Massimo Furlan / Numero23Prod.

It’s all forgotten

A Massimo Furlan project
Creation: 26 and 27 June 2010 during the residence of Massimo Furlan – NUMERO23Prod at the Théâtre de la Cité internationale, Paris

The work takes its inspiration from a cinematic souvenir : a scene from Stanley Kubrick’s «The Shining ». The writer Jack Tawrence, while he is guarding the wintered grounds of the Overlook Hotel with his wife and son, wanders one night in through the halls. He is suddenly attracted by a distant music. He reaches the hotel bar and finds himself in a dance hall ambience, but on the 4th of July, 1921. These patrons are thus phantoms populating the bar and the salon, drinking and chatting as the music of the Ray Noble Orchestra plays, their song « It’s all forgotten now ». After viewing the film once again, I noted a difference between my souvenir of the scene, and the scene as it was actually filmed. With this performance project, I add, in a way, the fantasy elements from and by memory. I recreate an image, a situation, all based on certain original elements of the film, such as the music, or certain actors’ postures.
The concept is to allow spectators to cross, for 20-30 minutes, this vast space, the Honnorat salon. Each is welcomed by a mute character who invites them to enter the space. They find themselves immersed in this space, which itself is filled with fog. They cannot see the boundaries of the space, they advance step by step, slowly, they hear music (such as Krzystof Penderecki, Béla Bartok, Ray Noble Orchestra, …) The spectators may explore the space freely, with no particular obligation (other than not to touch or speak with the performers), they can thus move forward in the space at their own rhythm. They encounter children, individually or in groups, who are running, who are lying or kneeling, or who look them right in the eye, emotionless. Then the elderly are there, seated or standing, occasionally dancing, at a musical signal. Further on, a singer, an old phantom crooner, purrs into his microphone, etc. The images appear and disappear, like phantom presences, absences, gaps in one’s memory. The project consists of working with two groups of people: a group of 15 children about 10 years old with whom it is a matter of working on questions of the body and the gaze, rapid and violent movements, and on the other hand, quasi-static, extremely slow movements. The other group, of 15 as well, are elderly, with whom we will work on the question of ballroom dance and immobility. The work is split into the individual part ( how I carry myself), and the choral (how to evolve as a group, dance in couples, …). This work entails a combination of both improvisation and discipline.

With the participation of:
Diane Decker, Antoine Friderici, Philippe de Rham, Massimo Furlan

Avec the support of Pro Helvetia – Fondation suisse pour la culture and la Ville de Lausanne