Inspired by Dostoyevsky’s novel Notes from the underground, The other’s shadow is a multidisciplinary and polyphonic project that spans performance, video-installation, visual art, site-specific and time-based media to talk about objects, people, landscapes and architectures that are no longer useful socially or practically in New York City. What is valuable? What is useless? What is art? What is rubbish? What is reality and what is fiction? What is true and what is false? What is success and what is failure? The project aims to discuss ideas between these counterpoints. The creation has been developed by Rodrigo Fischer in New York City through a series of artistic residencies and postdoctoral research at NYU’s Performance Studies Department supervised by Andre Lepecki.
The project has a flexible structure and narrative so that situations, scenes, objects and images collected in the cities would become part of the performance. Therefore, the performance would change each time it is presented in a different city while maintaining its overall structure. The performer would arrive in the city at least fifteen days before the presentation to investigate the place, to meet people immersed in the underground environment, in order to produce audio-visual content, and finally program the performance based on material collected.
The other’s shadow (2018) – short versionn from Rodrigo Fischer on Vimeo.
Carnavalization of a Lonely Man is an interdisciplinary process among theater, visual art, film and new technologies to create a new project of the Brazilian group called Grupo Desvio. The project was started during one artistic residency in New York and it is going to continue the idea started with the piece The other’s shadow.
What came first, the chicken or the egg? “The Failures,” tells the story of four friends who meet after an apparent tragedy. Rekindling their memories, they make a journey to what really matters. Failure: isn’t it just a matter of point of view? In addition to the text, digital projections and live music performed by the actors help provoke discussions between multiple times and spaces. What is the role of man in this story?
The Failures is the latest play by Grupo Desvio, directed by Rodrigo Fischer. It addresses the male universe in a poetic and unusual way. Four friends pass by personal dreams and memories confronting their existential dilemmas, touching on universal themes like childhood, friendship, death, time and memory. The failure, mentioned in the title, sounds like a provocation that is reframed by each new fragmented point of view, mixing our missteps with poetry of shared affections and desires facing the transience of life.
Fotografias de Diego Bresani
Os Fracassados (2015) from Rodrigo Fischer on Vimeo.
Director: Rodrigo Fischer
Dramaturgy: Gil Roberto
Cast: César Lignelli, Fernando Gutiérrez, Gil Roberto and Márcio Minervino
Costume design: Eduardo Barón
Set design: Ricardo Baseggio
Music: César Lignelli
Video designer: Fernando Gutiérrez
Video makers: Adriano Kakazu e Adriano Roza
Editing: Adriano Roza
Light: Rodrigo Fischer
Photos: Diego Bresani
Production: Diana Diniz Marra
Graphic design: Isabella Veloso
The project 2 + 2 = 2 was born after an invitation by Akhmeteli Theatre from Tbilisi, Georgia, to the brazilian artist Rodrigo Fischer to direct the new theater production from Akhmeteli. The show, which is coproduced by Cena Contemporânea – Festival Internacional de Teatro de Brasília, had the premiere in Tbilisi on March 7, 2015 with unanimous critical and audience acclaim, being considered the best work of recent years in Georgia. In Brazil, the premiere will be in August on schedule in Cena Contemporânea. In Brazil it will be not only an opportunity to see an amazing Georgian performance, but above all, a work, based on exchange with the contemporary Brazilian theater, which is characterized with a language that combines the beautiful Georgian musical tradition and talent of his actors with a performative-cinematographic theater, characteristic of later works from the director Rodrigo Fischer. The result is a work that combines a performative drama of personal testimonials from actors with fictional tracks conducted by the dramaturgy of Irakli Kakabdze; the contrast of traditional polyphonic Georgian music coupled with contemporary rock; ownership in the audiovisual scene and its possible multiplications scenic; and a seemingly absurd question, when the actor-character Gigi questions his identity and decides to become a cat. The performance 2 + 2 = 2 is made from a performative play between the actors and the audience, which in the course of his own view determines his fictional layers. The game, set by means of a tension between reality and fiction, begins with a disagreement between the traditional side against the other side more contemporary. This quarrel then begins to contaminate relations between the actors subtly build a fictional game:
2+2=2_Theater (2015) from Rodrigo Fischer on Vimeo.
Production: Akhmeteli Theater
Coproduction: Cena Contemporânea – Festival Internacional de Teatro de Brasília
Director: Rodrigo Fischer;
Cast: Andria Gvelesiani, Sophia Sebiskveradze, Gigi Migriauli e Giorgi Tskhadadze
Dramaturgy: Antonin Marto em processo colaborativo com atores e diretor
Set and costume design: Marika Kvachadze
Assistant: Andria Gvelesiani
Video Designer: Fernando Gutiérrez e Rodrigo Fischer
Light Design: Rodrigo Fischer
Sound: Andria Gvelesiani e Giorgi Tskhadadze
Video makers: Archill Kukhianidze e Rodrigo Fischer
Misanthrofreak is the most recent play by Grupo Desvio. It deals with themes of failure, error, and the difficulties of making decisions, in a poetic and playful way. It follows a character as he tries, through the tension of his memories and ideas, to tell his story to the audience. His frustrations in not being able to speak or express himself create a narrative that uses silence as propulsion for the story. Inspired by Samuel Beckett’s The Unnamable, the play’s discourse comes from the character’s uneasy subjectivism clashing with the real world’s objectiveness.
With barely any dialogue, the play concentrates on visual cues. It seeks to increase the audience’s perception of the stage and the actor in the scene. Through the use of projections at different depths on stage, videos are integrated to the scenes in an organic manner becoming part of the scenery, and in some instances, the main focus of the scene.
A solo act in which director and actor Rodrigo Fischer transitions between the theatrical and cinematographic space through his interaction with technology that allows him to control lights, sound, camera and projection. The audiovisual expressions reinforce, complement, and oppose the theatrical discourse giving the audience an amplified sensorial experience. The use of new technology intensifies the senses composing a multi-media art piece in which technology organically complements the acting.
In spite of the complexities of conceptualizing the show, its set up is extremely simple. All the set up and execution was created with the goal of optimizing time and financial resources: pre-programed projections; lighting, sound, and projections controlled by the actor in scene through remote controls and movement sensors; only a two person technical crew; and a minimalistic scenery composed of small objects and furniture located within the stage.
Photos by Humberto Araújo and Diego Bresani
Teaser Misanthrofreak from Rodrigo Fischer on Vimeo.
Misanthrofreak_Theater (2014) from Rodrigo Fischer on Vimeo.
Director, actor, sond and light: Rodrigo Fischer
Video designer: Brent Felker e Fernando Gutiérrez
Productio and costume: Diana Diniz
Videom makers: Peter Azen e Juliano Chiquetto
Through the Meisner Technique of acting and its update within the context of Performative Theater, the workshop works important technical features for the actor in this theater-cinema border. Skills such as listen, respond and react spontaneously. And also to develop a personal presence which allows the execution of the gesture within imaginary circumstances. From practical exercises and improvisations, the workshop will introduce the concept of opaque actor: potential of silence, mystery, microperceptions, ambiguity and presence.