Thursday, February 14, 2013

Atsara by Stefano Vizioli - English version

Our two Atsara in action







Rehearsals with the dancers and musicians from the Royal Academy of Performing Arts in Bhutan finish today. It has been a week full of discoveries, uncertainty, misunderstandings, collaboration and friendship ... two days ago I began to develop a possible story line with the Atsara in relation to the entrance of Polyphemus that opens the second part of Acis and Galatea.
The Atsara could be thought of as the elves that inhabit this part of the world who wear masks that are both provocative and disruptive, much loved by the Bhutanese public who consider these masks the emanation of the divine exactly because of their madness and absolute freedom of expression. 
It is both strange and difficult to accept the sacred nature of these mad libertines but I am assured that this is the case. What excites and disturbs me most is that there are many similarities with expressions familiar to my own cultural background: the Atsara wears a grotesque red mask with a distorted canine smile, an enormous nose and black oblong eyes with facial warts here and there ... my mind goes immediately to the primitive Harlequins of the Italian Commedia dell’Arte and I smell the odours of the Venetian campiello in the midst of a square in Thimphu.
Patches and phallus
The brash red attire is spattered with patches. Harlequin again appears ... the Atsara mingle with the spectators, taunting them, miming and pronouncing audacious indecencies that range from coprophilia to pornography, desecrating religion, the monks and the estabilshment. They are completely mad ergo they can say and do anything. 
They have enormous phalli on their heads attached to their headwear and they carry a wooden phallus with the sole objective of traumatizing the ladies in the audience. They even venture amongst the audience, and mime expicit coital acts in their midst.
Let’s not forget that the relation bewteen actor and spectator in Bhutan is very different from that of the West. Here there is no stage, theatre seats or proscenium which guarantee the division of the two. The public sits, stands or hunches in the courtyard of the dzong, occupying three quarters of the rectangular performance area. They sit on mats and munch on betel nut, the children are free to run as they please, often directly towards the actor of interest. The actors themselves have an almost physical relationship with the audience which becomes by necessity an integral part of the spectacle.
The enormous phallus of Zanni from the Commedia dell’Arte, brash and provocative, seems to hold the same significance as for our Bhutanese brothers. The phallus can be found everywhere, painted on the walls of houses, hanging above the entrance or an elegant furniture piece in the living room. 
I would like to use the Atsara in the scenes with Polyphemus where they would appear as two arrogant and brazen scullions. Polyphemus’ second aria ‘Cease to beauty’ is actually a revision of a censured text originally written by John Gay, copied into the original manuscript by Handel and then cancelled. The verses read:
Who would bear a woman's toying, 
  Who would be a whining lover? 

Force her if she's worth enjoying, 
  She'll forgive you when 'tis over.

Hmmm 
We would like to use this version and we hope to witness a natural reaction by the Atsara to Polyphemus’ song. I only hope, being naughty and deceptive characters, that they don’t start doing things that this pedantic director didn’t tell them to do!

Saturday, February 9, 2013

Atsara


Le prove con gli artisti della Royal Academy Performing Arts si concludono oggi, è stata una settimana carica di scoperte, tensioni, incomprensioni, coinvolgimento e amicizia..due giorni fa ho cominciato a sviluppare una possibile drammaturgia con gli Atzara, in relazione all’ingresso di Polifemo che apre la seconda parte di Acis and Galatea.
 Gli Atzara sono come dei folletti locali, delle maschere provocatrici e destabilizzanti, amatissime dal pubblico bhutanese che,  proprio per la loro follia e totale libertà di espressione, considerano queste maschere come emanazione del divino. Agli Atzara è concesso lo scherno e l’irriverenza proprio perché diretta filiazione con le entità superiori. 
E’ curioso e difficile da accettare che questi folli marpioni siano espressione sacra eppure mi spiegano che è proprio così, ma la cosa che più mi eccita e mi turba al tempo stesso è che trovo moltissime analogie con categorie a me molto più familiari: l’Atzara è una grottesca maschera rossa, dal distorto sorriso quasi canino, enorme nasone e occhi neri oblunghi, porri qua e là.. ecco che a poco a poco i primi Arlecchini cominciano a far capolino e nella piazza di Thimphu, dove stanno esercitandosi gli artisti, sento odore di campiello veneziano.
 il vestito rosso sfacciato è corredato di toppe, Arlecchino di nuovo rientra a far parte della famiglia.. vanno in mezzo al pubblico dicono e mimano sconcezze inaudite sempre legate alla coprofilia e alla pornografia, sbeffeggiano gli spettatori, la religione, i monaci, l’establishment, sono pazzi quindi possono dire e fare di tutto.
 Hanno enormi falli sulla testa che corredano il loro copricapo e ne portano in mano uno di legno per sconvolgere le dame sedute intorno.. vanno anche loro tra il pubblico, addirittura mimano coiti in mezzo alle gambe degli spettatori.
 Non dimentichiamo che in Bhutan il rapporto pubblico-attore è assai diverso dall’occidentale, qui non ci sono poltrone sipari e quarte pareti, il pubblico si accovaccia nei cortili coprendo tutti e quattro i lati, si sistema su stuoie e mastica la betel nut, i bambini corrono ovunque e si avvicinano agli artisti, questi a loro volta hanno un rapporto quasi fisico con lo spettatore, che diventa un unicum con lo spettacolo.
 il fallo enorme e gigantesco dei nostrani Zanni della Commedia dell’Arte, sfacciato e provocatorio, si abbraccia idealmente al fratello bhutanese.. il fallo è dipinto ovunque nelle case e fuori della porta, può essere anche appeso all’ingresso, è un grazioso soprammobile in salotto. 
Voglio usare gli Atzara nelle scene con Polifemo, come due sguatteri arroganti e strafottenti.. Aaron ha scoperto che nella seconda aria di Polyphemus “cease to beauty” il testo scritto a penna sul manoscritto è molto più allusivo e pesante che non quello formalizzato da Handel nel libretto stampato elegante e politically correct.. John Gay aveva di sua mano scritto questi versacci sconci e sboccati, li riproporremo nella esecuzione e avremo modo di capire meglio la naturale reazione degli Atzara sul canto di Polyphemus.. spero solo che, essendo maschere dispettose e fuorvianti, non facciano tutt’altro da quello che il pedante regista gli ha ordinato di fare.

Friday, February 8, 2013

The Lord of the Cremation Dance

One of the many questions I am asked about the Opera project in Bhutan is how we are going to combine Western and Bhutanese music and dance. We are not aiming to run seamlessly from one expression to the other: each has its own distinctive identity. The challenge is to let each expression retain its full identity while at the same time making sure they move coherently within the story. A possible solution is to identify a significant moment in the opera and explore how it would be interpreted from a Bhutanese point of view.

One of these moments is the death of Acis who has been crushed by a rock thrown by his rival-in-love Polyphemus (one of the Cyclops giants who can be seen to represent the Sicilian volcano Etna). It's a poignant moment in the opera and we felt compelled to explore how the Bhutanese deal with death and how it is represented in dance and music in order to feature these expressions at this particular point.

The Lord of the Cremation Ground Dance (Durdag Cham) is one of the sacred dances that appears in the five day religious festivals (Tsechu) that take place around the country. The dancers wear white costumes and masks that represent skeletons and the most immediate effect on the spectator is to remind them of death and impermanence. The skeleton masks are gorily impressive. The deep-sunk eyeball sockets are red with blood and the facial lineaments are also red, recalling the fresh and final flow of blood of the newly deceased. The dancers wear gloves that feature long red fingernails representing the stain of blood from the cemetery. They bend their bodies with deep backward movements which serve to successfully liberate the spirit of the deceased.






In the story of Acis and Galatea as recounted by Ovid in his Metamorphoses, Galatea, unable to bring her young lover back to life, relies on her powers to transform his dead body into a river, symbolizing the eternal murmur of their love.

Wednesday, February 6, 2013

The performing site

Production work in Thimphu began with a meeting at the proposed performance site, the Royal Textile Academy with the director, Rinzin O. Dorji. 

The Royal Textile Academy in Thimphu

Preston Scott, Stefano Vizioli, Rinzin O. Dorji, Aaron Carpene
Stefano Vizioli, Robert Schneider, Preston Scott



Monday, February 4, 2013

Bhutan February Diaries 1

The Royal Textile Academy in Thimphu
The new proposed performing site for Handel's Acis and Galatea

The Royal Textile Academy in Thimphu
The University of Texas in El Paso has sent a team on a mission to discover the performance possibilities of the new proposed site for the Opera Bhutan production, the newly constructed Royal Textile Academy in Thimphu due for inauguration in June 2013. Set on the hillside on the outskirts of the city proper, the spacious plaza offers views of the massive Buddha statue to the South and the Tashichodzong to the North that nestles in the gentle Thimphu valley.

The new Buddha overlooking the entry to Thimphu






Our technical team from the Smithsonian Institute in Washington DC, Rob, Steve and Harry quickly set to work to evaluate all the parameters concerning staging, sound and lighting. The building is not quite complete and the newness of the white painted walls and the grey stone work of the open pavement appear a little cool even though the building sports some magnificent traditional carpentry and painting. The acoustics are a little reverberant and our sound engineer Steve evaluates the necessary steps to iron out the problems and ensure that the inherent acoustic properties are brought to the service of the performance. There will be a lot of work to adapt this space to make it work for the performance but everyone is excited at the challenge. The potential is here to create a magnificent setting. 



Stefano Vizioli, Robert Schneider and Preston Scott discuss
the challenges of the site
Opera director Stefano Vizioli and myself began a mental visualization of the performance in this setting, imagining entries and exits here, an orchestral podium there, video screens, audience seating arrangements, position of Tibetan horns, Bhutanese dancers whirling centre stage, colourful decorations, sound and lighting equipment and an infinite inventory of all that is needed to assemble this production for the premiere on the 12 October 2013.



The traditional Bhutanese decoration

The view of the performing space towards the
Tashichodzong of Thimphu and the northern end
of Thimphu Valley