on interpretation of a sculpture

Dramaturgy by Gian Maria Cervo from materials by Apichatpong Weerasethakul with quotes from Paul Castagno. Directed by Nicola Bremer, set and costumes by Wiebke Heeren.

Featuring Matteo Bertolotti and Valerio Riondino.

Choreography by Yoris Petrillo.

Music and choreography by Saga Björklund Jönsson.

Homage to Apichatpong Weerasethakul.

A co-production of Quartieri dell’Arte with Twain and The Mainstream Official.

Presented as one of the most anticipated events of the Festival, ”A Conversation (On an Interpretation of Sculpture)” is a two-part theatrical ritual based on materials by Apichatpong Weerasethakul, the Thai director who won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 2010 with the film ”Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives.” The dramaturgy is by Gian Maria Cervo, with quotes from Paul Castagno (American guru of polyphonic writing) and directed by Nicola Bremer, named in 2018 by the famous German theater magazine THEATER HEUTE as the best emerging artist for his theatrical series ”Selfies einer Utopie.”

The title of the work cites materials from Weerasethakul’s multi-trans-post-media artistic project (”A Conversation with the Sun”) and, more specifically, from a work by the Thai artist himself that will be exhibited during the ritual. Cervo’s dramaturgy compares the process of shaping a text to sculpting a stone. The artist engages in a conversation with literary material, perhaps even with the literary material of other artists, removing superficial layers to reveal a hidden essence. Like a sculptor.

The text, which includes among its ”found materials” fragments of a work created at the dawn of ChatGPT by Weerasethakul with artificial intelligence and his collaborators from Kick the Machine, delves into the reality of the great Asian artist based in Chiang Mai. It is a timeless conversation among figures such as the director Apichatpong, the Sun, a Black Hole, Tilda Swinton, and Dalì. A real conversation that took place in Thailand between Gian Maria Cervo and Weerasethakul serves as a counterpoint to it.