Technology and craftsmanship: returning to escapism with 'OUT' by UnterWasser

by Giulio Sonno, Paperstreet, 17/12/2016

In a world dominated by high technology, where reality gives way to virtual, desire to desire, thrift to the limitless, what do we ever do with papier-mâché, threads of wool, wood, glue, buttons, gears or whistles ? Now that we feel so modern, all this seems to have become a nostalgic luxury, as fascinating as it is obsolete, now only acceptable under the beautiful “vintage” label.

But…but….BUT: all this is true only if we continue to bend to a - prevailing, yet never required - market law (renamed "progress, development and growth" if the masses are to be duped) according to which the 'important thing is not to ask questions but to gorge on that continuous offer that makes us feel at the forefront of the race for a wonderful and futuristic future. A future that is punctually overcome by recession, unemployment, poverty. But so be it. While waiting: buy and keep quiet.

In short, hi-tech triumphs not so much because it "serves" but because it keeps alive an illusion of possibility-freedom-happiness that swells the pockets of those who speculate in it. And in the meantime, the dear old craftsmanship is redeveloped as a pastime and a do-it-yourself; because devoting oneself to an art or a profession with effort, slowness and dedication seems old-fashioned, if not useless, or even worse, ridiculous.

But is it really so? It is possible to look at craftsmanship, detaching itself as much from the bullshit of the lovely vintage hobby as from any reactionary-obscurantist itch. As?

Take the lucky OUT from UnterWasser company. On the one hand, we have a typically fable-like story (or, to put it in contemporary terms, "archetypal-existential"): our shy protagonist is afraid of the outside (outness) and stays safe inside the house; except that a voice inside him asks to go out, it is a bird, sings from the round belly of the little man who reveals a cage under his shirt. Once the door is opened, the bird cannot resist and flies away. To chase him, the little hero of Out finally leaves home, exposes himself to the world, crossing it far and wide, between fear and desire, encounters and small adventures, only to find that runaway heart and understand that the deepest feelings of man they should never be kept under lock and key.

If this is the story, on the other hand we have its scenic realization rich in fabrics, paper, leather, wood, wire, straps, shapes, shadows and puppets. So why rely on an invoice and animation of the past when the present offers more modern means? (If the question seems specious to you, try proposing a puppetry show to an artistic director - unfortunately nine out of ten this art is relegated to the corners of the empire or, at best, to retro entertainment for children.)

Because the point is that it is not a question of high or non-high technology (even craftsmanship on the other hand is tékhnē) but of what you want to do with it. However, living in a breathless time of innovation in which appearance is everything, we end up believing that video projections are the great sign of modernity, probably forgetting that the magic lantern has existed since 1600, the darkroom from 1100, and the discovery of the forum pinhole goes back even to before Christ. And so we do not notice, for example, that Out's parable is neither more nor less than the picture of contemporary life.

In fact, the UnterWasser company does not limit itself to creating a fairy tale, it gives us back dreams, neuroses and disorientations of our time. And it does so by immersing the craftsmanship of puppetry in an exquisitely current technical-artistic vision: for example, note how you play with perspective by adopting cinematic stylistic features such as framing variations from the foreground to the full field (using different puppets in scale of the same character). Or the twentieth-century pictorial echoes in the settings: if the little man's house is a cloistered checkmate of black and white bands complete with dichromatic squares similar (if not really) Rothko; leaving the house that dark abstract expressionism is transformed into a more colorful, albeit still squared, metropolitan horizon à la Mondrian with the vivacity of Miró's stroke; and then melt into a great wave of blue light or evolve into many drawers-experiences of a grandmother with a wardrobe body (the call is never ostentatious but it is difficult not to see an ancestry of Dalí or Cornell. And who knows in their very name German aside, there is no reference to Hundertwasser).

In short, it is not a question of being more or less technological, no, it is the balance of functionality and aesthetic research (therefore awareness of the medium rather than exhibitionist exploitation) that gives life to art: this attention to detail, nuance, inexhaustible invention it ends up capturing the viewer and keeping his imaginative participation always alive.

While so much theater gets lost in an awkward attempt to update (towards what, towards where: it is not clear), with Out Valeria Bianchi, Aurora Buzzetti and Giulia De Canio show that it is neither about being young nor being modern, it is about only to master the art that feels close to one's own sensitivity and through it to create. And there is no doubt that UnterWasser's art - woe to call it minor - of great value.

Teatro dell’orologio. The craftsmanship of Out, a healthy bearer of charm and simplicity

by Giuditta Maselli, La Platea, 20 dicembre 2016

In the general silence, the metaphorical journey of an unnamed child took place. From the small mouth drawn in charcoal on the wood no sound comes out and therefore no information. Precisely for this reason, perhaps, it is so easy and immediate for us to appropriate it immediately. Each one, among the spectators seated in the stalls, metabolizes it in his own way and at his own convenience; he adapts it to his experience, his childhood, his present or his past as an adult. In any case, whether it is a close memory or a distant memory, that child seems to know everyone.

Just as it seems that everyone knows or has known the irrepressible fear of the "outside", of the noises coming in from the window, of the unknown beyond the door of the cage. Yet it is only a matter of time before a sudden blizzard causes those apparently solid walls to collapse, those rigid housing certainties, pushing the little protagonist into a necessary search. On the trail of the little bird that freed itself from its chest and which stands out against the pre-eminent darkness of the sena with its beautiful pulsating red color, here it is, therefore, on its way, on a journey of discovery and formation, through unknown plantations and bizarre individuals, each of the which will, in its own way, direct it towards the goal.

It is surprising, however, to see above all how, in reality, a few minutes are enough for the presence of the actors on stage to cease to annoy the attention of the public. Differently from what is customary and habitual in that puppetry too often confined only to the childish and folkloric tradition, these do not hide behind the big black cloth, rather they deliberately declare themselves pure scenic bios. The dreamlike and fabulous atmosphere then offers a double level of interpretation, literal and symbolic: the aesthetic and counter-tending presence of the actor behind the puppet, as well as proposing an unusual and seductive animated vision, takes advantage of the merit of having contributed to break the conceptual banks that too often enclose the shows in vague and primitive typologies. Out, which the Unterwasser company proudly signs as its first production, fully represents a very successful example of true contemporary theater, of rupture and mixing, where different and multiple representation techniques converge on the scene, from shadows to object theater, and in whose puppets, marionettes and puppets finally find themselves living in a much vaster world than the space, instead closed and limited, of the hut or the theater. The magical flow that pervades the viewer, enchanted in front of an inanimate object that comes to life, does not stop, but, on the contrary, amplifies its power, hitting an unconscious myriad of misunderstandings and prejudices. Out is a little gem that rises to the status of revenge of what for too long has become an undeserved theatrical subcategory, ontologically less noble than the actor's theater. It is an invisible interaction that the actors on stage practice with the protagonists of Out, almost a silent conversation between living objects and automated bodies, the urgent coexistence between the artefact and the animators, as secondary to the action as indispensable for its own success. . The movement of the actors, in fact, does not confuse, but it does not even disappear; on the contrary there is and wants to be there, it is clear and visible, and tests a new approach, risky and daring at the same time, with the viewer, who witnesses a sincere and expressed breakthrough of fiction and at the same time lives a stimulating experience, which makes it leverages all its senses through a symbiotic use of lights, the plasticity of space and its relationship with movement, a simple but effective dramaturgical and narrative architecture and the allusive and evocative potential of objects.

Thoughts in the presence of a puppet

by Alessandro Toppi, il Pickwick, 14/02/2016

The first five minutes of Out tell about when we feel the fear of really living; tell of when it seems to us that it would be better if the reality around us were limited to the four walls of a room, when we don't feel like challenging the passage of time or the course of events and we struggle to accept that failure is possible; the first five minutes of Out - with this puppet maneuvered inside a bedroom smaller than the Nostos stage, a cabin furnished with a mirror, two paintings, an alarm clock, a bed with a blanket, a window with a curtain - they tell of when we prefer not to make choices, perhaps by staying silent, without saying (or telling us) what we are thinking; they tell of when we settle down - in short - in the lukewarm condition of exclusion, loneliness, lateral existence: that it also happens that we have to exist, if it really has to happen, but that at least it happens without being noticed by others.

By suggestion it is in these first five minutes that I think of the shadowy and fleeting characters of literature (the Cadou of which Perec writes in Portrait of the author seen as a piece of furniture, always; certain children known in Dickens' novels; creatures frightened by themselves by Walser; Oblomov, who spends his years on the sofa; the "I'd rather not" said and reiterated by Bartleby or Wakefield, who if he goes to live in the house opposite to observe his own existence passing by without him); it is in these first five minutes that I go to the authors of the missed masterpieces, writers and artists (Bobi Bazlen or Joseph Joubert, for example) who for decades have worked on the composition of a work deciding, suddenly, that this work (of all coinciding with his own life) was neither concluded nor known; it is in these first five minutes, finally, that I think about all the times I wanted and could but have not been able to.

So, before the show goes from the fifth to the sixth minute, I think Out is not intended for children because children go out to the world running, reaching out, with a sense of absolute confidence; the children observe, touch, bite, taste, indicate, approach, cling, take possession and hold tight to the chest; children escape from the surveillance of their fathers and mothers - have you seen them when they run with indecisive and swift steps, who knows where to go? - before being grabbed, scolded and brought back to order. Out is a show instead intended for adults because it is we adults - some of us, at least - who increasingly lower our gaze, mutilate our voices, make ourselves enough; it is we who reason by renunciation, who decide our privations, who impose on ourselves (often by making ourselves impose) restraints, fears and boundaries: one less satisfaction, one missing emotion, an adventure or a risk with which we have decided that it is better don't compare us.

Five minutes, in which this puppet wakes up - elsewhere you can hear dogs barking while cars emit their petulant honking - and shows me that, instead of the rib cage, it has a cage, where it segregates its heart / bird. It grants him morning freedom, the flight, but it is an illusion because this flight is not possible except inside the room while the heart - yellow beak, red feathers - would like to go higher than the ceiling, beyond every wall and away from this double prison consisting of a cage, closed, inside a closed space.

There is therefore - in this initial fragment - a creature who is afraid and who, because he does not know if he will be able to stand up to the world, decides not to be part of the world. Untill…

The wind comes from the left, knocking down the side fabric wall, determining the rest of the show. Expected accident, which somehow reminds me of the pages of the late Mattia Pascal, in which the paper tear in the sky occurs that forces the puppet to become aware of the existence of "the sky, beyond the proportionate roof", the wind makes Out a sort of coming-of-age theatrical novel, which is dramaturgically conjugated as a chase - the being that tries to recapture its heart - and which is translated onto the stage in the creation of an artisanal and visionary gymnastics, of a continuous imaginary and real exploration, of an aesthetic path that in its development produces and reproduces the crossing of further worlds, which are formed and deformed on sight.

It thus becomes a story of conquest Out because this being that climbs up cubic stairs, crosses nocturnal forests, rides ocean fish and flies, held by the claws of a swallow, takes place in a progressive itinerary to which he himself had been denied, having preferred to remain segregated between the pillow and the mirror, the curtains and the alarm clock until a few seconds before. Fable opposite to that of Pinocchio, different in its giving also from the Kafkaesque discovery of America (works whose characters decide to independently cross the threshold, to face the journey, to give themselves to the condition of wayfarers), Out drags beyond the fence (physical and mental, scenographic and metaphorical) and almost against its own will the puppet, forcing it to know what otherwise it would never have known: the stained glass windows of the buildings, for example, and the rippling of the waves, the summer song of cicadas, the round flight of fireflies, the climbs of the mountains, the impressive distortions that the moon produces with the branches of trees, the "bla bla bla" of those who think they know more than others and the distant but still audible roar of war, the sound of a violin, a lullaby, kept as an object is stored in the bottom of a drawer: "He always used to tell" - says Valeria Bianchi talking about her grandfather Angelo, in an interview with Artintime - and to tell "He opened the right drawer from the archive of memories, carefully unrolled the yellowed parchment of the chosen story and then, with the same care, folded it to put it in order and close the drawer". And so I think that - when, in the middle of the plot, Out's puppet comes across an old wooden cabinet, which keeps echoes of the past in the compartments - it is my grandfather Angelo who appears to me, thus also suggesting an identification process, a momentary personalization, a fleeting biographical trace, which I mention here in writing but which I then stop immediately: out of confidentiality, out of critical uncertainty, out of fear of going off track.

Luigi Allegri, in an essay contained in the third volume of the History of modern and contemporary theater, says that the traditions with which we must deal are two: the tall one, which relates the puppet to the divine (as God made man in his image and likeness, so man produces a similitude between himself and God through the object); the low one, which degrades every form of puppet (marionette, puppet, baby, automaton) to a toy, a whim. From time to time, over the centuries - from the Middle Ages to the avant-garde of the mid-twentieth century - the marionette therefore represents something that is more or less than the human being: in the exercise of court jesters, who "exhibit puppets that are not given to behave in an exemplary way "(I read from Riquier's Supplication); in the practice of the "silly, wandering and popular joke" performed by the puppeteer who goes around taverns (just remember the episode narrated in the twenty-sixth chapter of Don Quixote) until, gradually, becoming an instrument of theatrical initiation, a means through which one approaches the mystery of art: I am thinking of Stanislavskij's autobiographical memoirs or Goethe's Wilhelm Meister, in which the protagonist's vocation passes through the prodigy of inanimate puppets that seem to almost come to life. In this way we get to use the puppet first as a premise to the theater and then as a scenic weapon against the theater itself and - in particular - against the actors: "They never understand anything about the works they have to act" says Artaud, it would be better to replace them with "The puppets, of which we are masters, sovereigns and creators" in the words of Jarry and - with Jarry and Artaud - it would be easy to cite Maeterlink and Schnitzler, Kleist, De Ghelderode and Gordon Craig, Pirandello, De Filippo, Depero or the Treatise on mannequins by Bruno Schulz, which is the basis of Kantor's The Dead Class: “We can trust the puppet” - writes Arthur Symons - “It will respond to the intentions of the author without reservations or disputes”.

From time to time used to represent, identify or make appear someone / something that is above, below or that is other than the human being, the puppet reteatralizes the possibilities of the theater and yet the show of which it is part is never considered of the all worthy of being called theater but only something that is above, below or otherwise from the theater: it is a rite or a joke, it is an entertainment from the square, it is a trifle for children or a dynamic, subversive and anti-theatrical action.

The panorama, to see it well, does not seem completely changed because, in the contemporary scene, puppets and marionettes belong to that form (considered by many to be subordinate) now called "puppetry" and which is associated with children's theater, to be done possibly in the classrooms and school hours or in the matinees (good for increasing the data to be given to the Ministry), and which too often is considered a folkloric or minor practice or childlike initiation to the "theater of adults". But I look at Out, at Nostos, and I look at these three artists - Valeria Bianchi, Aurora Buzzetti, Stefan Andrei Balan (but I would also remember Giulia De Canio, absent from this replica) - who are at the same time directors, performers and technicians of the whole show and I think what Allegri has already written: “Only a superficial glance can understand” this form of representation “within limits and indices of subordination”.

Only a superficial glance cannot realize that Out - and shows like Out - cannot be part of the alleged subordination induced by a system of phony codes and labels and that it would be more appropriate, finally, to consider puppetry in terms of parity or, if we prefer, of alternation to the theater of actors. “It is theater tout court,” - writes Allegri - “which bases its specificity not on popularity, therefore on the alleged naivety and purity of its own culture, but on the demand for articulated and cultured methods of structuring”. It is enough to consider - to return to Out - what it means to witness the continuous transformation on sight of the scenic environment (which occurs, for example, through the use of lights and backlights, continuous and variable respect of proportions, significant reuse of an object and pictorial geometrism, isolation of the character, construction by montage) and what it means to deal with the coexistence, in the same space, of the puppet and those who manipulate it: it is an induction to the imagination, it is an attempt to constrain the gaze again or again of the public to abandon themselves to the vision and to give parts of awareness to obtain, in exchange, moments of amazement.

Immersed as we are in digital worlds created especially for us, of which we are caged users (the preordained saturation of virtual space and its possible paths) even when we think we are free and independent protagonists, while the theater becomes - at least in its richer manifestations and sumptuous - a sort of cinematography that takes place live, to the point of inducing the viewer to passivity of reception (everything is given to me by the scenography, so I have nothing to imagine), shows such as Out revive the tacit agreement agreed between the interpreters and the audience on the basis of which - for this time in common, in this space in which we are - we pretend to believe by truly believing.

Until, as happened in this case, the applause begins by sanctioning the end of the spell.

The wonders of puppetry

by Andrea Porcheddu, Gli stati generali,5/12/15

I don't know how it went to you, but my son was very impressed, impressed and scared by the events in Paris. He is eight years old. And for him to process such a lot of news is not easy. From that day on, he felt a certain, unfathomable, "fear": an obviously understandable feeling, but not to be underestimated.

Because then there are really too many "instigations to fear". Everywhere. There is undeniably growing an apologia for fear, a widespread sense of insecurity that is systematically cultivated, accomplices - as we well know - media certainly energetic in riding the wave of terror and collective fibrillation, and politicians who swoon over the confusion of others just to stay three more minutes on TV.

Furthermore, Rome records a significant increase in aggression, ill-concealed anger, contagious tension - to which even the widespread disservice, at all levels, gives good arguments: we notice this in the subway, in the street, at the post office. All ready to scream or beat their hands to overpower the other.

So, against the phantom threat, with the old and new "invaders", against the eternal "black man", the first reaction is to shut up in the house, close the doors and windows and stay there, locked, and hope that the enemy passes beyond . Children feel all this, and how.

That is why I have seen with great enthusiasm a "show" of excellent workmanship, signed by three actress-performers-manipulators who deal with the theme of fear with great grace and wisdom. The group is called Unterwasser, the show Out and they are Valeria Bianchi, Aurora Buzzetti, Giulia De Canio and have already made themselves known in various national awards. In the lively season of the Brancaccino Theater, the work was greeted with sincere applause.

The story has as its protagonist a child with a small body made in the shape of a cage: inside he hides a bird, and he lives closed - he too - in the cage of his own room. The world outside is noisy and dangerous: better, in fact, to stay closed inside.

Then, however, it happens that that little heart-bird escapes, takes flight, escaping from the unexpectedly open window. And the little wooden hero has to face the world. It has to get out.

Thus begins the most classic adventure travel, to discover the self and the Other, passing from the initial fear-tremor to a conscious awareness of freedom. The adventures follow one another, the extraordinary encounters multiply, the spells enchant, as in the best tradition of the "morphology of the fairy tale".

The initiatory journey is therefore a journey within oneself, but one that crosses the sea and nature, with fireflies and seagulls acting as interlocutors. A journey in which it happens to come across an adult who talks nonsense and does not listen, or an old woman who is a puppet whose body is made of drawers: when you open them, memories, old songs, memories of a past come out. painful in which a distant war echoes.

There are, of course, moments of fear: but it is precisely on overcoming the "fear" that the show insists, and it does so in a very balanced way.

I am not an expert in puppetry, but I like how - with wise transformations of the material, it can be literally wonderful: everyday objects take on other semantic values, often simple and primary materials release evocative and dreamlike abilities. In such solutions, Out gives its best. Bianchi, Buzzetti, De Canio manage well, with shared seriousness, even the scene changes that punctuate the narration in paintings or stations. And this simple and amazing adventure reveals the clear message: we open the cage of our heart, it is useless to close, to erect barriers, useless to lock ourselves in the house. Better to explore, fly, swim, play. Or not?

And the audience of children, first and second grade, who attended the show, with great attention and emotional participation, will perhaps treasure it.

Out –Sinais de Cena

by Rui Pina Coelho, Portuguese Association for Theatre Critics, 30/10/2015

This puppetry performance echoes Maeterlinck’s Blue Bird main dramaturgical axes. In effect, it is also a story about the search for happiness. A boy has lost his singing bird, a bird that he kept inside his chest. He goes through a series of obstacles until he reaches, at the end, his beautiful bird. The story, however, doesn’t teach him much. He never gives up the idea of having his bird kept in a birdcage. But, at the end, the bird teaches him a lesson: he (and his new female bird friend) will join the boy – but they will not be kept in the cage. Blatantly simple, it’s powerfully efficient: happiness must be compatible with freedom otherwise it is not possible. Simple, poetical, emotive, it is a magnetic and magnificent puppetry performance, combining several manipulation techniques. This kaleidoscopic and inventive combination of manipulated objects, puppets, shadows – where lights and music are used with cheerful intelligence and emphatic function – creates an impressive performance, sometimes almost like an animated film. Pure theatrical joy.

OUT-segni d’infanzia

by Maddalena Giovannelli , Stratagemmi.it, 30/10/2015

To love is not to possess the other. This is what the child protagonist of Out will learn - the show presented at the UnterWasser company Segni d’Infanzia festival - at the end of his arduous search. Out is a delightful training tale told through the imaginative language of puppetry, which does not need words to get straight to the hearts of the spectators: the music, the gestures, and the puppets masterfully conducted by the three performers visible on stage are enough to communicate. .

The object of desire is a bird, which the child jealously guards within himself, in a chest-cage: perhaps a representation of interiority, perhaps the first embryonic relationship with the other by himself. But the pet spreads its wings and, as expected, flies away. It will take a lot of courage and a long way, by land and by sea, to find him. But in the end - just as we would expect from a Disney script - the efforts and ups and downs will lead to the acquisition of a precious core of truth. The child will understand that that journey, and that loss of control, are part of life. And that you need to have the courage to bring out what is kept inside: a lesson that the UnterWasser company, after receiving important industry awards, offers the Mantuan public just as the film Inside Out is making a splash in cinemas. A teaching not to be lost, for spectators of all ages.

LE CŒUR ET L’ART DES 3 ROMAINES

di Albert Bagno, Charleville 2015

They have a company name that is a puzzle: Unterwasser (is it for the weird architect? Or for the puppeteer from the German zone of Italy, or for ...?).

They are three Valeria Bianchi, Giulia De Canio, Aurora Buzzetti and they arrived by car from Rome.

They are young, they have the joy of learning and communicating and they are just great!

They presented in the Off festival in Charleville "Out" without words but where they say a lot, starting with the themes confronted (too much to be told here), by the elegance of the game and by the emotion they arouse.

They won over the street public with their kindness and professionalism. Despite the rain, they caused quite a stir in the festival courtyard. Moral: they go straight to the heart!

It’s rare and that’s saying a lot! ”

Out – Eolo Award 2015

by Mario Bianchi, Eolo, 11/05/2015

On the occasion of the childhood scenario award we had already expressed our appreciation for the twenty minutes of “Out” by the Unterwasser company, a creation entirely designed and built by the capable hands of the young Valeria Bianchi, Aurora Buzzetti, Giulia De Canio. At the Festival we witnessed its completion which seemed absolutely in tune with the intentions and the success of the fragment we already saw at the final of the Scenario Award.

"Out" tells the story of a child who keeps his heart-bird locked in the cage of his chest, for fear that it might get lost or hurt. But one day the little bird, curious to know the world, escapes from the window, forcing the child to leave the house for the first time and embark on a journey to chase him. The child will cross the world in all its aspects in a path of growth and knowledge of himself. “Out” fully experiments the poetic, evocative and communicative potential of puppetry by inserting them in a silent show, where music and sounds are used as amplifiers of feeling and meaning. The three young animators play with shadows, objects and shapes of various sizes and nature, building environments and characters, very different from each other, including, we like to remember, an ancient wise old woman from whose memory drawers the protagonist can draw to finally become free and autonomous. A beautiful and poetic show, therefore, where the art of puppetry can easily get out of tradition to set out too, like the child protagonist of the story, towards new horizons guided as it was by three young animators. "

An instructive day of study

by Francesco Gallina, member of the student council of the Premio Scenario Infanzia 2014.

Out by Unterwasser received our honorable mention. The result of an evident and almost scientific artistic refinement, the show translates into the journey of initiation and education of a child who is educated, that is, led out of his home, a metaphor for his certainties, and immediately connected with world and with its inevitable contrasts, masterfully rendered by a skilful and meticulous play of light and shadow.

The craftsmanship, the plasticity and stylization of the space, the painstaking use of poor material and therefore exploited in all its potential are striking: the metal and glass of the small scenographic structures; the wood of the puppets, which are a child with a cage-shaped chest (from which a bird emerges, a metaphor for the heart open to change) and Bla Bla, a type of adult and empty man.

The energy of the images and the dreamlike dimension - which reminds me so much of the imaginary journeys of Jean-Michel Folon - cannot fail to satisfy the eye of the viewer, to whom amazing life paths between city and nature are proposed, although everything is submerged in the dark. In particular, its intent to convey a universal message through the use of archetypes is appreciated.