More than shadow theatre

Last week I was happy to learn that Pathosformel, an Italian based company was coming to present one of their pieces at the Mime Festival. I had gotten to know them through a workshop I participated in Bologna last summer and was eager to see their work after having a look at some videos they have on youtube.


La timidezza delle ossa (translated as The timidity of bones) was a work that combined graphic simplicity with body movement and sound design. Its duration was just under half an hour, which is the safest and most effective time for a performance, as stated in some of my older posts. There is time to develop a concept and yet keep all the visual imput fresh in a way that it leaves the spectator concentrated, without loading them with too much information.

The set design consisted of a white screen, behind which the bodies of the dancers interacted, making visible to the specatator only certain parts of the body at a time. What I found of exteme originality was that it was not simply the 2D shadow theatre play that took place behind the screen, but that the choice of felxible material for that screen permitted  the performers to press their bodies against it, creating 3D protrusions that varied slightly in their intensity, so creating a visual play of shadows that was very visual and physical at the same time.

Many critics refered to the archeological quality that these images created. However, the fact that bones were actually performers moving, pushing against eachother and transforming themselves did not really give me the idea of archelogical reamins, which have been static for centuries. Further, I noticed how at some point diring the show, although the quality of the images had developed a certain consistency and therefore the spectator knew what the work was about, my eyes started perceiving what was on the screen as a digital projection even though I knew it was real bodies behind the screen. Talking to Paola Villani (founder and performer along with Daniel Blanga Gubbay of Pathosformel) I was surprised to learn that this seemed to have happened to other spectators in the past.

It is amazing how our perception changes even if the qaulity of an image stays the same. Is it our brain that is so used to changing pictures and different qualities that it inevitaly offers a variety of perceptions even when not needed?