subject, dramaturgy, video Luca Carboni and Gabriel Da Costa
artistic collaboration Tatjana Pessoa – Filippo Renda
sound Aurelien Van Trimpont
lights Eleonora Diana
the robot is developed in collaboration with Laboratorio Aperto di Modena
robot’s voice by Giulia Valenti
stage manager Claudio Bellagamba
assistant Federico Malvaldi
poster’s image Elliot Z.
graphics Marco Smacchia
photos by Antonio Privitera

production Emilia Romagna Teatro Fondazione
in collaboration with Theatre National de Bretagne – Rennes, Collectif Novae – Bruxelles

thanks to Saveria Project, Octavie Pieron, Leonardo Veneziano, Francesco Genova, Doriana di Dio, Arianna Bellini, Giorgia Annovi, Fabrizia Zorzenon, Bettina Zaccaria, Danny dello Iacovo, Sara Gagliani, Francesco D’alessandro, Viacheslav Bragaglia, Davide Manunza, Vincenzo Faggiano, Aldo di Benedetto, Sabino di Donato, Manuela Gamper, Amin Hussein, Centro Dedalus (Bologna), COD strada Borrelle (Modena)

thanks to DIT- Dipartimento di Interpretazione e Traduzione- Alma Mater Studiorum Università di Bologna – Sede di Forlì

length 1h 40′
première
in Italian with English surtitles

Alternating documentary and fiction, real witnesses and characters, Luca Carboni and Gabriel Da Costa, with the help of a robot, an infallible machine, investigate the scene and set in motion a kaleidoscopic theatrical system.

Let’s be clear, we all make mistakes. Perhaps not on a large scale but at least once in our life, in one way or another, we have failed.
In the beginning, we wanted to talk about the error.
We were at first interested in the glitches (images deformed by digital or analog error). Then our interested moved to the small unimportant misunderstandings, to the great errors of history and to the blurring and inadequacy of our vision of the world and reality.
We wanted to talk about ourselves, Luca and Gabriel: of our fear of acting, of making mistakes.
We both had already experienced this feeling. We wanted to capture the moment of error, the moment in which all of a sudden everything stops, becomes nebulous, unsolvable seems to get lost and fall.
What interests us is the state of stiffening it causes. A stiffening that seems to affect us exponentially: the more we fail, the more our fear of acting increases and we end up stuck in front of a world in which everything appears too big, chaotic, dangerous.
During a research period of about two years, we have undertaken a road trip and interviewed the people who happened to be on our journey.
In the end, we met a man who had experienced a moment of extraordinary immobility.
Why did a man spend six hours in front of a gas station, doing nothing, one summer night?
This man is about our age, he has also suffered from all the criticisms of our generation: the generation of the privileged, for whom everything is served on a silver platter, the generation that does not make revolutions, that leave parents’ house at an older age, that is unemployed, assisted by machines and new technologies. A man who was born with internet and smartphones, who lived the first years as an adult in the post-industrial era, compared to the mass economy, overproduction, overpopulation, global warming, and protected species’ extinction. What caused his immobility? A panic crisis, a burn-out, a moment of reflection or an act of rebellion?
This man has become our friend. We called him Sam. We write his story.

Luca Carboni and Gabriel Da Costa

Luca Carboni and Gabriel Da Costa, biographies

There are two of us. But when creating, we form a single duo. A character which is the expression of a coherent part of each of us. But which, when confronted with the other, becomes a singular creative identity. A heteronym which is complex in nature, and therefore requires its own name. But we haven’t yet managed to agree on a name.
Since 2013, we present works through co-creation. The artistic forms born of our collaboration are so many reflections of our intimate trajectories. Each creation is conceived as an experience, the starting point of which is a reflection on how we look at ourselves and at our world. We are theatre artists. We want to take our experience of digital imaging and new technologies and bring it face-to-face with theatre – combining the two disciplines. To speak of our time, of our “society of the image”, is also to build a scenic language where the body and the presence of the actor mix with the language of images.
Our work mixes performance art, theatre, video art and new technologies, and to date can count several shows, performances and various video installations.

Luca Carboni

Was born in Bologna. Has always dreamt of no longer living in Italy. Realised his dream one year ago. Lives today in Brussels. Received his diploma at the Piccolo Teatro in Milan. Was an actor for, among others, Luca Ronconi, Arthur Nauzyciel, Massimo Castri, Matthew Lenton, Tatjana Pessoa. Was president, active member and actor at the theatre company Gli Incauti from 2009 to 2015. Became a member of Saveria Project, a collective founded in Bologna which promotes and produces contemporary artistic works in Italy and abroad. Started a new career in 2010: working the image.  Compares this new career to that of creator and actor. Trained in video art, photography, special effects, editing and digital management of visual streams for the stage. Author of video creation for the show La Baraque directed by Tatjana Pessoa (Thionville – Saarbrucken, 2015), The Yalta Game directed by Stefano Moretti (Teatro Piemonte Europa 2018), the performance Dulcinea by Saveria P. (Teatro Piemonte Europa 2019) and soon the show Dreaming State (Théâtre de Liège, BE).

Gabriel da Costa

Is of Franco-Portuguese origin. And has never managed to choose a European country in which to live. Settled temporarily in Belgium. Received his diploma from the Institut National Supérieur des Arts du Spectacle et des Techniques de Diffusion (INSAS) in Brussels. Was an actor for, among others, Falk Richter, Emma Dante, Matthew Lenton, Ricci/Forte, Ingrid Von Wantoch-Rekowski, Sophie Maillard, Tatjana Pessoa, Caspar Langhoff, Daniel Barenboim, Wim Vandekeybus, Frédéric Fonteyne. Wrote and put on performances by Etal Urbain (Brussels Bravo Festival, 2012) and Comida (Théâtre Les Tanneurs – Brussels, 2013). Became a founding member, co-director and artist within the Collectif Novae in Brussels, which shows performances, films and video installations in Belgium and abroad. Wants to contrast, but also blend, theatre with other mediums (cinema, art installations, IT) and likes to observe the results of this friction, but has no patience with computers.

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