Deserted scene. A video on the closure of theatres

The video presented here is the final result of a workshop realised in distance learning, between 15 July and 15 October 2020, for the degree course in Scenography at the Academy of Fine Arts in Naples. A small group of students (Vincenza Buonaguro, Livia de Francesco, Giada Esposito, Mariangela Scialò, Benedetta Tramontano) took part in the initiative, skilfully guided by Nera Prota (Professor of Set Design at the Naples Academy) and Rebecca Carlizzi. The video is dedicated to all theatre and music workers, who are currently suffering due to the limitations imposed to contain the contagion.

The same pandemic which caused the closure of the theatres that we wanted to evoke by mobilising emotions also derailed our work, preventing us from finding a space to use as a studio and host face-to-face meetings. So Nera Prota and I identified in Benedetta Tramontano the right person to develop the sketch of an empty theatre, which would become the ‘object’ to be ‘crossed’ with a virtual eye. Immersed in the global and analytical contemplation of this sketch and in the listening to the ‘Intermezzo’ (a piece for classical guitar and percussion that Rosalba Quindici composed in 2015 ), I rewrote the script entirely. The role of digital processing became central and with it also that of Ruggero Cerino. All this to remind us that a performative product is always the fruit of a collective action in which different skills, sensibilities and authorial specificities intersect and combine in the organic totality of the final result.

[online 16/11/20]

The video of the original version of the piece (for solo classical guitar), in the performance by Ruben Mattia Santorsa, can be found at the following You Tube address: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOcMoXOJZn4