PROLOG / ACTS (2021)
A performance for a dancer, a sound artist, 18 portraits and 5 tape recorders
Here you find the mini-docu PROLOG for a SOLO LIKE A PIG by Julia Franken
Further documentaries about the series SOLO LIKE A PIG under mediation & documentation
With PROLOG / ACTS Emanuele Soavi presents the first episode of the experimental series SOLO LIKE A PIG, questionning his role as an author and performer – and thus also that of the theater – from a wide variety of perspectives. A being, half human and half sculpture, searches under his mask to find who he is. In the course of continuous transformations, various identities emerge and take their “positions” in contemporary society. And each of these chameleon-like “HEs” represents the conflict between two beings: the puppet and the puppeteer.
The performer is surrounded by touching exhibits that were created as part of the ACTS exhibition project – a communicative and aesthetic space for statements, images and reflections on how the pandemic is influencing international movement and body artists. The result is ambiguous self-portraits, all of which describe the state of absolute isolation and thus the absence of exchange, contact, and theater. The ACTS exhibition was accessible virtually online for six weeks in spring 2021. Now it can be experienced in real space for the first time.
In this situation / installation, voices, memories and digital sounds again open up a theatrical, performative space, filled with extravagance and naive innocence, madness and silence, euphoria and loneliness – and above all the question of the so-called normality of being.
For the prelude to his new performance series, Soavi is working with the exceptional performer Kate Strong on text miniatures that interweave with the sounds of Johannes Malfatti to create a sound collage that extends the exhibition space. The ACTS exhibition shows works by Meritxell Aumedes Molinero, Cyril Baldy, Stefan Bohne, Federico Casadei, Irene D´Ágostino, Giovanni Insaudo, Taeyeon Kim, Lisa Kirsch, Cora Bos-Kroese, Susanne Linke / Urs Dietrich, Ivan Lupi, Jone San Martin , Ko Mihyun, Cristiana Morganti, Lili M. Rampre, Sandra Salietti, Nora Sitges Sardá, Emanuele Soavi and Yoshiko Waki.
The basis for the experimental series format SOLO LIKE A PIG is a research period in which Emanuele Soavi questioned his role as an author and performer and thus also that of the theater from a wide variety of sociological, historical, scientific and aesthetic perspectives during work stays in Paris, Münster and Berlin. As a result, several independent performative and installative episodes will emerge over the next few years, leading to a performance parcours in 2025.
Concept / Choreography / Performance / Lighting Emanuele Soavi
Composition / Sound Johannes Malfatti
Stage Design / Costumes / Lighting Heike Engelbert
Assistance / Co-performance Federico Casadei
Voices Kate Strong
Production management / Co-performance Achim Conrad
Fotos Joris Jan Bos
Produced by Emanuele Soavi incompany
Premiere November 10, 2021 Ausstellungshalle der Alten Feuerwache Köln
PROLOG is supported by the City Council Cologne, the Ministry of Culture and Science North Rhine-Westphalia, Fonds Darstellende Künste with funds from the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media
