Visual Language of Performance
2008 – 2009

“How a man can escape from his daily life and arrive in the world of hyperreality? How dream and illusion could be inserted in our life, giving an ambiance of poetry, of art?”
My research field is better completed after the exploration of the image and the form that I want for my final project. I am interested in the presentation of hyperreality and of an illusionary dimension of world. The main goal, the main proposition of my performance will be the domination of fantasy and the end of everyday routine.
I will display all the performers, directors, but also movements that influenced me from the ancient years until today, and that I believe they achieve the result I would like to give in my project.

Aristophanes
In arts generally and especially in theatre there have been a notion in artists trying to present world in a non realistic base since ancient years. It was in 5th century that Aristophanes wrote many comedies that the heroes were transferred in another kind of reality. Theatre in ancient years allowed audience's fantasy free and made them be part of the performance atmosphere.
“We are used to ‘theatre of illusion’ – the three sided box and special effects make us believe that we are there, watching what goes on. But Greek Drama is “theatre of convention,” or, in Taplin’s phrase ‘theatre of mind’”. (Meinek, Peter. ed. (2000) Aristophanes Clouds).
The classical plays of ancient Greece are still investigated by scientists because theses plays present the needs of human beings and this is always current. The exploration of a new life was obvious in plays of Aristophanes. As Nan Dunbar notice “Some scholars have seen Birds as a comedy of pure escape from harsh reality into poetic fantasy”.
The thirst of knowledge and the need of an advanced quality of life, the need of escape bad situations, the doubts and the investigation of world are totally going with human nature.
“People are still in dept, still trying to escape hustle and bustle of everyday life, still looking for their own Cloudcuckoolands”, as Peter Meinek mentions.
For these reasons, Aristophanes and set designers, who have worked on his comedies like Dionisis Fotopoulos, would be one of my research fields.

Commedia dell’arte and artists influenced by it.
As leaving the work of the Greek writer we could find other forms of theatre that response to my research proposal such as commedia dell’ arte. The masks, the costumes and the element of grotesque in the behaviour of the heroes of the plays influenced later many artists through the centuries, such us Moliere, or even later Marx brothers. Even in 20th century we can recognize the figure of doctor or pantaloon or Pierrot.
After a further consideration, these two sources of research and of inspiration are related between them. S. Rhodie notices that K. McLeish in a study of Aristophanes’ Birds concludes for the main heroes of the play that
“Peisistratos and Euelpides are a double clown act of strtaight man and fool. He compares them to the couples Laurel and Hardy and Groucho Marx and Margaret Dumont”.

Fellini
Laurel and Hardy had influenced Fellini, who will be the third field of research. Sam Rohdie writes about him:
“The dreams ...took the place of the maternal real. It was a happier place than the real. It was a liberation from it.” And, he adds “The real in Fellini’s films is a version of unreality. The illusions are illusions admitted as an aspect of the true of imaginary and of images. No reality is proposed as original. There are only instead different multiple levels of unreality”.
Fellini was a director who permitted his fantasy to lead his work and his way of thinking, as a consequence he manipulated and reformed anew the real facts giving to them an oneiric dimension. The clowns, the caricatures, the illusions and the dreams are Fellini’s world, a world that looks to me so attractive.

Parade - Picasso
Another reference that I will use is “Parade” of Picasso. This ballet was inspired by commedia dell’arte and events influenced by this, like circus and travelling fair. As L. Massine noticed
“It’s true we utilized certain element’s of contemporary show business – rag time music, jazz, the cinema billboard advertising, circus and music hall techniques – but we took only their salient futures, adapting them to our own needs”.
J. Cocteau admitted that
“We had combined the accidental art of the circus with the happy remembrances of childhood”.
The element of fantasy that this ballet had, created an illusionary situation with a mood of play, something that existed also in the works I referred above. All of them aimed to achieve a non realistic atmosphere, a poetic presentation of life made by hypperealistic images and situations...

Marc Chagall
One other artist the work of whom I would like to explore is Chagall. The figures in his paintings, and the ambiance he creates could be one of the sources of my inspiration.

Contemporary companies
“Improbable” is a company that I want to investigate more, as its aesthetics seems to me so close to what I have on mind for my final project. In an interview, Lee Simpson, member of the company said about the role of fantasy in theatre “The only thing that makes theatre work is the audience imagining that it works. So you have to give them time to imagine… You’ve got to give them time to believe and to decide for themselves what it is. If you tell them they might not see that, there’s nothing worse than being told what to think.”
Other companies that seem to me interesting are “Le theatre du soleil”, “Le cirque du soleil” and “The tiger lilies” band, each one for its particular, visual characteristics.

All the artists I mentioned, have dealt with the illusionary side of life and realized it on their work. My research will be on them, as I believe that they would be great sources of inspiration.



Bibliography

-Argan, C. Giulio, (1970), L’Arte Moderna, Dall ‘Illuminismo ai movimenti contemporanei, RCS Sansoni Editore S.p.A., Firenze.

-Arnheim, Rudolf (London 1970), Visual Thinking, ed. Faber and Faber Limited

- Belli, Gabriella/ Boschiero, Nicoletta/ Passamani, Bruno (1989), Depero, Magic Theatre, Museo d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Trento e Rovereto

- Blume, Horst – Dieter, (1978), Einfuhrung in das antike Theaterwesen, ed. Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft. Darmstadt.

-Burian, Jarka (1971), The scenography of Josef Svoboda, ed. Wesleyan University Press

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- Dover, K. J (1972), The aristophanic comedy, ed.University of California press. Berkeley and Los Angeles

- Drake, G.T (1946), The English circus and fair ground

- Dunbar, Nan (1998), Birds: With Introduction and Commentary, ed. Oxford University Press.

-Εκπαιδευτικη ελληνικη εγκυκλοπαιδεια ΘΕΑΤΡΟ ΚΙΝΗΜΑΤΟΓΡΑΦΟΣ ΜΟΥΣΙΚΗ – ΧΟΡΟΣ. 1999, Ekdotike Athenon S.A {Educational Greek Encyclopaedia THEATRE CINEMA MUSIC – DANCE (1999), ed. Ekdotike Athenon S.A}

- Evans, A.B (1977), JEAN COCTEAU and His Films of Orphic Identity, ed. London: Associated University Presses

- Green, Martin Burgess and Swan, C. John (1993), The Triumph of Pierrot: The Commedia Dell'arte and the Modern Imagination, ed. Penn State Press


- Kearney, Richard (1988), The wake of imagination, ed. Routlege

- Meineck, Peter (2000), Clouds, ed. Hackett Publishing.

- Moretti, Charles (2001), Theatre et societe dans la grece antique, ed. Librairie Generale Francaise, Paris.

- Philips, Adams (1998), The beast in the nursery, ed. Faber and Faber Limited

- Russell, Douglas. A ((1976), THEATRICAL STYLE, A Visual Approach to the Theatre, Mayfield Publishing Company

- Zimmermann, Bernhard (1998), Die griechische Komodie, Patmos Verlag GmbH &Co.KG. Artemis &Winkler Verlag, Dusseldorf und Zurich.


RESEARCH PROPOSAL