A La Capra Ballerina Project

“DORME”

A puppet show conceived by Laura Bartolomei

Winner of the production In-Produzione 2011, Festival Immagini dell’Interno, Pinerolo Award Spoleto Open, Fringe event of the Spoleto Festival dei Due Mondi 2012 as Best Performance Award Subotica International Festival of Children’s Theatres 2013 as Best Animated Character

Puppets and scenes by James Davies and Laura Bartolomei Original music composed by Stefano Zazzera Direction by Juliana Notari and Laura Bartolomei with Laura Bartolomei

A co-production La Capra Ballerina, Moody Mammoth Studio, DuoAnfibios, with the support of the Festival Immagini dell’Interno,

SINOPSIS

A little girl goes to sleep and she starts a trip within her dreams and nightmares, beauty and fears: the fly with the human face fishes, the discovery of her own self coming out of a closet, discovering of the light and the shadows, her own hands, the meeting with the death, her pet cat death, the ritual of burying the pet, the fall into the water, finally meeting her own death just in time to wake up and realize it was a dream.

What happens when our rational life goes to sleep? How deeply dreams interfere with our life once day light comes? How conscious we are about our night-life creativity?

The show is conceived like an intimate slow dance, sustained by the the electronic musical score by Stefano Zazzera and the special wrist puppet tecnique passed me by Vladimir Zakharov

Promo video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSFfJuls3b8 Complete video: https://vimeo.com/39526757

LaMaMa Spoleto Open Award: http://lamama.org/puppet-series/dorme/

…It was thoughtful and evocative…We feel godlike – yet powerless – watching this little creature on stage…What’s more, we are unusually focused because we have to look carefully.It’s good to see adult puppetry to be so marvelous…Steve Capra, New York Criticshttp://newyorktheatre.blogspot.it/2013/11/puppet-festival.html?spref=fb

… Laura Bartolomei’s quiet grace takes us to a journey into the girl’s bedtime rituals and dreams and and “we”, the audience, become a collective one.Leo Mazzeo, Arts Indie, USA

…The performance “Dorme” was presented during the summer 2012, within our program of La MaMa Spoleto Open, a special event of the prestigious Spoleto Festival of 2 Worlds, dedicated to young emerging companies and or theatre artists. “Dorme” is a miniature performance of great beauty, it was very well received by critics and audience, and was awarded by the jury as best performance of the festival.Andrea Paciotto, La MaMa Umbria International, Director

… Laura Bartolomei’s creative work is outstanding…As curator and gallery owner, I’m fascinated and appreciate particularly Ms. Bartolomei’s creation of a visual language that does not discriminate audience against age and gender…Renata Summo-O’Connell, Director Artegiro Contemporary Art

Technical requirements:

Show for mixed public, or children from 6 years and up, maximum 80 persons Duration 42 min. Space: 6 mt width, 3 mt depth, 3 mt height. Stage height 60 cm max. Set up 4 hours Strike: 2 hours Darkness, black box and water facilities near the stage required Complete sound equipment, min. of 3theatre lights with barns 500W blue gel, 3 theatre lights with barns amber gel.

For further informations please contact: Laura Bartolomei,

La Capra Ballerina Puppet Theatre Predio S.Giuseppe Conti 151/A, 01021 Acquapendente, Italy phone +39 0763 730225 mob.+39 338 5907774 skipe: lacapraballerina

mail lacapraballerina@gmail.com http://www.brujeriasdepapel.com/lacapraballerina/

THE PROJECT The project name is “DORME” which means, in this case, “she sleeps”. Watching my children sleeping, their faces so trusting and relaxed, but knowing how often they have wild dreams, made me think back in the past, when I was a girl. I still remembered many of my dreams, and I realize how important my dream life is. I’m very fascinated by the fact that we unconsciously direct our own dreams, something close to a movie, and how it affects our rational life when day light comes. This show wants to be an investigation about dreams and on the peculiar state of mind of not knowing whether we are awake or not.

THE TECHNIQUE: Vladimir Zakharov’s wrist puppet From the first I’ve seen this kind of puppet, during Vladimir Zakharov performance in 2005, I felt a strong tie coming strait from my stomach, a visceral tie, and I had a great desire and urge to learn how to build and manipolate it. When we became friends Vladimir strongly insisted on teaching us how to build it and it took me three years and a lot of insistence to

actually decide to use this technique in my show, since I strongly felt (and feel) that this puppet belongs to him. This puppet for me represent the meeting point between technology and performing art on a small scale. This obviously happens in the use of marionettes, but here I feel like this bond is deeper. The wrist puppet moves in a extraordinary natural way, making you forget the very complicated tangle of steel and strings it’s made of, you “wear” it and it responds. The tight relationship that establishes between the puppet and the puppeteer’s hand and arm it intrigues me very much: it is a table puppet, but can’t go any further than your arm, and can’t be left on stage on it’s own since will look very distorted because the nylon pulls. It is a very dipendent puppet, and at the same time, seems like the puppeteer itself become very dipendent from it. I can’t think of another puppet for this show, seems like the perfect alterego of myself, moving in the oniric dimension of my dreams as a child, and I am also the person that accompany the puppet, as well as the director of those dreams.

CURRICULUMS:

BARTOLOMEI LAURA

Laura Bartolomei, was born and raised in Rome where she attendend fine art studies, contorsionism and acrobatics. After a serious injury she was forced to find a different way to use her body, and went into dancing.

The interest for dance made her travel to London and then New York where she’s got in contact with butoh, contact improvisation and creative dance. In New York she has danced with off off Broadway companies including Stephen Koplowitz, Nadine Hellstroffer, Frey Faust. While in N.Y. met Jimmy Davies, illustrator, and started a long collaboration with him, which produced not only their first puppet show, but also the travelling and living in South Korea with their growing family. Now based in Italy, she’s working on regular bases with La Capra Ballerina, which she’s a co-founder along with Jimmy Davies, Teatro Alegre, Unicef, DuoAnfibios, Coletivo de Ventiladores (Brasil) and musician Stefano Zazzera, actor Andrea Brugnera. Laura’s training in dance and visual art, makes her focus in puppetry principally on the visual and movement aspect.

With La Capra Ballerina she’s been both constructing and experimenting on puppetry and producing puppets shows as well as stilts parades. Their shows have been touring in Italy, South Korea, Romania, Belgium, France, Mexico, Brasil, France.

STEFANO ZAZZERARecording studio owner / indipendent label MOODY MAMMOTH MUSIC composer/producer/Dj as a composer and sound designer, he has worked in both established theaters such as The Barrow Group and Lincoln Center Institute, as well as more edgy and experimental venues like Cedar Lake Dance. Stefano is known for his layered, atmospheric pieces that blend electronic music and live artists. He specializes in real time programming, calling to mind the work of Bjork and Radiohead.

As a DJ/Live programmer, Stefano is versatile and his personal tastes include Electrobossa and Brazilian Beats, World, and Minimal Techno. He works regularly with video artists and enjoys spinning at multi media events. Stefano has played at venues such as Delancey, Jazz at Lincoln Center, Cedar Lake, Rebar, Alphabet Lounge, LaMama ETC and at corporate events for companies such as Bisazza and Alessi.Stefano Zazzera is the lead engineer of Moody Mammoth recording studio. He has overseen recording projects in many genres including electronica, hip-hop, world and pop. At Lincoln Center Institute, Stefano mixed and recorded live shows for many international artists. He was also engineer for the respected dance companies of Alvin Ailey, Paul Taylor and Ping Chong. He’s gone on the road as tour engineer with Zerokilled Music’s Costanza Tour, Hector del Curto’s Eternal Tango Orchestra and Pablo Aslan’s Avantango Orchestra. A musician in his own right, Stefano has composed for film, dance and theater, most recently for the critically acclaimed Cedar Lake Dance Ensemble. Working with musicians and artists across diverse disciplines and styles deeply influences his work and recording mindset. Stefano believes that versatile producing and engineering in collaboration with the artist are the keys to a successful recording.

JAMES DAVIES

Born in South Korea, was raised in the USA. In 1983 moved in New York with a scholarship to attend the School of Visual Arts where he got the Bachelor in Illustration. As freelancer illustrator he has worked for Viking’s Press, Society of Illustrators, Penthouse, Village Voice, St.Martin’s Press. While in New York he has been assistant of the artist Aaron Gluska, and vice director of the Speroni-Westwater Art Gallery in Soho. After travelling and living in South Korea with his family for few years, he has moved in Italy and started his project on research and experimenting in the field of puppetry.

He has done construction for Alessandro Gigli, Salvatore Gatto, Rinoceronte Incatenato, Unicef, Philip Farah, Napoli’s Nuovo Teatro Nuovo, Mel Gibson’s “Passion”, Arena di Verona, Chuncheon Puppet Museum, local televisions.

He’s co-founder of La Capra Ballerina, with which produced five puppet shows and a stilt parade, travelling in Italy and abroad, and built paper machè allegoric carts used in Carnival’s Parade. He gives workshops on wood carving, paper machè and mixed media, puppet construction and manipulation, mask making and stilts.

JULIANA NOTARIJuliana is a brasilian marionettist and actress, studied theatre at the Instituto de Artes de la Universidad de São Paulo, Brasil. In 2004 founded the company DuoAnfibios with percussionist Augusto Moralez. The company promotes collaborations among visual artists, puppeteers and musicians. With her company she toured extensively in Central and South America, France, Spain, Italy, Swizerland, Lettony, Ctzech Republic, South Korea and Mexico. In 2008 was ia recipient of an artistic residency at the Institut International de la Marionnette in Charleville Meziere, investigating on manipulation and puppet construction for solo puppeteers. After this residency she established herself in Strasburg for 4 years.

While in France she created the project “Old Boxes”, a series of 5 mini shows with theme the Old people, for one person at time.The project was done in 3 parts, the first one within the workshop given by Gavin Glover “Why use puppets?”, the second and third one in 4 months residency inside two retirement houses in France, under the direction of Laura Bartolomei.One of this mini show, “Smile in the glass” was recipient of the Award for the Best Experimentation in Puppetry from the World Festival of Puppet Art Prague 2009

LA CAPRA BALLERINA presence in Festival/Cultural Centers

La MaMa Puppet Series New York 2013 MCLA Presents! North Adams, MA, USA 2013 Fitchburg State University, MA, USA 2013 2nd International Puppet Festival Baku, Azerbaijan 2013 16th Feria Internacional de los Titeres, Cali, Colombia 2013 Kilkis International Puppet and Mime Festival, Kilkis, Greece 2013 Festiwal Animo, Kwidzyn Poland 2013 Itau’ Cultural San Paolo, Brasil 2013 Festival Espectacular Teatro de Bonecos de Curitiba, Brasil 2013 BrotFabrik, Nave Atelier, Berlin 2013 5th International Puppet Festival Bratislava, Slovacchia 2013 Subotica International Festival of Children’s Theatres, Belgrad Culture Center, Novi Sad Culture Center Serbia 2013 Subotica/Szeged Children’s Theatres Festival, Hungary 2013 SESC San Caetano, SESC Santos, Espaço Sobrevento, Teatro da Garagem, Biblioteca Monteiro Lobato, Livraria Cultura, San Paulo, Brasil, 2012

Suwon Hwaseong Fortress Theatre Festival, South Korea, 2011

Chuncheon Puppet Festival, South Korea, 2007, 2011, 2012

Andong Cultural Center, South Korea, 2011, 2012

Namoodak Physical Theatre Residency, Cheongsong, South Korea, 2010

Bupiong Cultural Center, Incheon, South Korea, 2010

3° Fest. International de Chihuahua, Chihuahua, Ciudad Juarez, Mexico 2007

Euromarionette Arad, Romania 2007

Fest. International de Titeres “Rosete Aranda” Tlaxcala, Veracruz, Morelos, Hidalgo, Mexico 2006

Europees Figuren Theater Busker Festival, Ghent Belgium 2005

Festival Immagini dell’Interno, Italy 2002, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2011

Bab Festival, Italy 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010

La Luna è Azzurra, Italy 2002, 2005, 2008, 2009

BorgoFestival, Italy 2002, 2003, 2004, 2008, 2009, 2010

Burattinarte, Italy 2006, 2008, 2010, 2011