REALITY


The season REALITY as it was planned and presented in February 2020 has been cancelled as per the regional order of 04/03/20. The season has been rescheduled as REALITY?.


 

You don’t want to do a philosophical analysis of realism, neo-realism, modernity and post-modernism.
Neither simplify an English word that by now has entered the common Italian vocabulary and sees Reality only and solely linked to show.

For us, Reality is simply, and perhaps trivially, the reality. That reality which keeps us anchored to the present day, to its observation, to its analysis, to its interpretation. It is the reality of the facts, the matter of reality, which we believe to exist despite the disorientation caused by the overload of information, despite the spread of “fake news”, despite shameless political propaganda that fears neither self-contradiction nor the explicit lie.

It is that reality that in 2018, with the rise of populist movements and a new form of power that disdained knowledge but was built on communication, made us think of Power. That same reality that the following year with Economy led us to turn our gaze to the economic world, its excesses and its distortions.

And it is always the reality that, at the end of the three-year period with Reality, takes the place of honour and, after two years of glossy and metaphorical images, invade with its power, as a quick overview of global reality. An overview that questions the meaning of the world and would like to be “cosmopolitan” following the thought of the German sociologist Ulrich Beck who spoke of the need for a “daily look, vigilant at history, reflective, which arises in an environment in which borders, differences and cultural contradictions vanish […] “.

GLOBAL, VIRTUAL and HUMAN are the three focuses that accompany the season, keys of interpretation to explore the current framework of contemporary society. Three focuses and not four as in previous years, to give more unity and coherence to the autumn programme and to allow a longer holding of some shows.

At the closing, not only of the year but also of the three-year period and of a path that until today has led us to invite the most representative names of that genre defined Theatre of reality, we will dedicate two days to a convention of reflection and discussion on how we view the future of the theatre in relation to the reality.

An important opportunity to take stock of the current situation in Europe but also to bring up new issues and questions. For the occasion, we’ll invite some of the artists we hosted over the years, and the representatives and critics that are the most sensitive to this topic.

 

SPECIAL EVENT
15 February 2020
WIM VANDEKEYBUS/ULTIMA VEZ (BE)
GO FIGURE OUT YOURSELF
[dance performance]
presented in collaboration with and c/o Casa degli Artisti

 

FOCUS GLOBAL 27 February – 22 March 2020

27 – 28 February 2020
VALTERS SĪLIS (LV)
BEING A NATIONALIST
[show]

14 – 15 March 2020
GUINEA PIGS (IT)
#NUOVIPOVERI
[show]

21 – 22 March 2020
ROGER BERNAT / FFF (ES)
NESSUNA CONVERSAZIONE DEGNA DI RILIEVO
[show with headset]

 

FOCUS VIRTUAL 2 APRIL – 17 May 2020

2 – 3 April 2020
SILKE HUYSMANS & HANNES DEREERE | CAMPO (BE)
PLEASANT ISLAND
[multidisciplinary theatre documentary]
presented in collaboration with Fattoria Vittadini c/o Spazio Fattoria

22 – 24 May 2020
MAMMALIAN DIVING REFLEX (Canada)
THE LAST MINUTES BEFORE MARS
[multimedia performance]
a ZONA K and FOG Triennale Milano Performing Arts project

13 – 14 and 16 – 17 May 2020
CODICEFIONDA (IT)
PLAY ME (Origins Project)
[multimedia performance]
A ZONA K project

 

FOCUS HUMAN Octobre – Novembre 2020

start October – end November 2020
RIMINI PROTOKOLL (DE)
TURNO DI NOTTE
[travelling urban performance]
A  ZONA K project in collaboration with Casa degli Artisti
c/o places in the city

22 – 23 October 2020
BABILONIA TEATRI (IT)
GIULIO
[show]

12 – 13 Novembre 2020
M. Anderson, I. Kralj THEATRE GIGANTE (USA) and
A. Renda TEATRO DELLE ALBE /RAVENNA TEATRO (IT)
IN THE BELLY OF THE BEAST
[show]

28 – 29 Novembre 2020
AGRUPACIÓN SEÑOR SERRANO (ES)
THE MOUNTAIN
[multimedia show]
A ZONA K co-production presented in collaboration with Olinda Onlus
c/o TeatroLaCucina

Novembre 2020
CONVENTION

 

The artists in residence during 2020 are:
Anna Serlenga (IT)
Guinea Pigs (IT)
Muna Mussie (IT)
Yan Duyvendak (CH)
Mats Staub (DE)
Michele Losi (IT)
+ the winner of the IntercettAzioni contest 2020

 

photo ©Michele Borzoni / TerraProject

 

The season REALITY is a ZONA K project – Subject of regional relevance of the Lombardy region – With support of MIBACT Ministero dei beni e delle attività culturali e del turismo, ORA! Compagnia di San Paolo – With the patronage of the Comune di Milano, the Belgian embassy in Rome, Istituto Cervantes Milano, Goethe Institut, Italian embassy in Canada – In collaboration with Casa degli Artisti, Fattoria Vittadini, Triennale Milano, Olinda, Stratagemmi, Mare culturale urbano, Claps Circuito Lombardia Arti Performative, Industria Scenica, Teatro delle Moire, Milano Musica – Communication partner: Profili, Neo Studio

 

WIM VANDEKEYBUS
ULTIMA VEZ (BE)

The space of the Casa Degli Artisti, which is recently returned to the city, has been chosen for the opening of the Theatre season 2020 REALITY of ZONA K.

In Go Figure Out Yourself, an encounter with the audience in an unprepared space, five characters take you far beyond the protective walls of the theatre and they show you a place where you can give shape to your own thoughts, simply by looking and listening to others. At the rhythm of a soundtrack that mixes words, music and dance, you are invited to participate in an unpredictable and exciting trail.

Go Figure Out Yourself explores the boundaries between audience and performers.

Simply moving freely in the space, you will become part of a group happening, which will leave you in the end with many questions and few answers. The slowness of everything contrasts with the speed of the individual. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Everything is what it is.

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presented in collaboration with and c/o Casa degli Artisti, Corso Garibaldi, 89/A – via Tommaso da Cazzaniga -M2 Moscova-

Info: dance performance • duration 75 min. • in English
Nb: audience and performers share the same stage space. There are no chairs.

Standard tickets: 15,00 € – Students/under 26/over 65/groups: 10,00€
You can pick up tickets at Casa degli Artisti, Corso Garibaldi, 89/A – via Tommaso da Cazzaniga -M2 Moscova-

Part of the subscription shows
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direction, choreography, scenography Wim Vandekeybus, created and interpreted by Sadé Alleyne, Maria Kolegova, Hugh Stanier, Kit King, Tim Bogaerts, dramaturgy Aïda Gabriëls, lighting design Davy Deschepper, Wim Vandekeybus, costume design Isabelle Lhoas assisted by Isabelle De Cannière, technical coordination Davy Deschepper, sound engineer Bram Moriau, stage manager Tom de With, producer Ultima Vez, co-producer Les Brigittines (Bruxelles), with the support of the Tax Shelter measure of the Belgian Federal Government, Casa Kafka Pictures Tax Shelter empowered by Belfius, Ultima Vez is supported by the Flemish Authorisations and the Flemish community commission of the Brussels-Capital region.

 

Physicality, passion and intuition are the main elements of Wim Vandekeybus’ work, one of the greatest exponents of the international performance scene. A multifaceted artist, choreographer, director, performer who attended the University of Leuven where he studied psychology. Fascinated by the relationship between mind and body, this interest influenced all his choreographic work.
In 1987 he founded the Ultima Vez company with which he made almost 30 productions as well as numerous films and videos. The use of different media and languages ​​translates into a constantly evolving cast that includes dancers, circus performers, actors, musicians and collaborations with artists from different disciplines.

Stop activity due to Covid19

Audience survey

AMID FEARS, GOOD NEWS FROM THE PUBLIC

The Theatre has been one of the main victims of the pandemic. Without belittling the very serious damage suffered by the artistic staff and the entire production chain of the performing arts, there is a positive note that, in the midst of so much discouragement, brings a certain relief: the public has felt the absence of the theatre, and is eager to return to it.

This is one of the data that emerges clearly from the questionnaire designed and disseminated by ZONA K and Stratagemmi, with the support of Codici Ricerche, between May and June 2020: a crucial period, immediately following the lockdown.
The questionnaire aimed to find out what people’s feelings and expectations were about the reopening of the theatres, which had to be imagined in a different way from the pre-Covid period; making a virtue of necessity, the creators of the survey used this opportunity for dialogue with the public to sound out questions that only partly have to do with the emergency situation of the last few months. For example: how much artistic proposals accessible via telematics are actually appreciated; what is the relationship of the public with experimental languages and forms; how much the spatial context in which the performance takes place influences the spectators’ appreciation.

The survey produced valuable and at times unpredictable results: just think of the widespread enthusiasm for open-air performances, which certainly does not find an adequate response in the seasonal programmes of our theatres. Or the evident disaffection towards remote, telematic artistic fruition: an experience that spectators are definitely satiated with.

There is also – and this bodes well – a certain confidence in theatres as regards their compliance with health and hygiene requirements in order to prevent the risk of an epidemic resurgence: the interviewees declare more impatience than fear, suggesting that for them the theatre is not only an essential meeting place, but also a safe, reliable place.

In short: the data that emerge are by no means obvious, and can help us to understand where to start again, and in what directions.

Certainly, as shown by the numerous encouragements that the interviewees attached to the questionnaire, the public is there, and is cheering for the theatre.

See the results of the questionnaire

 

Foto by Cristina Lorenzi for ZONA K, BODIES IN URBAN SPACES 2017 di Cie. Willi Dorner

REALITY?

In the presentation of the Reality 2020 season we told our vision of reality that did not want to translate into a philosophical disquisition or a flattening on the spectacularization of contemporary media. It was a title that wanted to close a three-year period where ample space was given to artists who have done their research and art from the Theater of Reality. A three-year period that started with Power and continued with Economy in which we felt the need to analyze and interpret the present, always keeping an eye on the so-called reality data as a rudder that keeps the course despite the brazen and unrepentant political propaganda that does not fear neither the self-contradiction nor the explicit lie.

Of that season – which should have been structured in the Global, Human and Virtual focuses – we just had time to present the special event that went beyond the focus but which for us had the symbolic flavor of a first show that ZONA K brought into Casa degli Artisti.

Then everything, as for everyone, stopped. The companies were first warned, then put on stand by, and finally the shows were canceled. Suddenly our strength, our distinctive trait, our identity and consistency in design choices and consolidated international relationships have become our boomerang. How to keep up a season that would have included numerous European artists? How to reopen a space where the distancing measures force to have no more than 20 spectators? How to look beyond the obstacle to imagine and build a new reality?

The word “new” was enough to re-tune us and to start again from where we left off. If it is a new reality that we have to live, then our season can be called REALITY ?. The question mark not only closes a questioning sentence, but also summarizes the amazement, perplexity and ultimately the hope that this is not really a new world to be invented, but a phase, a parenthesis not to be archived and from which to start again.

We therefore start from the desire to find a new meaning to reality, new perspectives, new ways of enjoying culture thanks to a continuous comparison with some of the artists who have accompanied us most in recent years. Thus the new autumn season that has emerged continues the path started where possible and leaves much more space for those distinctive features that have characterized our work in past years: complex projects, urban performances, shows for a few spectators at a time, collaboration with theaters larger to accommodate artists who need the stage. The most important novelty is the desire to give more space and time to the shows in the season with, on our part, an important productive effort: many of the shows we offer are real productions and co-productions. It is a choice that was already in the making and that found a boost in the pandemic: to continue working on an annual season, but with even more our projects that are able to sustain a long life and that do not run out in the space of a few reruns. 

Events:

15 – 24 September 2020
UNDER COVID
Gianmarco Maraviglia
curated by Chiara Oggioni Tiepolo
[photographic exhibition]

14 October – 14 November 2020
FASE NOVE || Assolo Urbano 

Ekin Bozkurt, Chiara Campara, Giulia Oglialoro, Riccardo Tabilio and Francesco Venturi (IT)
with Rimini Protokoll (DE)
a ZONA K and Casa degli Artisti production
[urban walk]

23 – 25 October 2020
R500 – SAFARI NEL LABIRINTO URBANO. Studio #II
Michele Losi / Pleiadi Art Prod. (IT)
[urban walk]

5 – 15 November 2020
PLAY ME (ORIGINS PROJECT) 

a ZONA K production, by CODICEFIONDA (IT)

dramaturgical advice Agrupación Señor Serrano (ES)
[multimedia performance]

18 – 28 November 2020
ENA – Nomen Nescio

Roger Bernat (ES)
with the collaboration of Mar Canet e Varvara Guljajeva
[online collective writing]

23 – 28 November 2020
REALITY? 4 dialogues on theatre and the contemporary 
Sara Chiappori
and Renata Viola
[conference]

postponed
THE MOUNTAIN 
Agrupacion Señor Serrano (ES)
a ZONA K co – production, in collaboration with Tieffe Teatro Menotti Milano
[show]

photo: terraproject
edit & graphics: NEO studio

 

Why REALITY?

Cinemas, theatres, concert halls: when computers are switched off and live streaming platforms are closed, you are back – with due care – to experience live.

But what does it mean to return to theatre after months of lockdown from a programming point of view? How do you build a season in Covid period?

Once the often very tangled knots of compliance, with the rules, have been untangled, the organizers are faced with the challenge of proposing an offer that, more than ever before this year, has to face the target audience: it is necessary to hypothesize scenarios and diversify the offer. For the audience to return to the theatre and reactivate a virtuous participation mechanism, it is therefore essential to know artistic expectations and needs.

For this reason (as part of the project on the promotion of the audience supported with the Mibact contribution for the three-year period 2018/2020) ZONA K and Stratagemmi have taken charge of directly questioning the audience: with the collaboration of Stefano Laffi (Codici), we have developed a questionnaire to investigate the needs, uncertainties, but also ideas and proposals for the future.

The result was a somewhat unexpected picture – useful to get to know the audience in depth, even beyond the emergency situation – which helped to shape the autumn season of ZONA K, not by chance named with the questioning title “Reality?

The sample who answered the questionnaire was for the most part (8 people out of 10) curious and enthusiastic about trying out alternative forms of entertainment to the traditional ones, based on new languages and a different way of experiencing the space. Interactive devices that can be used remotely, or itinerant walks around the city: the important thing – our spectators told us – is to feel safer. Those who want to return to the theatre, but also those who are still undecided, prefer in the vast majority (87% of cases) outdoor performances. The theatre, suggests the outcome of the questionnaire, can therefore move around, cross places, and the audience is ready to follow it.

This is when the season of ZONA K starts en plein air. The dances are opened by the most famous professionals of urban scenic devices, Rimini Protokoll: they are the curators of FASE NOVE // Assolo Urbano (14 October-14 November), a tour of nine important city places from the artistic point of view. The aim of the walk is to ask ourselves about some unresolved contemporary issues that exploded with great force during the pandemic: why does art exist? And how fundamental is it in our daily lives?

And for those who are not satisfied, a second chance for an itinerant performance is also ready: the Pleiadi collective has prepared R 500 – Safari in the urban labyrinth. #Studio II (23-25 October).

And the virtual? What do spectators think about it?

Saturated with screens and video calls that mark the working days, the respondents answered loud and clear: there is no interest in the telematic vision of a show, neither deferred (an option only for 3 people out of 10) nor live streaming (for 4 out of 10). Theatre, after all, is a relationship. This is well known to the European Lord of participatory theatre, Roger Bernat, who has thought up a new home theatre project in recent months (available between 18-28 November). The ENA device invites the audience to relate, through the use of an app, with an artificial intelligence. The spectators through questions, invitations and indications have the possibility to confront face to face with a “fake” human being in an encounter that is not an end in itself, as often happens when we are dealing with bots born for commercial purposes, but aimed at creating a real dramaturgical text that will take shape from the dialogues between the spectators and ENA.

The interactive multimedia relationship is also at the centre of Play me (Origins project) by Codicefionda and Agrupación Señor Serrano (5-15 November), which can be enjoyed by one viewer at a time. The subject of investigation is the relationship of adolescents and adults with the world of gaming and real identities.

There is, however, still someone who wants to come back and sit in the audience (about 44% of respondents). For them, Agrupación Señor Serrano presents The Mountain (2-3 December) a work that deals with a very hot topic, the relationship between true and false, between news and fake news, between robots and humans, starting from a statistical consideration that involves the public: on average each of us lies three times a day. So does the truth exist? And how can we find it?

The editorial staff of Stratagemmi Prospettive Teatrali 

Gianmarco Maraviglia

ZONA K has always been attentive to the language of photography and how it represents reality. So we have decided to reopen our premises with a photographic exhibition that tells with clarity and modesty what has happened and that has upset our daily lives to better understand that question mark on our near future.

… … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … …

It’s as if something jammed and then broke. Broken time, reality, habits. The sense of freedom, the lightness, a certain arrogance in taking life for granted, even. That life.
Then the day came when everything changed. The light-heartedness was wiped out, a typically Italian gesture was cancelled, the ‘normal’ flow of habits and days was swept away. We have discovered ourselves vulnerable, the universe to be conquered has shrunk to the point of entering our homes. Once the certainties had been pulverised, the scaffolding stripped away, we clung to the only certainties that were still solid.

We have waited, as if we were locked in a bunker, for another entity to give us the green light once again. Our existence has been entrusted first to a bulletin, then to technologies. The word ‘control’ took on the reassuring hues of a cloak of protection.
And finally the reopening. Hurrah. So here we all are in the streets, in a hurry and with the urgency to regain possession of the time that once was, the almost physical need to convince ourselves that it was all over, past, ready to be forgotten.

And yet. We pretended nothing had happened, we wanted nothing to happen. But something still doesn’t work. And it is only now, probably, now that the emotions are settling and sedimenting, that we have the courage and lucidity to understand how much that fracture of the normal has really fixed itself inside us irreversibly. Gianmarco Maraviglia wanted to tell ‘his’ covid, in a narrative somewhere between an intimate account and a photojournalistic investigation, while avoiding the more detailed dimension of the disease. But he too was faced with the dilemma of “misalignment”. How, then, to visually represent and synthesise the change in the sequence of reality that our lives have undergone? Thus was born the glitch, the system error. Images of “matrixian” suggestion that leave open a question about our near future.

Opening – 15 September 2020, 7 pm
On display – 15 to 24 September 2020

Tuesday – Sunday 17.00 – 21.00 Monday 17.00 – 19.00

Free entrance limited to max 20 people at the same time

Bozkurt, Campara, Oglialoro, Tabilio, Venturi con Rimini Protokoll

Due to the Covid19 emergency, replays are suspended from 28 October 2020.

A project by ZONA K and Casa degli Artisti

The pandemic emergency led to a division of the social components into systemically relevant and not relevant. For many it was also a psychological polarization: between what is essential and what is superfluous. The artistic professions are not among those socially necessary.

Should we think of a world in which art will no longer play a role? Can we imagine a reality that cancels the existence of art and of those who work there? What relationship can art have with each of us in this state of crisis? Is something that has long since gotten stale about to end? Can such a profound crisis be an opportunity?

FASE NOVE || Assolo Urbano invites us to ask ourselves these questions in the context of the city. Nine important places for art in Milan – some iconic, others unusual – become the stage for nine audio installations which, through interviews with various experts, are confronted with a provocative question: why does art exist and not nothing?

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opening hours: Wednesday to Friday from h. 13.30 to 16.30 every 10 minutes, Saturday from h. 10.00 to 13.00 every 10 minutes

departure Casa degli Artisti, Corso Garibaldi, 89/A – via Tommaso da Cazzaniga -M2 Moscova-.

Info: urban walk for 1 person – in Italian – closed on Monday
Tickets can be picked up on the day of the walk 15 minutes before the start at Casa degli Artisti, Corso Garibaldi, 89/A – via Tommaso da Cazzaniga -M2 Moscova-.

BASIC INFORMATION FOR PARTICIPATING
A document will be requested as a deposit for the use of the navigator.
As this is a route with mandatory stops, the departure time cannot be postponed. The walk takes about 120 minutes and will be covered on foot. The place of arrival is close to the place of departure. It is recommended to wear comfortable and waterproof shoes in case of light rain; in case of heavy rain the event will be canceled.
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** Performative action included in “IntercettAzioni” – Artistic Residence Center of Lombardy: a project by Circuito CLAPS and ZONA K, Industria Scenica, Milano Musica, Teatro delle Moire, with the contribution of the Lombardy Region, MiBACT and Fondazione Cariplo. **

Artists Ekin Bozkurt, Chiara Campara, Giulia Oglialoro, Riccardo Tabilio and Francesco Venturi Artistic supervision Aljoscha Begrich and Jörg Karrenbauer (Rimini Protokoll) Project management Valentina Kastlunger (ZONA K) Audio coordination and mixing William Geroli Multimedia implementation Stripes Digitus Lab In collaboration with Eataly Smeraldo, Goethe-Institut Milano, Fondazione Giangiacomo Feltrinelli, Giardini in Transito – Giardino Comunitario Lea Garofalo, Anteo Palazzo del Cinema, Piccolo Teatro di Milano Main partner Casa degli Artisti BNP Paribas Thanks to Feltrinelli bookshop in viale Pasubio, Il Barettino in via Solferino, Armonium Galvan Photo Luca Del Pia WithGiuliana Bonifati, Christian Gangitano, Laura Pugno, David Bidussa, Marta Alessandri, Mauro Ferraresi, Silvia Vizzardelli, Wu Ming 2, Palma Rivetti (Mina), Roberta Carpani


BIO

Ekin Bozkurt (sound designer), Chiara Campara (filmmaker), Giulia Oglialoro (author, journalist), Riccardo Tabilio (author and dramaturg) and Francesco Venturi (composer) are the artists that the second open call of Casa degli Artisti on the theme “Work” Selected in March 2020 for the artistic project shared with the German collective Rimini Protokoll.

The work, coordinated and followed by Jörg Karrenbauer and Aljoscha Begrich of Rimini Protokoll in the role of mentors, was completely rethought during the months of lockdown. The theme of work remained central, but he decided to focus in particular on work in the world of culture and art, a theme made even more urgent by the crisis caused by the pandemic. It was decided to work precisely on contingency, considering it an opportunity, investigating the changing perception of spaces and cultural operators.

Rimini Protokoll was founded in 2000 by Stefan Kaegi, Helgard Haug and Daniel Wetzel and over the years has collaborated with various constellations of artists. The goal is to expand the means of the theater in order to create new perspectives on reality. Rimini Protokoll avails itself of the collaboration of experts, whose knowledge and skills go beyond the theater, to produce shows, radio productions and urban interventions that often translate urban spaces and social structures into theatrical formats.

Michele Losi / Pleiadi (IT)

R 500 – Safari in the urban labyrinth. #Studio II is an urban walk that leads the public to explore nature, sometimes hidden from our eyes, and its complex relationship with urban architecture and inhabitants, within a narrow radius of 500 meters between ZONA K and Biblioteca degli Alberi.

This second stage of the research work, which began in October 2019, arises from two artistic residences of the Pleiadi collective in ZONA K and from the European format “Radius” of the Dutch artist Sjoerd Wagenaar: a method of artistic and scientific investigation of a narrow range of territory.
The Radius format invites people to look at the surrounding landscape with a new look, based on knowledge of the environment. The artists collect stories from the residents, consult scientists, architects, biologists, ‘digging’ and mapping the radius of the territory, returning the outcome of the investigation to the public through an urban walk.
Also this year there will be the contribution of the collective of architects Studio Pasta Madre.

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Friday 23 and Saturday 24 October 17.00 – 17.45 – 18.30
Sunday 25 October 16.00 – 16.45 – 17.30

Info: Urban walk for 10 people • in Italian

The walk takes about 100 minutes and will be covered on foot.
The place of arrival is close to the place of departure.
It is recommended to wear comfortable and waterproof shoes in case of light rain; in case of heavy rain the event will be canceled.

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A project by Pleiadi, Campsirago Residenza, in collaboration with ZONA K (IT), The International Academy for Natural Arts (NL), BAM – Biblioteca degli Alberi Milano (IT), Artistic and scientific team Michele Losi, Sjoerd Wagenaar, Liliana Benini, Sofia Bolognini, Marialice Tagliavini, Luca Maria Baldini, Emilio Padoa Schioppa, Studio Pasta Madre collective. Citizens of the neighborhood who will participate in the survey.

** Performative action included in “InterettAzioni” – Artistic Residence Center of Lombardy: a project by Circuito CLAPS Industria Scenica, ZONA K, Milano Musica, Teatro delle Moire, with the contribution of the Lombardy Region, MiBACT and Fondazione Cariplo. **

 

Roger Bernat (ES)

with the collaboration of Mar Canet and Varvara Guljajeva

and the live Facebook participation of
Roberto Fratini 20 November at 9.00 p.m. – 9.30 p.m.
Renato Gabrielli 21st November at 9.00 – 9.30 p.m.
Magdalena Barile 22 November at 9.00 – 9.30 p.m.

Special guest ROGER BERNAT
______________________________________

 

From 18 to 28 November, 24 hours a day, the Catalan director Roger Bernat, who generally creates performances without performers, offers us the opportunity to write an oceanic play directly from the ZONA K website.

Luis Buñuel and Jean-Claude Carrière locked themselves in a room and, embodying their characters, wrote the scripts for their future films. On the theater website, instead of conversing with Buñuel, Carrière or Shakespeare, the internet user converses with ENA, a bot that mimics human conversation. According to the Wikipedia definition, a bot is a sequence of computers that performs repetitive tasks that would be impossible or very burdensome for a human being. To learn how to write, ENA was shown 8 million documents.

The bots that answer the phone when we call big companies, those that affect social networks when elections are approaching or the bots we face in electronic games are brothers and sisters of ENA. But ENA doesn’t want to sell us anything, doesn’t want to inform us of any news (fake or real) and doesn’t even want to comfort us. ENA was conceived with the only purpose of pretending to be a human being, therefore to make theatre. ENA does not understand what she says or is told. For ENA, language is just a sequence of signs to which it responds with another sequence. Any dialogue with ENA will only make sense to the person participating in the conversation and to the audience reading the conversation on the theater’s website at the time. Having a dialogue with ENA is like playing squash with a wall that returns the ball to you. Keep in mind that, as a human being, you may be surprised or angry, or tired. ZONA K cannot be held responsible for messages sent by ENA which may be unpredictable.

CAUTION:
ENA learned to write with GPT-2 (OpenAI) and dialogues thanks to DialoGPT (Microsoft) of the Transformer (Google) database. For this reason, although he understands Italian, he answers only in English. Nobody’s perfect.

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Info: online collective writing • duration as desired • in Italian and English translated simultaneously
Participation: free, non-stop 24 hours a day on the zonak.it website

If you have spoken to ENA and want a copy of your dialogue, send an email to biglietti@zonak.it clearly indicating the nickname and day of your interview
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A project by Roger Bernat with the collaboration of Mar Canet and Varvara Guljajeva web design and programming Mar Canet and Varvara Guldjajeva graphics Marie-Klara González coordination Helena Febrés co-production  FFF and Teatre Lliure thanks to Fabiano Cocozza

BIO

Magdalena Barile lives and works in Milan. Author, playwright and screenwriter, she teaches Theatre Writing at the Civica Scuola di Teatro Paolo Grassi and at the Scuola Belleville and Screenplay at the IED – Istituto Europeo di Design. Her theatre texts, many of which have been translated into several languages, are the most recent: Raffiche (2016); Il divorzio, adaptation of the film Divorzio all’italiana by Pietro Germi (2016); Rosa Conchiglia. Anaïs Nin e i giorni del porno ( (2017); Cosa beveva Janis Joplin (2018); Api Regine. Commedia fantascientifica sull’eliminazione del maschio (2018). She collaborates permanently as author and screenwriter with Swiss Radiotelevision (RSI) and has participated in the writing of several drama and comedy programmes for Italian television (Albero Azzurro, Camera Cafè, Bye Bye Cindarella).

Roberto Fratini Serafide (Milan, 1972), playwright and dance theorist, is a lecturer at the Conservatori Superior de Danza (Istituto del Teatro) in Barcelona, and has held courses and lectures at other European universities. He collaborates with several international contemporary dance and theatre companies (among them Caterina Sagna Company, La Veronal, Roger Bernat FFF, Taiat Dansa, Germana Civera, Aerites Dance Company, Alexandra Waierstall, Sol Picó, Philippe Saire) and has given dramaturgy workshops at different masters and theatre institutions. His book A Contracuento. La danza y las derivas del narrar was published in 2012. In 2013 he received the FAD Sebastià Gasch Prize for his artistic and intellectual trajectory.

Renato Gabrielli, playwright and screenwriter, teaches at the “Paolo Grassi” and the “Luchino Visconti” School of Cinema in Milan. He is the author of the guide Scrivere per il teatro (Carocci, 2015). Among his most recent theatre works: Combattenti (“Hystrio” XXIX-3, 2014), La donna che legge (Cue Press, 2015), Redenzione (2017), Spin (2018), Fammi un’ altra domanda and Nessun miracolo a Milano (2020). In 2008 he won the Hystrio Prize for Dramaturgy. In 2020, with Procedura, he won the Premio InediTo Colline di Torino – Sezione Teatro.

 

Fratini, Gabrielli, Barile: author writings with ENA

3 playwrights were called to interact with ENA Nomen Nescio, a bot imitating human conversation.

Introduced by the Catalan director Roger Bernat, creator of the online performance, and Valentina Kastlunger, artistic director of ZONA K, Roberto Fratini, Renato Gabrielli and Magdalena Barile, they will take part in the writing of an oceanic play directly on the homepage of this site.

– 20 November at 9.00 p.m. – 9.30 p.m.
– 21 November at 9.00 p.m. – 9.30 p.m.
– 22 November at 9.00 p.m. – 9.30 p.m.

The interventions can be followed live on FACEBOOK of ZONA K

 

BIO

Magdalena Barile lives and works in Milan. Author, playwright and screenwriter, she teaches Theatre Writing at the Civica Scuola di Teatro Paolo Grassi and at the Scuola Belleville and Screenplay at the IED – Istituto Europeo di Design. Her theatre texts, many of which have been translated into several languages, are the most recent: Raffiche (2016); Il divorzio, adaptation of the film Divorzio all’italiana by Pietro Germi (2016); Rosa Conchiglia. Anaïs Nin e i giorni del porno ( (2017); Cosa beveva Janis Joplin (2018); Api Regine. Commedia fantascientifica sull’eliminazione del maschio (2018). She collaborates permanently as author and screenwriter with Swiss Radiotelevision (RSI) and has participated in the writing of several drama and comedy programmes for Italian television (Albero Azzurro, Camera Cafè, Bye Bye Cindarella).

Roberto Fratini Serafide (Milan, 1972), playwright and dance theorist, is a lecturer at the Conservatori Superior de Danza (Istituto del Teatro) in Barcelona, and has held courses and lectures at other European universities. He collaborates with several international contemporary dance and theatre companies (among them Caterina Sagna Company, La Veronal, Roger Bernat FFF, Taiat Dansa, Germana Civera, Aerites Dance Company, Alexandra Waierstall, Sol Picó, Philippe Saire) and has given dramaturgy workshops at different masters and theatre institutions. His book A Contracuento. La danza y las derivas del narrar was published in 2012. In 2013 he received the FAD Sebastià Gasch Prize for his artistic and intellectual trajectory.

Renato Gabrielli, playwright and screenwriter, teaches at the “Paolo Grassi” and the “Luchino Visconti” School of Cinema in Milan. He is the author of the guide Scrivere per il teatro (Carocci, 2015). Among his most recent theatre works: Combattenti (“Hystrio” XXIX-3, 2014), La donna che legge (Cue Press, 2015), Redenzione (2017), Spin (2018), Fammi un’ altra domanda and Nessun miracolo a Milano (2020). In 2008 he won the Hystrio Prize for Dramaturgy. In 2020, with Procedura, he won the Premio InediTo Colline di Torino – Sezione Teatro.

Meetings by Sara Chiappori & Renata Viola

The relationship with reality presses the performing arts, interrogates them and inhabits them, both object and habitat of an investigation that mixes grammar and semantics of the languages of the scene, re-discussing the concept of author and interpreter, reformulating the criteria of fruition and appropriation of space, definitively clearing the new technologies, opening explicit connections with sociology, urban planning, statistics, political discourse, economics.

ZONA K has given account of all this in the last few seasons, pointing out the critical points of reflection, ethics before aesthetics, around and within the contemporary. Hence, the need to open a theoretical window to try a further investigation that leaves room for doubts rather than certainties.

Designed for a diverse audience, spectators, operators, university students, curious and restless citizens, REALITY? has the ambition to make the languages of the scene react like in a chemical experiment with the alphabets of other disciplines, comparing artists who have worked with ZONA K and theorists who have deepened the same themes, but from the point of view of their skills.

The meetings will be published simultaneously on   e   di  ZONA K

  • Monday 23 November, 6.00 p.m.
    PROLOGUE: POLITIK DER BLICKE/THE POLITICS OF LOOKS
    meeting with JENS HILLJE (artistic co-director and chief dramturg at the Maxim Gorki Theater in Berlin, Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement Biennale Teatro 2019)

 

Then, four keywords for four dialogues

  • Tuesday 24th November, 6.00 p.m.
    LANDSCAPE: dialogue between VITTORIO LINGIARDI and DOM- (IT): because it feeds new dramaturgies of the space that cross the places, putting in crisis the very notion of look. Because our relationship with the landscape involves the whole body and is always a question of relationships, with others, with the world, with rules, with time, with borders.

 

  • Wednesday 25th November, 6.00 p.m.
    CRISIS dialogue between SALVATORE NATOLI and AGRUPACION SEÑOR SERRANO (ES): because “the crisis” in which we live has become a permanent and structural condition. Today, more than ever, we live in a state of emergency that forces us to reformulate new future scenarios. We are called to radically rethink everything we gave for certain and for acquired. Can all this really be considered an opportunity like the media storytelling suggests or are we on the threshold of a sort of “human revolution”?

 

  • Thursday 26 November, 6.00 p.m.
    POLITICS dialogue between JUSEPPE GENNA and VALTERS SĪLIS (LV): because we have all decreed its death, or at least embarrassment and impoverishment, but we cannot do without it. So let’s go and find it where it manifests itself in its worst forms, the fascist sovereignist populist drifts, the last temptation of a West orphaned of an alternative thought to 20th century ideologies.

 

  • Friday 27 November, 6.00 p.m.
    GAME/PARTICIPATION dialogue between STEFANO BARTEZZAGHI and ROGER BERNAT (ES):
    because the playful approach can be the key, but also the trap. If contemporary performance has accustomed us to enjoy the theatrical fact as a game, are we willing to give up in terms of attention, concentration, intellectual effort? The game, however, is not only a deresponsible escape, it can also be a very serious business.