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MADAME MONSIEUR – Istituto Svizzero di Roma
1998
Dance Music Architecture
MADAME, MONSIEUR is an artistic concept which unites different artistic styles and disciplines to investigate architectural sites and places to live in Europe.
The Villa Maraini, currently the seat of the Swiss Institute in Rome, is the first such place to be investigated, the first stage of a long journey across Europe.
If architecture, organization of forms and volumes in space, addresses reality in a pragmatic spirit, then choreography, here, deals with the inhabiting of the space, narrating it in a disconcerting, sensitive way. Hence an encounter between the inanimate and the animate can take place, which can transform our perception of the investigated forms and volumes.
The performance takes place in four stages and in four different spaces of an invironment. In Rome, the first stage of the evening begins in the gardens of the Villa Maraini, as a cocktail has being served. It represents the social norms of an encounter. The audience is then drawn into the Villa for the second act in the Sala Conferenze, where the decor is temperate. The audience is situated in such a way to create an angular perspective. The performers movements announce the emotion, the intimate without artificiality. It represents that which has not yet been said. A door opens revealing a succession of rooms… leading us to the third stage. Here in the Salon, the decor is rich rococo. MADAME, MONSIEUR are placed in armchairs facing each other like wax works while the public stands and observes the action as though in a museum visit. Movements from the dancers swiftly unveil themselves, using the restricted space between the furniture and the marble pillars. Finally their intentions are revealed. Through a long hall from which the central grand escalier of the Villa rises, the final act plays out. Here the light is calming, diffuse, an agreeable tranquility presents itself. By incorporating the space, the audience and the performers, a relationship is ultimately established.
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