
28.V.2026 > Primavera dei Teatri, Castrovillari > preview
26.IX.2026 > festival delle 100 Scale, Potenza > preview
18.X.2026 > Periferico festival, Modena > premiere

replicas

03