Directly addressing the frontality of theatre, TEATRE VIRTUAL adopts the classic Italian scene.

TEATRE VIRTUAL, Act 5: Imaginations _ Thaumaturgies of the Soul is an exploration of a point of existence through a series of imaginations: an imagination which invokes a way to look at reality; an imagination of the extensive void of speed; an imagination for the transgression of our own organism; an imagination of the fluctuation between the ordinary and the extra-ordinary; the imagination of a renewed sense of existence.

Using live video, 'livestream' technologies of the Internet, Macromedia Flash and Director animations, sounds, musics, words, chat and webcams, an aural and visual backcloth is created for the presentation.

From the first scene of the love song, Act 5: Imaginations _ Thaumaturgies of the Soul confronts the audience with a series of actions: looking in a mirror, walking, mopping the floor, smoking a cigar, dancing, clapping. Via the montage of scenes a non-linear dramaturgy complexifies the presences of two performers and their interaction with the Internet and its virtualities.

Mediating the presentation into the virtual is the onstage presence of a video camera. In the presentation's movement from a scenic dramaturgy to a virtual dramaturgy, what the audience sees through the camera image and two projection screens, is the gradual unveiling of the creation of a live image for the Internet.

The presentation closes with a scene directly composed for the Internet.

Working notes for Act 5: Imaginations _ Thaumaturgies of the Soul:

Imaginations - a point of existence.

And what gives meaning to existence?
Imagination is what the psyche thinks.

Soul: animating or vital principle in man, motive force.
Soul: the perception of an emotion.
Soul: the realness of someone's intention.

Psyche: the manifestation of being in thought, in emotion, in intention, in gesture.
Emotion is very near to soul because it is the expression of soul
It is a reconciliation of existence.
Emotion: the energy of the psyche _ energy becoming matter force.
Emotion: the energy of soul.
An intention, an impulse, a focus.
A gesture is the existence of a meaning:

'He has a flat head like his father. He passed his hand over the top of his head as he spoke to show what he meant.' (Ogotemmêli 1948.)

Theatre: from Greek theastai to look at, related to Greek thauma miracle.

Within the root of theatre we find the word thauma, in Greek miracle. With its most immediate derivation: thaumatourgos miracle-working, hence thaumaturge: the one who makes miracles in the most subtle and vital orders of reality: the ones of the soul.

To enter the myth is to recognise the most concrete existence as a metaphor that transfers a meaning beyond the invisible.

The Ancestor as mentor: the old Ogotemmêli - hunter, 21 children, only 5 alive, 'he looks into the night of his blindness', he listens. And the Dogon cosmology that confers to matter the secret power of the fertile word. 'The Word is for all. Therefore it is necessary to exchange - to give and to receive.' (Ogotemmêli 1948.)





© Dogon Efff Limited 2001