Medea’s Visions is multidisciplinary piece from the myth of Medea / Eve. Under the direction of Alessia Siniscalchi, Italian contemporary artist  Valerio Berruti sets up his painted works, while composer Phil St. George plays live and I develop my photographic process inside the performance. Medea’s Visions archives feature pictures starting from the performance’s creation process in 2018.

In this fourth stage of the work, my performance’s photographic archives are embodied in blocks of printed images used on stage by actors. During the performance at Bellini Theatre, performers exit the stage and perform in front of my camera. Before the show, my installation/performance How do I archive a performance which is not mine? happens in the open space in the city and later, just minutes before the beginning of Medea’s Visions, in the theatres foyer:

At Bellini theatre, in Naples, a group of dancers and actors perform the archive before and after Medea’s Visions. They start from a pile installed in the theatre foyer: in the first leg the sculpture/performance held in a public space in the city and then moves back towards the foyer until the beginning of the show. In the foyer, a sound installation by Phil St. George underlines actions and movements. Dancers can also pronounce lines from Medea’s Visions and lines written for How do I archive a performance which is not mine. How do they perform an archive: How do I ? – Storage – Death  – Come faccio? 

Their bodies are archives.

The main written movement is to throw blocks down in order to produce a noise of heavy weight hitting the floor. Some of the blocks are, afterwards, used as pieces into the narrative of Medea’s Visions, going on the regular stage (Teatro Bellini in Napoli is a classic Italian theatre designed with the classic split between the scene and the audience space) at the end of How do I archive a performance which is not mine. How do they perform an archive and then coming back to it the when actors and dancers end their show and quit its space. Initial pile is eventually recreated.

The process of theatre photography as an endless archive building that plays a key role in a performance is described here. An archives book in pdf is available here. It also serves as my manifesto on stage photography.