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BIOGRAPHY
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Fabrizio Crisafulli
with performers during the rehearsals for "Senti". 2003 |
Theatre director and visual artist. Leader of
Il Pudore Bene in Vista
theatre company
formed in Sicily in July 1991.
Since 1992 the company is based in Rome.
Crisafulli works in a field in the middle between
theatre, dance and visual arts, focusing on
relations between movement, text, space and light. His research is based upon a special kind
of dramaturgy, shaped by image and sound, time and
movement. But also by gestures and words, expressed
as signs and poetic instruments. Towards a visionary
theatre.
His installations – like many of his theatre works –
are usually site-specific works. They take up the
theme of place starting with the place itself. This
has to do with identity of place. With a meditative
approach. With the quest of new forms of belonging,
within the ambit of contemporary society and
culture.
Fabrizio Crisafulli is Professor of
Set Design
at the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence, and
Professor of
Choreography as Space
Knoweledge
at the University of Rome (Universitŕ Roma Uno, “La
Sapienza”).
AWARDS
1995 -
English National Opera "Stephen Arlen" Award, London
1996 - "Live!" Silver Award,
London
2001 - "Outstanding
Merit for Theatre Research", Honour Prize,
International
Festival for
Experimental Theater, Cairo
2005 - Lighting Design Award,
Belgrade
PRAISES
1992 - Il
Pudore Bene in Vista, praised Ubu Award, Italy
1994 - In cerca di frasi vere, praised International Festival
for Experimental Theater Award,
Cairo
1994 - In cerca di frasi vere, praised Ubu Award, Italy
1997 - Folgore lenta (Slow Flash), praised International
Festival for Experimental Theater Award,
Cairo
1998 - "Theatre
of Places" Project, praised Ubu Award, Italy
1999 - Shō. La Bellezza
finale, praised Ubu Award, Italy
Scena in scena. 1994
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reviews
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Mike Clark, Avant-garde Artistry. Lighting Takes Center Stage in the Works of Fabrizio
Crisafulli, «Lighting Dimensions», vol.
XXI, n. 3, New
York, April 1997
Mike Clark, Lighting Set in Stone,
«Lighting Dimensions», New York, December 1998
Silvia Tarquini, Fabrizio
Crisafulli. Light Actions,
«www.luceonline.it», July 2006
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THEATRE OF PLACES
PROJECT
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Il Pudore Bene in Vista, Etna, Sicily, 1991 |
The process of Theatre of Places project
starts with the assumption that a location is not
merely a setting for performance but integral to the
total experience. In Crisafulli’s conception, site
should be understood as part of the “text” of a
piece and a way of informing other elements of the
work, such as movement, rhythm, sound and light.
This process of informing performance recognises
that locations are imbued with memories, stories and
connections with peoples’ lives as well physical raw
material that should be embraced and made use of. It
is uncovering this collective identity of place that
is at the core of the work. Crisafulli defines his
process as meditative and visionary with the stated
objective of defining new forms of belonging in our
society.
Key
to Theatre of Places process is the
engagement of artists, theatre groups and people
from the local communities in the creation of the
work.
The dramatic light and sound
piece created through this process usually takes
place at night. The piece is a reminder that we are
living in a place that has history, one that informs
us not only about the past but leads us to think
more clearly about the future.
By working directly with members of the local
communities, in its creation and execution, this
project can provide a real opportunity for these
individuals to identify themselves as culture
makers. Through its link to a specific location – in
many cases, an individual’s home environment – the
project will provide an opportunity for
self-exploration and creation that will enhance
their sense of involvement and identification with
that location. The process of engagement on this
initiative can also enhance and build new networks
of co-operation between different communities living
near the site. The nature of the work, its
exploration of a specific location, gives itself the
aim to enhance awareness about the area and the
roles that different cultures and communities have
in it.
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Spirito dei luoghi '98, Formia, National
School of Athletics |
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"Senti". 2003 |
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LUCE ATTIVA
a book about light
in
twenthieth century theatre
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Published in Italian by Titivillus, Luce attiva [Active
light] by Fabrizio Crisafulli tells some important
events of the Twentieth-Century western theatre from the
point of view of light’s poetics, from the reformers
of the pioneering era to contemporary artists like Josef
Svoboda, Alwin Nikolais and Robert Wilson.
The author’s purpose is not to outline a history of
stage lighting, but to identify some guide lines on the
way to use light in theatre. Light, that is often
treated paying attention only to the functional and
aesthetical aspects, is here investigated according
other points of view: light and the space-time
structure of the show, the drama, the poetic creation,
the action, the relationship with the artist on stage. A
section of the book is dedicated to the theatre
experience of the author, with special reference to the
dynamics of the process of creation.
The title Luce attiva evokes the myth of
Adolphe Appia, who was the first at the end of
Twentieth-Century who tackled in a clear way, with his
essays and creations, the theme of light as an artistic
aspect of theatre. According to Appia, the lumičre
active was the stage light in the true sense of the
word: light that expresses and creates the shapes; light
as a poetic matter and dramatic essence. |
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W O R K S H O P S
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Magnetico. Academy of Fine Arts in Florence. 2004 |
Workshops that
have been conducted during some courses of Academies of Fine
Arts (most of them during stage crafts courses) are based on the
search for some kind of ability to build up a sort of
independent dramatic construction of scene, objects and light.
Since 1989 these workshops have led to some brief performances
represented in front of an audience (see:
spettacoli dei laboratori)
and centred upon the possibility to create pieces that can be
defined properly theatrical even if any kind of actors and text
are missing, in the basis of the concept that forms can be
considered and organized in such a manner to acquire an
autonomous capacity of poetical and dramatic structure and to
build a coherent system of reasons and consequences, of
anticipations and returns, that is to say a system which is not
related to any concept purely based on effects. Workshops bring
to a definition of scene and technique not as instruments but as
“universes” made of a whole system of components and devices
that can also be poetical and symbolic elements which bring
memory with them (memory of materials, of stage crafts,
performance and not only that), able to evoke and to “tell”.
Another leading concept of workshops is that of “positive
light”, which means light not as a function of seeing but as
object of seeing, as leaving and moving material, light, then,
as figure and action, able to build up a text. Workshops then
turn to create performances that are meant to be flow of visions
where usual relationships between scene and light are inverted,
where the scene is the leading element and not the opposite.
Such a type of work is certainly related to a research project
called “Theatre of places”, which is to say the assumption of
place as theatrical text. Workshops’ performances explore
conditions that verify when the “place” is the stage.
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