10.13125/2039-6597/4444
Since 1991, Motus theater company (Enrico Casagrande and Daniela Nicolò) has been moving in various hyper-contemporary directions, working with Beckett, DeLillo, Genet, Fassbinder, Rilke and Pasolini. Whether their works be theatre shows, performances or installations, the body is always at centre stage: a subversive body in revolt that demands to be seen. In Chroma Keys the performance centres around the body of the actress Silvia Calderoni, who, immersed in a “green screen” setting wanders through scenes from several films, transforming herself into a presence that communicates with the images. With Chroma Keys, Motus build-up an inter-medial operation, where the tradition of the travelling theatrical performance and the “cinema of attractions” merge and interact with each other. The show was recently held at the Auditorium del Parco - Renzo Piano, L’Aquila, within Aria Teatro Festival program; on that occasion we interviewed Daniela Nicolò.
&nbsp;
application/pdf
2039-6597
4444
20
it
urn:nbn:it:unica-26955
Mirko Lino
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Between
Motus; Chroma Keys; Intermediality; Performance Studies; Film Studies
«Se non mi guardi non brillo»  («If you don’t look at me I don’t shine»). The mise-en-scene  of the body in Chroma Keys.  Interview with Motus
Text.Serial.Journal
https://ojs.unica.it/index.php/between
10
Conversation Pieces / Interviews: Ed. Massimo Fusillo
2020-11-30
2020-11-30
2020-11-30
2020-12-07
368-380
1
Mirko Lino
2020/11/30
10.13125/2039-6597/4444
368
Università degli Studi di Palermo-
Università degli studi dell'Aquila
2039-6597
20
Motus; Chroma Keys; Intermediality; Performance Studies; Film Studies
380
urn:nbn:it:unica-26955
«Se non mi guardi non brillo»  («If you don’t look at me I don’t shine»). The mise-en-scene  of the body in Chroma Keys.  Interview with Motus
https://ojs.unica.it/index.php/between/article/download/4444/4539
10
       «Se non mi guardi non brillo»
      («If you don’t look at me I don’t
          shine»). The mise-en-scene
         of the body in Chroma Keys.
            Interview with Motus

                  Doriana Legge and Mirko Lino

Abstract
     Since 1991, Motus theater company (Enrico Casagrande and
Daniela Nicolò) has been moving in various hyper-contemporary
directions, working with Beckett, DeLillo, Genet, Fassbinder, Rilke and
Pasolini. Whether their works be theatre shows, performances or
installations, the body is always at centre stage: a subversive body in
revolt that demands to be seen. In Chroma Keys the performance centres
around the body of the actress Silvia Calderoni, who, immersed in a
“green screen” setting wanders through scenes from several films,
transforming herself into a presence that communicates with the images.
With Chroma Keys, Motus build-up an inter-medial operation, where the
tradition of the travelling theatrical performance and the “cinema of
attractions” merge and interact with each other. The show was recently
held at the Auditorium del Parco - Renzo Piano, L’Aquila, within Aria
Teatro Festival program; on that occasion we interviewed Daniela
Nicolò.
Keywords
    Motus; Chroma Keys; Intermediality; Performance Studies; Film
Studies.
Between, vol. X, n. 20 (Novembre/November 2020)
ISSN 2039-6597
DOI: 10.13125/2039-6597/4444
Doriana Legge – Mirko Lino, Interview with Motus




     Se non mi guardi non brillo»
       («If you don’t look at me
             I don’t shine»).
     The mise-en-scene of the body
 in Chroma Keys. Interview with Motus

                    Doriana Legge and Mirko Lino


      The actress begins to walk briskly, against the green backdrop and
an area of green flooring; on a screen positioned above her, two figures
in black and white, captured from behind, are walking along a desolate
road strewn with litter and rubbish tossed about by the wind; suddenly,
the actress, enveloped in the green space, separates into two and invades
the screen, coming up alongside the two figures in an act of apparent
collusion; perhaps she is following them, aware of the fact that she will
never catch up with them. Reproduced on the screen is a fragment of a
scene from Satantango (1994), the masterpiece by Béla Tarr; the
performer in Chroma Keys, an installation by the theatre company Motus,
is the actress Silvia Calderoni. The title clearly alludes to the technique
of the “chroma key”, or “green screen”, used in the cinema and TV
studios to produce a superimposition of two images emerging from
diverse sources, without generating visual disharmony. Motus then
relocates this approach to “alternative spaces”, such as the theatre, the
auditorium or even public squares, adapting it to the circumstances in
which the performance is to take place. The constitutive elements of
cinematographic experience (screen, bodies, image and projection) are
worn down and remodelled in an inter-medial operation, where the
tradition of the travelling theatrical performance and the “cinema of



368
                                    Between, vol. X, n. 20 (Novembre/November 2020)



attractions” merge and interact with each other. The performance
centres around the body of Silvia Calderoni, who, immersed in her green
setting, breaks up and then recomposes all the illusory potential of the
“green screen”; she arouses the attention of the onlooker by laying bare
the mechanisms and ploys of a technique that creates illusions,
represents the anomalous and offers up unusual visual combinations.
On witnessing the body interweaving with the projection one has the
impression that Chroma Keys is aiming to rekindle the sense of
amazement that characterized most cinematographic experiences
straddling the 19th and 20th centuries; the appeal lay in the tradition of a
phenomenal body within a ghostly context, and in investigating the
visual possibilities of this re-coding, in line with the results, in the
newly-emerging cinema, from the very first experimenters and
provocateurs, such as Méliès, Smith, Williamson, Porter and others.




     Image taken from Chroma Keys, Aria Teatro Festival, 10/13/2020, Auditorium
     del Parco - Renzo Piano, L'Aquila. Photo courtesy of Luca Zenobi




                                                                               369
Doriana Legge – Mirko Lino, Interview with Motus



      Viewed from this perspective, Chroma Keys, despite the simplicity
of its organization (body, green background, screen) becomes a complex
object, subjected to an intriguing semantic richness: an installation that
aims to offer up a tribute to art-house cinema; a refined and occasionally
ironic sequence of scenes taken from cult films, enough to trigger the
stored memories of any movie buff; a re-assessment of cinema as
something powerfully interactive; also, perhaps, a post-modern
operation in demystifying the illusionistic power of cinema. All these
possible interpretations pulsate in this work by Motus, through gesture,
movement and the live action of a body re-projected on to the screen and
transformed into a troubled avatar. However, one of the most alluring
aspects is the blossoming of a deep desire, engraved on the face of every
spectator: to sacralise cinema by becoming an integral part of its actual
essence, in other words, becoming one of the many spectres that inhabit
the cinema. This is similar to what happens in Sherlock Jr (1924) by Buster
Keaton: in the main scene, the projectionist falls asleep and his astral
body drifts around the movie theatre and then invades the actual screen,
ending up by occasionally interacting with the sudden and continual
changes in the scenarios. Silvia Calderoni wanders through scenes from
several films - Into the Void, Grizzly Man, Into the Wild, Last Days,
Barbarella, etc.; she commandeers them by transforming herself into a
presence that communicates with the images, often ironically and
playfully, but also touchingly and intimately. For example, in the final
scenes from Lucky (2017), she takes leave of Harry Dean Stanton, whose
last look into the camera is framed in close-up, just before he disappears
off-screen. This conversation between ghosts seems to transform the
sorrow into a flash of immortality.
      Observing Silvia Calderoni chasing after figures wandering
aimlessly, such as those of Tarr, or the ones in the final scene of Bunuel’s
Le charme discret de la bourgeoisie (1972), one has the impression that one
is witnessing the vivification of cinema, its affirmation as a constantly
malleable material, shot through with deep desire, and sublimated in
the continual intrusion of the body.
      Ever since 1991, when Enrico Casagrande and Daniela Nicolò
founded the company in Rimini, Motus has been moving in various


370
                                    Between, vol. X, n. 20 (Novembre/November 2020)



hyper-contemporary directions, working with Beckett, DeLillo, Genet,
Fassbinder, Rilke and Pasolini, reinterpreting the myth of Antigone and
ending up tackling Dryden’s baroque King Arthur, with music by
Purcell. Whether these be theatre shows, performances or installations,
the body is always at centre stage, with its foretelling and forewarning,
a subversive body in revolt that demands to be seen; it is, is fact, in Nella
Tempesta (2013), that Motus declares through the voice of one of its
actors: “If you don’t look at me I don’t shine”.
     The spectacle is often illuminated by an interplay with
machines/devices that boast a certain distinction by virtue of their brush
with the actor’s living body; one is thus invited to reflect on how we
redefine the restrictions we place on the bodies we inhabit. The
considerable effort made by Motus, both political and aesthetic, just as
with theatre, is always linked to performance and insistently aims to
deflate power in all its forms.




     Image taken from Chroma Keys, Aria Teatro Festival, 10/13/2020, Auditorium
     del Parco - Renzo Piano, L'Aquila. Photo courtesy of Luca Zenobi




                                                                               371
Doriana Legge – Mirko Lino, Interview with Motus



      The theme of explosion of identity returns in the very recent
Panorama, staged at the MaMa Theatre of New York, together with a
multi-ethnic group of actors from the Great Jones Repertory Company.
One of the actors interviewed on set maintains that “Whatever character
you are playing, whoever it might seem to be, it is still you”, and it is in
this short-circuit that human possibilities multiply, assisted by a
voyeuristic look that is pointed, above all, at oneself. For example, we
might mention here Mdlsx (2015), from the novel Middlesex (2002) by
Jeffrey Eugenides, which tells the story of Calliope Stephanides, who is
determined to become Cal and take on a male identity. In the staging we
see a series of clips from home movies (belonging to Silvia Calderoni),
which alternate with the deeds of the character Calliope/Cal; it is a
strange form of auto-fiction that does however possess an earthbound
force, triggering an effusion in the onlooker.
      It is recounted that glorious transfigurations took place on Mount
Tabor. Aghast was the onlooker as he felt his own perception blurring;
he could not surrender to the simple vision. Here, on the other hand, we
have this precious lasciviousness, in all its ferocious immanence,
requesting an ulterior reason for living, which can only be accomplished
through the breath of the onlooker.

1. Chroma Keys could bring to mind the phenomenon of a Dj set. Both
   performances are, in fact, executed live and are backed by a
   selection of “songs”, cuts and juxta-positioning, alluding to the
   logic of the mash-up (bits of music, or scenes from different sources
   that, when combined, create a new content). Did you follow any
   particular criteria when choosing the film-clips to be projected?

      It was certainly a very complicated selection process; on the one
hand we privileged the thematic aspect working on films from different
historical periods, but which included the apocalyptic aspect and a
distortion of reality. In fact, there is this dimension of irreality or phase
shifts with regard to realism. These are anything but neo-realistic films;
it’s all imagination and, in part, the work of radical auteurs. It’s true that
there are easily recognisable scenes, but there just as many from


372
                                  Between, vol. X, n. 20 (Novembre/November 2020)



independent cinema. We preferred a remote dimension, where time has
been altered and irreal things take place, which led us to choose science-
fiction or other very abstract movies. The viewer might well enjoy
tracking down the various films; it’s a very eclectic mash-up.

     On the other hand, there was the necessity for a more technical
choice, because with “chroma key” we needed specific framing,
widefield and, above all, fixed cameras; we had to find a way of enabling
a figure to enter the frame, and so we couldn’t use scenes with close-ups
or a moving camera. This excluded the whole sector of neo-realism and
documentaries. There are many evocative and abstract images, wide
fields where Silvia Calderoni bursts on the screen and which break up
the film’s linearity, creating another narrative in her passing from one
film to another. Although it is true that Silvia has a continuity of
movement, at the same time she too is being continually transformed.
Chroma Keys originated as a site-specific project in Piazza di
Santarcangelo, at the 2017 Festival. We thought of it as kind of
sabotaging the cinema screen that stood in the square; the audience was
already comfortably seated expecting a film by Motus. Then they
gradually caught on to the shenanigans and the fact that there was an
actual set. Just imagine a free open-air cinema, where the elderly have
already taken their places much earlier and are sitting and waiting, and
then gradually they realize that the image of Silvia is appearing in real
time and her actual body is passing by close to them.

2. How are we to watch Chroma Keys? In all its simplicity (a green
   backdrop, one or two screens and a performer) it leads the spectator
   along an intriguing, dual visual path, imbued with tension; this is
   due to the bodily presence of Silvia Calderoni, enveloped in green
   and her digital re-coding on the actual screen.

     In the version we produce for closed environments, where the
screen is not as decentralized as it was at Santarcangelo, the view is
mostly front-on; with a single glance one can see Silvia’s movements.
The high-speed choreography makes it look like a dance exercise with


                                                                             373
Doriana Legge – Mirko Lino, Interview with Motus



an immediate rendering on-screen, thanks to the work of our technician
Simona Gallo. Clearly there are those who are concentrating more on the
film, whilst others prefer to observe Silvia, but one can easily embrace
both narratives at the same time.




      Image taken from Chroma Keys, Aria Teatro Festival, 10/13/2020, Auditorium
      del Parco - Renzo Piano, L'Aquila. Photo courtesy of Luca Zenobi



3. One of the cornerstones of your spectacle lies in displaying, often
   ironically, the technique of the “green screen” (or “chroma key”),
   revealing its most intimate mechanisms, one might say, playing
   around with its foibles until it is laid bare. This approach brings to
   mind the work of Méliès back in the early days of cinema, when he
   demonstrated the irreal nature of cinema by showing off the
   substance of his tricks. Might one consider Silvia Calderoni’s
   unpredictable interventions in the film-clips as something similar?
   Cinema’s capacity to muddle the boundaries between optical
   illusion and reality?




374
                                    Between, vol. X, n. 20 (Novembre/November 2020)



     The show, in fact, actually originated from this idea. The “chroma
key” is one of the oldest techniques in cinema, exploited in a variety of
ways, until it finally arrived on the TV screen; you need only to think of
banal weather forecasts. This age-old technique epitomizes the actual
nature of cinema itself, even more than cinema in its early days, when it
tended more towards the idea of simultaneous illusion and magic. With
regard to our productions, many people have told us that they are very
ironic; you smile, even laugh. There is an across-the-board target
audience, not only those working in the field; in fact, we started out in
the squares, in the open-air, before a wider audience including children
and the elderly. People who never go to the theatre or performances get
a lot out of it, specifically because we play around with the dream
element, the actual idea that you can fly.




     Image taken from Chroma Keys, Aria Teatro Festival, 10/13/2020, Auditorium
     del Parco - Renzo Piano, L'Aquila. Photo courtesy of Luca Zenobi




                                                                               375
Doriana Legge – Mirko Lino, Interview with Motus




4. As regards the relationship between a phenomenal live body and
   a body that, at the theatre, in a situation of representation, is
   always, however, a body with a sign, a semiotic body; what
   direction does it take in this kind of work?

      Silvia’s body itself has this hybrid potential for transformation; it is
an ambiguous, androgynous body. It wasn’t by chance that this work
emerged after MDSLX (2017) and there is certainly a connection in
thinking about the fluidity, the idea of transformation, being able to be
so many different things all at the same time, without being fixed in any
precise category. Silvia’s body incorporates all this in its actual essence,
but, of course, extensive scenic intelligence is demanded and this
definitely represent added value. Naturally there is basically Silvia’s
body, but together with a great compositional capacity and ability to
handle scenic space in a clever and ingenious manner. For example, in
MDLSX, we take care of the lighting and sound; Silvia has the task of
not only governing her expressive capacity, but, at the same time,
relating to cameras and computers, mastering all of a certain kind of
technology. Not all performers can manage it; there are several good
performers who cannot handle the scenic composition or deal with the
technology. Consequently, Chroma Keys is a little machine in which a
single error may lead to disaster; much lies in the hands of Silvia and her
rhythmic capacity.

5. When one watches Chroma keys one has the sensation that one
   wants to know more, to discover in what other ways and with what
   other “ploys”, apart from those that you have already cleverly
   presented, it might be possible to intervene in cinematographic
   images.

      Chroma Keys has ended, but it could continue ad infinitum, except
that to do so would demand a meticulous operation. Silvia, too, presents
a work of great precision; she marks out all her positions because the
smallest error in a scene might well throw her out of sync. I myself


376
                                    Between, vol. X, n. 20 (Novembre/November 2020)



(Daniela Nicolò) have to continually adjust the zoom on my camera in
collaboration with Simona; we then pick out Silvia and move her into
the frame. It’s a very complicated operation; it looks like a game but it
isn’t. If time permits we would like to add a few fragments, because it
really could become a spectacle without end, although at the moment
there is in fact an ending: this explosion of the body, the idea of infinite
fragmentation, an entity shattering into so many things all at the same
time.




     Image taken from Chroma Keys, Aria Teatro Festival, 10/13/2020, Auditorium
     del Parco - Renzo Piano, L'Aquila. Photo courtesy of Luca Zenobi



6. Several years ago you published a neat little volume titled Hello
   Stranger. Motus 1991-2016 (Damiani, 2017), a sort of open-handed
   confrontation between word and image, a “spectacle in the form of
   a book”, but with a Motus approach. As is the case with a spectacle,
   the reader/spectator’s experience does not merely comprise
   observing, but a liberating, floating, and even voyeuristic



                                                                               377
Doriana Legge – Mirko Lino, Interview with Motus



      experience is triggered, which leads one to reflect on one’s own
      identity and reconstruct it in other scenarios emerging from the
      bio-dimensionality of the page.

      The volume originated as a work in itself; it isn’t a historiographical
book or a documentation of 25 years of history of Motus (which will be
30 in 2021). It was conceived as something with its own autonomy. The
initial idea was to avoid a chronological criterion, but to expostulate
through themes and invite others to respond. We already had a
narrative with images, but we wanted to hand on the written works to
others, to those who knew us and had painstakingly followed our work.
The task was to try to single out the focal points that characterise our
work transversally. We realized that over the years several themes had
re-emerged, even though there had been great changes in form and
symbols from one spectacle to another. So we tried to focus on these
pivotal points and demand written work that encompassed them. There
emerged a book, which, when all is said and done, is a compendium of
diverse and transversal inspection.




378
                                    Between, vol. X, n. 20 (Novembre/November 2020)




                              The Authors
Doriana Legge

    Research fellow at University of L’Aquila ‒ Department of Human
Sciences, where she teaches History of theater and Problems of
historiography of performance. Her research focuses on dramaturgy of
sounds in the theatre, and she published several articles about this topic.
Recently, she published the monography Inseguendo I carabinieri.
Beniamino Joppolo, ovvero la pratica della singolarità (Chasing I carabinieri.
Beniamino Joppolo, or the practice of singularity, 2020). From 2013 she is
member of the editorial board of the academic journal Teatro e Storia
(Theater and History).

      Email: doriana.legge@univaq.it



Mirko Lino

     Senior lecturer at University of L’Aquila – Department of Human
Sciences, where he teaches History of Cinema and Cinema and Media.
Among his publications the monography L’apocalisse postmoderna tra
letteratura e cinema. (The Postmodern Apocalypse between Literature and
Cinema 2014). He is one of the editors of Imaginary Films in Literature
(2016), Sex(t)ualities. Morfologie del corpo tra visioni e narrazioni
(Sex(t)ualities. Morphologies of the Body between Visions and Narrations
2018), Oltre l’adattamento? Narrazioni espanse: intermedialità,
transmedialità, virtualità (Beyond Adaptation? Expanded Narratives:
Intermediality, Transmediality, Virtuality, 2020).

      Email: mirko.lino@univaq.it




                                                                               379
Doriana Legge – Mirko Lino, Interview with Motus




                                   The Article
Date sent: 15/09/2020
Date accepted: 20/10/2020
Date published: 30/11/2020



                          How to cite this article
Legge, Doriana – Lino, Mirko, “Se non mi guardi non brillo» («If you
don’t look at me I don’t shine»). The mise-en-scene of the body in Chroma
Keys. Interview with Motus”, Transmediality / Intermediality /
Crossmediality: Problems of Definition, Eds. Hans-Joachim Backe, Massimo
Fusillo, Mirko Lino, Between, X.20 (2020), www.betweenjournal.it/




380
