User:EcubaOggi/Motus

Enrico Casagrande e Daniela Nicolò durante Santarcangelo 2050 -Futuro Fantastico (edizione curata da Motus). ©Matteo Rinaldini

Motus is an Italian theatre company founded in 1991 by Enrico Casagrande and Daniela Francesconi Nicolò.

History of the company

1991-1994: foundation and the first years

The group was born in Rimini in 1991, by the initiative of Enrico Casagrande and Daniela Francesconi Nicolò, both students at the University of Urbino; they met in the university theatre group Atarassia. At the beginning, the company took the name of “Opere dell’ingegno”, which changed into Motus in 1992.

Since their first performance, Stati d’assedio, inspired by Lo stato d’assedio by Albert Camus, they involve musicians, drawers and sculptors, prefiguring a poetic aimed at contaminating the theatre experience beyond the boundaries between genres .

In 1993, after a journey of the two founders in Morocco, Motus began a collaboration with various Moroccan realities, thus starting new study and exchange initiatives with the Islamic culture, flowing into the project Maghreb e Senegal, fra letteratura ed oralità. I teatri della differenza (Between literature and orality. Theaters of difference) for the DAMS of Bologna, in collaboration with Teatro delle Albe..

1995-1999: From Occhio Belva to O.F, ovvero Orlando Furioso.

In 1995 it’s the time of L’occhio belva. The performance, dedicated to Samuel Beckett, debuts at Interzona in Verona, and it is very well received by critics and public. It is a travelling performance, which occupies enormous spaces that are out of use, involving numerous artists. Also thanks to this performance, with the designation of “Sistemi Rudimentali” (rudimental systems), Motus created a series of installations, using Super 8 film and magnetic tapes.

In 1996 Catrame is presented at Petrella Theatre in Longiano. The performance, inspired by La mostra delle atrocità and by Crash by James Graham Ballard, is presented in the next two years with a great number of gigs in Theatres, Festivals and community centres, giving a considerable visibility to the company, both at national and international level.

In 1998, O.F. ovvero Orlando Furioso impunemente eseguito da Motus (with impunity performed by Motus), directed by Enrico Casagrande, Daniela Nicolò and David Zamagni, debuts at the Rotonda della Besana for the Festival “Teatri 90” in Milan. The video of the performance wins the production prize/award of the TTV Performing Arts on screen in Riccione in 1999. The performance also has an important tour in Italy and in Western Europe.

In 1999 Motus is awarded with the UBU Special Prize with the motivation: “for the stubborn and creative coherence of a visionary research in redesigning spaces and filtering myths”. In the same year, the group receives by the magazine Lo Straniero, directed by Goffredo Fofi, the Prize Young Talents for having “staged Orlando Furioso that, according to brilliant visual-sound asthetic, mindful of its Romagna origins (from Fellini to Casadei), but also participant in a post-modern imagery that goes from comics to photography, to painting, to fashion, addressed an ironic reading of the ‘male crisis’, particularly marked by Deleuze, and other analysts of our bizarre and distorted contemporaneity”.

2000-2006: From the project ROOMS to FASSBINDER

Later, the performances of Motus will get inspired by figures like Rainer Maria Rilke, Jean Cocteau, Jean Genet, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Rainer Werner Fassbinder.

The beginning of the new millennium is marked by ROOMS, an open project, based on a view of displacement and continuous transformation, on a “nomadic” production formula, aimed at going beyond the usual methods of theatrical production, aiming to make the same process of research and scenic composition, a moment of exhibition and comparison. It is about a project, that is built on the theme of the hotel room as a metaphor of emptiness. The room, seen as a closed space, is the idea behind the work: space extremely characterized. Thanks to the project of the architect Fabio Ferrini, during the first phase of the work a little room was built, easy to assemble and transport, of the dimensions of six meters by four and two and a half meters in height. A side remains opened, like a slashed wall, like a screen to enable the viewer’s vision. This first prototype was used to be inhabited by different actors/guests as a gymnasium where they could test their stage presence, the power of texts and dialogues, and the interweaving of different stories/scenes. The travel companions, chosen for this experience are Le ore by Michael Cunningham; Le regole dell’attrazione and Glamorama by Bret Easton Ellis; The Body Artist, White noise, Underworld, Great John Street by Don DeLillo; Splendid’s by Jean Genet; Camere separate by Pier Vittorio Tondelli; Leviatan by Paul Auster and various fragments of the last works of Harold Pinter and Sarah Kane. ROOMS as a microcosm, as an aseptic space where the intimate delirium of man is fought. The project ROOMS comprehends the following shows, performances and installations: Vacancy Room, Twin Rooms, Splendid’s, Il tempo sembra passare… il mondo accade (performance), White Noise (installation), Splendid’s – il film, Room (installation).

2003 and 2004 are dedicated to the project PASOLINI a journey from Teorema to Petrolio. The theme of crisis and of the “banality of the evil” in everyday life, within the “new consumerist totalitarianism”, was the fulcrum of the whole project ROOMS, where in the analysis of the bourgeoisie implemented in a cynical-ironic key by DeLillo (and in another form by Genet), the traumatic element was the performance of an extreme act, such as murder, or deviance, in order to “gain vital credit”, to overcome the fear of death… In Pasolini the perspective is reversed: it is the advent of an external scandalous event, such as the breaking in of the guest, or an angelic visitation, like in Petrolio, to cause the unveiling, fracture, humiliation. Motus choses to give resonance to the voice of Pasolini, to host his cries of alarm, amplifying them. The project PASOLINI is composed by the performances Come un cane senza padrone (2003) and L’Ospite (2004).

2005 and 2006 see the birth of another project, this time dedicated to Rainer Werner Fassbinder: FASSBINDER. This new path focuses on two souls of the work of the author, a more political one, linked to the theme of power and intolerance, and a more melodramatic and refined one, rooted in the imagery of its master Douglas Sirk. By reflex, we derive two theatre forms – an opened one and a closed one - from the different textual references, even if subtly interconnected. The open Project – expressed in the performance Piccoli Episodi di Fascismo Quotidiano, indagini su Pre-paradise sorry now (2005) – is developed in unique episodes/events, freely inspired by the abnormal theatrical-cinematographic play Pre-paradise Sorry Now (1969). On the other hand, the Closed one is linked to the staging of Rumore Rosa (2006), a feminine performance, that takes inspiration from Le lacrime amare by Petra Von Kant for going elsewhere, beyond the words of the text, and coming to a sound score made up of acoustic evocations of other female figures, from the helpless Marta to the desperate Elvira of Un anno con tredici lune. The show is performed by three actresses Emanuela Villagrossi, Nicoletta Fabbri and Silvia Calderoni.

2007-2014: from Ics (X) to King Arthur going through Syrma Antigónes

In 2007 and 2008 Motus launched a specific documentary survey on adolescence: the nomadic project Ics (X) Racconti crudeli della giovinezza from which four shows, a film and various installation events have arisen. The new journey undertaken investigates on the grounds of the consumption of bodies, the passage from the adolescence to adulthood and the changes that this implies in the individual and his relationship with the objects and the world. The investigation on the X – denied letter or the last letter of the Latin alphabet, which is used to cancel, subtend a void, or unravel, which also indicates what has been delated from memories, because of fear, censorship or moral ban – is the research on a generation that decorates with skulls its whole clothing array, advancing towards the more and more ritualized and media-driven dream of the removal of death, the rejection of old age, of an imperfect body. The lack of tolerance for the different, also for the “own different body” is still part of the path of research on fascismo quotidiano (daily fascism) undertaken in the last shows dedicated to Fassbinder, but the journey inside the X welcomes in addition the caustic question of the book by James G. Ballard Kingdom Come: “can consumerism turn into fasciscm?”. The conceptual core of the project is continuously moved and reworked, depending on the different languages and on the possible declinations related to contexts and meeting in progress, assuming each time several expressive formats. Of the project are part the four movements X.01 movimento primo - bassa Romagna, X.02 movimento secondo – Valence, X.03 movimento terzo - Hallee e X.04 movimento quarto - Napoli; the video-installation RUN, the performance CRAC and the medium lenght film Ics_Note per un film taken from X.01.

In 2009 Motus started the project Syrma Antigónes, that develops in a relationship of continuity with the previous production Ics (X) Racconti crudeli della giovinezza (2007-2008) with the intention of conducting an analysis of the relationship/conflict between generations, assuming the tragic figure of Antigone as an archetype of struggle and resistance. From the project were born some contests, which are comparisons/clashes between just two actors: Let The sunshine In, Too Late and Iovadovia. The journey was completed by the debut of the show Alexis. Una tragedia greca (a Greek tragedy), in October 2010 at the Festival Vie di Modena; Alexis. Una tragedia greca is awarded as the best foreign show for the 2011-2012 season by the Québéc Theatre Critics’ Association (AQCT).

In 2010 Enrico Casagrande was artistic director of the 40th edition of Santarcangelo dei teatri – Festival Internazionale del Teatro in Piazza, in the framework of a three-year project involving a change in direction, with two other important artistic figures, Chiara Guidi of the Socìetas Raffaello Sanzio (2009) and Ermanna Montanari of Theatre delle Albe (2011).

In spring 2011 Motus inaugurates a new research path, entitled 2011>2068 AnimalePolitico Project, in order to intercept anxieties, outbursts, images and projections about the “Tomorrow that makes everyone tremble”, exploring a rich and intricate landscape of writers, philosophers, artists, cartoonists and revolutionary architects that have imagined (and are still trying to imagine) the Near Coming Future. The First Public Act, entitled The plot is the revolution, an exciting scenic meeting between the “two Antigones”, Silvia Calderoni and a myth of the contemporary theatre: Judith Malina, the founder of the Living Theatre. Judith Malina was the first guest of a path of research and deepening that was articulated into performative actions and workshops-residencies that have led to the creation of the performance When (2012).

For almost two years Motus has navigated through wounds and conflicts of today, and visions of the future, between utopias and dystopias, a little drifting between eras, reading A. Huxley, D. De Lillo, J.G. Ballard, P. K. Dick, J. London, H.D. Thoreau; the research in the field of science fiction has led Motus to discover La Tempesta of William Shakespeare, and from there to the poetic reinterpretation in a post-colonial key Une Têmpete published in 1968 by Cèsaire Aimè. Nella Tempesta debuted at TransAmèriques Festival in Montrèal (Canada) in May 2013. Temporary performative landing place of the project AnimalePolitico is Caliban Cannibal, with Silvia Calderoni and Mohamed Ali Ltaief (Dali), Tunisian philosopher and activist, who debuted in Santarcangelo 14, where it is also realized the first preparation of Call me x – Derive e approdi temporanei, a photographic exhibition and video installation that offers a glimpse about the process of creation of Nella Tempesta.

In 2014 Motus also engages for the first time with the opera, working on the baroque semi-opera King Arthur (text by John Dryden, music by Henry Purcell).

2015-oggi: from MDLSX to Tutto Brucia

In 2015 MDLSX debuted at Santarcangelo Festival, it is immediately on international tour, winning numerous awards. The show is a sonic bombshell, a lysergic and solitary hymn to the freedom of becoming, to gender b(I)ending, to being other than the borders of the body, from the skin color, from the imposed nationality, from the forced territoriality, and from belonging to a homeland.

In 2016, the 25 years of Motus are celebrated with the monographic project HELLO STRANGER of the Municipality of Bologna, a quarterly programming path, inaugurated from the production of Raffiche and deposited in the book Hello Stranger curated by the two artists. In 2017 Motus works on two new productions, ÜBER RAFFICHE, an expanded version of Raffiche, and PANORAMA, in coproduction with the theatre La MaMa in New York, which debuted in January 2018, nominated for best Direction at the Ubu Prizes 2019 and for Outstanding Innovative Design and Outstanding Performance Art Production at the Innovative Theatre Award of New York. In 2018 the performance Chroma Keys, continues the investigation on the relationship between theatre and cinema, an area dear to the company. 2019 saw the debut of RIP IT UP AND START AGAIN, graduation show of the group of the 15 student actors of La Manufacture, that the directors have followed since the first year of study.

In the same year, the company was invited to cover the Artistic Direction of Santarcangelo Festival 2020 in its fiftieth anniversary – with the title of Futuro Fantastico – which, because of the pandemic crisis, is articulated in three movements: the first one in the summer 2020, the second one – online – in the autumn/winter of the same year and the third and last movement, in the summer 2021. In 2020 the directors started to work at the new project Tutto Brucia, that debuted on the 9th September 2021 at Theatre India in Rome, in collaboration with Short Theatre, encountering an immediate critic and public success. Tutto Brucia, taking inspiration from Trojan Women by Euripides, investigates the condition of the “end” present in the tragedy linked in a double thread to the condition of the present time, marked by the pandemic and the mourning. In 2021 another project started, You Were Nothing but Wind, rib of Tutto Brucia, in which the focus is moved on the figure of Hecuba – Silvia Calderoni – “black bitch with the eyes of fire”, entering in the post human scenarios of “a world to come”.

In 2021 Motus wins the prestigious Prize of the Critics 2021 of the Italian National Association of Theatre Critics.

Theatre

• 1991 - Stati d'Assedio inspired by Lo stato d'assedio by Albert Camus.
• 1992 - Strada principale e strade secondarie inspired by Paul Klee and Samuel Beckett.
• 1992 - Ripartire da lì inspired by Testi per nulla by Samuel Beckett.
• 1992 - Sistemi rudimentali (performance/videoinstallation).
• 1993 - Aid. Zona ad alta tensione inspired by the texts of Tahar Ben Jelloun and Assia Djebar.
• 1993 - Kataba performance inspired by Fantasia by Abdel Wahab Meddeb.
• 1993 - Cassandra. Interrogazioni sulla necessità dello sguardo inspired by Cassandra by Christa Wolf.
• 1994 - In-giuria. Accadimento I.
• 1994 - Never see, never find, no end no matter. Accadimento II.
• 1994 - Onda d'urto. Accadimento III.
• 1994 - Strade secondarie.
• 1994 - L'occhio belva inspired by the latest literary production by Samuel Beckett.
• 1995 - Atti (installation super 8).
• 1995 - Crash (Installation/performance dedicated to James G.Ballard.)
• 1995 - Maremmosso performance by Daniela Nicolò through the voice and computer LC630. Tredozio, "Giardini", 16 agosto 1995
• 1996 - Catrame inspired by Mostra delle atrocità by James G. Ballard.
• 1996 - Radio Trance Stage set up and lightning care for the concert/rave of Mau Mau, Omega Tribe e Gnawa.
• 1997 - Expeau Performance for the Centro Sociale Occupato Conchetta.
• 1997 - Blur (installation/performance edited by Motus for the Lavanderie Automatiche Onda Blu).
• 1998 - O.F. ovvero Orlando Furioso impunemente eseguito da Motus
• 1998 - Merry go Round (Performance inspired by Orlando Furioso)
• 1998 - Overhead Orpheus concluding performance of the workshop inspired by Rainer Maria Rilke's Sonnets to Orpheus.
• 1998 - Aureole (Performance.)
• 1999 - étrange (être-ange) (Performance/installation inspired by Elegie Duinesi by Rainer Maria Rilke.)
• 1999 - Êtrangeté. Lo sguardo azzurro (special event for theFestival di Santarcangelo).
• 1999 - L'occhio belva – remake
• 2000 - Orpheus Glance
• 2000 - Good Morning
• 2000 - Visio Gloriosa inspired by Le parole dell'estasi by Maria Maddalena de Pazzi.
• 2001 - Room 393, we'll slide down the surface of things
• 2001 - Vacancy Room
• 2002 - Twin Rooms
• 2002 - Splendid'si nspired by the eponymous play by Jean Genet
• 2003 - Come un cane senza padrone (Notes for "L'Ospite" conceived as part of the project dedicated to Pier Paolo Pasolini).
• 2003 - L' ospite Tratto from the novel Teorema by Pier Paolo Pasolini.
• 2004 - Mamma mia! (Performance/reading based on the novel Petrolio by Pier Paolo Pasolini).
• 2005 - Piccoli Episodi di Fascismo Quotidiano, indagini su Pre-paradise sorry now by Rainer Werner Fassbinder
• 2005 - Dammit! (performance freely inspired by Toby Dammit by Federico Fellini.
• 2006 - A place. [that again] (Performance dedicated to Samuel Beckett).
• 2006 - Rumore Rosa
• 2007 - Junkspace –performance
• 2007 - (ics) – Racconti crudeli della giovinezza [X.01 movimento primo]
• 2007 - X (ics) Racconti crudeli della giovinezza [X.02 movimento secondo - Valence]
• 2008 - Crac
• 2008 - X(ics) Racconti crudeli della giovinezza [X.03 movimento terzo- Halle-Neustadt]
• 2008 - X(ics) Racconti crudeli della giovinezza [X.04 movimento quarto- Napoli]
• 2008 - Di quelle vaghe ombre_ prime indagini sulla ribellione di Antigone.
• 2009 - Let the Sunshine In (antigone) contest #1
• 2009 - Too Late!(antigone) contest #2
• 2010 - IOVADOVIA (antigone) contest #3
• 2010 - Alexis. Una tragedia greca
• 2011 - The Plot is the Revolution
• 2012 - When
• 2012 - W.3 Atti Pubblici: Where (Atto-assemblea), When (Atto-solitario), Who (Atto-corale)
• 2013 - Nella Tempesta
• 2013 - Caliban Cannibal
• 2014 - LIWYĀTĀN
• 2014 - King Arthur
• 2015 - MDLSX
• 2016 - Raffiche
• 2017 - ÜBER RAFFICHE
• 2018 - Panorama
• 2018 - Chroma Keys
• 2019 - RIP IT UP AND START AGAIN
• 2021 - Tutto Brucia
• 2021 - You Were Nothing but Wind

Videography

• 1994 - Sulla necessità dello sguardo inspired by the show Cassandra. Direction: Enrico Casagrande, Daniela Nicolò
• 1995 - L'occhio Belva inspired by the theatre performance of the same name. Direction and editing: Enrico Casagrande at Tecniche Blu in Cesena.
• 1997 - Catrame inspired by the theatre performance of the same name. Direction, filming and editing: Benedetto Lanfranco
• 1999 - Orlando Furioso inspired by the theatre performance of the same name. Regia: Enrico Casagrande, Daniela Nicolò, David Zamagni
• 2000 - White Noise video installation for three video projectors. Direction and audio/visual editing: Enrico Casagrande
• 2004 - Splendid's film inspired by the theatre performance of the same name and produced in the framework of the project Rooms
• 2004 - Room video installation is about the theatre performance Twin Rooms. Direction: Enrico Casagrande, Daniela Nicolò
• 2004 - MotusRemix interactive video catalogue 1995-2004. Edited by Enrico Casagrande and Daniela Nicolò
• 2004 - Schema di viaggio installation for three screens produced in the framework of the theatre project dedicated to Pier Paolo Pasolini. Conception and direction: Enrico Casagrande, Daniela Nicolò
• 2005-07 - Piccoli episodi di fascismo quotidiano video-installation. Conception and realisation: Enrico Casagrande and Daniela Nicolò
• 2006 - A place [that again] Performance dedicated to Samuel Beckett. Conception and direction: Daniela Nicolò and Enrico Casagrande
• 2006 - RUN video-installation for two screens produced in the framework of the project X(ics) Racconti crudeli della giovinezza. Conception: Enrico Casagrande and Daniela Nicolò
• 2008 - X(ics) _ Note per un film video inspired by the performance X (ics) - Racconti crudeli della giovinezza [X.01 movimento primo]. Conception and direction: Enrico Casagrande and Daniela Nicolò

Publications

• Enrico Casagrande and Daniela Nicolò (edited by) Crash into me. Orpheus Glance. Torino: Infinito Ltd Edizioni. 2000.
• Xing (edited by), Italian Landscape/Paesaggi Italiani. Luca Sossella editore. 2002.
• Theatre and "metafiction" by Daniela Nicolò, in "Il teatro nascosto", proceedings of the walkie-talkie conference. Edited by Teatro Aperto, Il Principe Costante, Pozzuolo del Friuli 2005.
• Enrico Casagrande and Daniela Nicolò (edited by), Io vivo nelle cose. Appunti di viaggio da "Rooms" a Pasolini. Milano: Ubulibri. 2006.
• Enrico Casagrande (2010). Motus.Il Libro. 991-011. Milano: NdA Press. ISBN 978-88-89035-46-7.

Awards

• TTV Performing Arts on screen for the video Orlando Furioso from the show O.F. ovvero Orlando Furioso 1999
• Lo Straniero Award for the show O.F. ovvero Orlando Furioso 1999
• Ubu Award for the show O.F. ovvero Orlando Furioso 1999
• Ubu Award to the 'Prototipo' project self-managed by Fanny & Alexander, Masque Teatro, Motus e Teatrino Clandestino a Interzona di Verona 2000
• Ubu Award for the project Rooms 2002
• Sigismondo d'oro in recognition of Rimini citizens who have honoured the city with their activities 2007
• Ubu Award for the project Rooms 2010
• AQCT Award for the best foreign show to Alexis from the Associazione Critici Teatrali del Quebec 2012
• Premis de la Crìtica to MDLSX for the best international show seen in Catalogna 2016
• Premio Anima | theatre section for MDLSX "An award for a performance that, through a solo of words and body, has the merit of addressing a discourse that is as current as it is still taboo: that on the body, on gender identity, and on the conceptual cages within which we tend to classify people." 2020
• Award of the Critica dell'Associazione Nazionale dei Critici di Teatro to Motus 2021

Bibliography

• Pippo Di Marca (1998). Tra memoria e presente. Breve storia del teatro di ricerca in Italia nel racconto dei protagonisti. Roma: Artemide Edizioni.
• Giuseppe Savoca (1999). Arte Estrema. Dal Teatro di performance degli anni Settanta alla Body Art estrema degli anni Novanta. Roma: Castelvecchi.
• Stefania Chinzari (2000). Nuova Scena Italiana. Il teatro dell'ultima generazione. Roma: Castelvecchi.
• Certi Prototipi di Teatro. Storie, poetiche sogni di quattro gruppi teatrali. Milano: Ubulibri. 2000.
• Sara Rojo (2002). Transitos y desplazamentos teatrales: de America Latina a Italia. Santiago (Cile): Editorial Cuarto Proprio.
• Gabriella Giannachi (2002). Staging the post-Avant-Garde. Italian Experimental Performance after 1970. Bern: European Academic Publishers.
• Lo spazio aperto. Il teatro ad uso delle giovani generazioni. Editoria & Spettacolo. 2002.
• Sguardi dentro e fuori dall'arte. Roma: Fondazione Romaeuropa - Editoria & Spettacolo. 2002.
• Exit. Nuove geografie della creatività italiana. Milano: Piccola Biblioteca Oscar Mondadori. 2002.
• Laura Gemini (2003). L'incertezza creativa. I percorsi sociali e comunicativi delle performance artistiche. Franco Angeli editore.
• Gilberto Santini (2004). Lo spettatore appassionato. appunti dal teatro del presente. Pisa: Edizioni ETS.
• Ipercorpo. Spaesamenti nella creazione contemporanea. Roma: Editoria e Spettacolo. 2005.
• Katia Ippaso (2009). Le Voci di Santiago. Dall'Italia al Cile lungo la rotta del teatro. Roma: Editoria e Spettacolo.
• UN COLPO. Disegni e parole del teatro di Fanny & Alexander, Motus, Chiara Guidi/Societas Raffaello Sanzio, Teatrino Clandestino. Roma: Longo Editore Ravenna. 2010.
• Prospettiva. Materiali intorno alla rappresentazione della realtà in età contemporanea. Titivillus Editore. 2011.
• Spielarten, Perspektiven auf Gegenwartstheater. Tobias Staab Editore Kunstwissenschaften. 2011.
• Marcella Scopelliti (2012). Aria di famiglia, Judith Malina e i teatri resistenti. Alessandria: Edizioni Dell'Orso.

External connections

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Categoria:Voci con codice LCCN Categoria:Voci con codice GND Categoria:Voci con codice BNF Categoria:Voci non biografiche con codici di controllo di autorità [[Category:Theatre companies in Italy]]