nuvolario - Mf18M

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

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.

Transfigurating the outer landscape into the inner ones, OHT explores clouds as the stratagem to bring theatre back to its original evanescence by transforming 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 show 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 due to 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

0:60:00.0

genre

music theatre

credits

NUVOLARIO - Mf18M
music theatre

by Office for a Human Theatre
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
> light Filippo Andreatta, Bianca Peruzzi
> sound technician Marco Sorasio Bruzzone
> development and communication Anna Benazzoli
> photographs Giacomo Bianco
> creative producer Chiara Boitani
> administrator Lucrezia Stenico
> international development Job Rietvelt
> animal spirit yún (云)

ensemble Sentieri selvaggi
> voices Elisa Bonazzi, Sara Jane Ghiotti, Gaia Mattiuzzi, Giulia Zaniboni
> violin Piercarlo Sacco  
> cello Aya Shimura
> clarinet and bass clarinet Mirco Ghirardini, Giovanni Pignedoli 
> percussion Leonardo Bertolino, Carlo Boccadoro, Nicola D’Auria, Andrea Dulbecco, Ettore Marcolini, Edoardo Maviglia, Matteo Savio         
> pianos Gabriele Carcano, Bruna Di Virgilio, Valentina Messa, Andrea Rebaudengo, Leonardo Zunica  

> production Office for a Human Theatre
> co-production fondazione I Teatri / festival Aperto Reggio Emilia, Romaeuropa festival, Sagra Musicale Malatestiana

> artistic residency Centrale Fies, Teatro alla Cartiera Rovereto

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

production history

12.X.24 > festival Aperto, Reggio Emilia > premiere
20.X.24 > Romaeuropa festival, Roma
30.X.24 > Sagra Musicale Malatestiana, Rimini

replicas

03