DATE AND VENUE
21.11.2017, 11.00, 20.00
22.11.2017, 20.00
23.11.2017, 11.00, 20.00
24.11.2017, 17.00, 20.00
25.11.2017, 11.00, 14.00, 17.00
26.11.2017, 11.00, 14.00, 17.00
Zorlu PSM Stüdyo
Lasts app. 50’; no intermission.
Suitable for ages 4+.
COMPAGNIA TPO
- Co-Produced by: Compagnia TPO, Teatro Metastasio di Prato
- Directed by: Davide Venturini, Francesco Gandi
- Choreography: Anna Balducci, Piero Leccese
- Image Design: Elsa Mersi
- Computer Engineering: Rossano Monti
- Sound Design: Spartaco Cortesi
- Voice Over: Tilbe Saran
- Costume Design: Loretta Mugnai
- Props Design: Valerio Calonego, Livia Cortesi, Gregory Petitqueux
- Collaboration on Script: Stefania Zampiga
Important Note: Children from 4 to 7 years old should be accompanied by an adult.
Due to the special setting of the performance, the audience will be required to remove their shoes before entering the hall.
Would you like to see the world through the eyes of a butterfly? In Farfalle, Italian immersive theatre ensemble TPO invites you to the shimmering world of butterflies, where colour, sound and light dance along the performance artists on stage. Main character in this play is the stage, along with the dancers, rainforest sounds, and visuals projected on the floor and on the giant butterfly wings on the walls. Altogether, they tell the miraculous story of the life cycle of butterflies. In this unique family event, from time to time the audience is invited up on the stage to fully discover this fascinating, naive, and delightful world. Playing with light and music on stage, the children become part of the performance and live an incomparable experience that will nourish their imaginations forever. The performance of TPO is sure to put butterflies in the minds and hearts of audiences of all ages...
COMPAGNIA TPO Visual, emotional, tactile, immersive... In TPO creation coincides with interactive scenery. Using digital design all sets become “sensitive environments” continuous crossfades between art and play can be experienced. Dancers, performers and the audience share the stage and find a common ground of enjoyment beyond cultural and language barriers. Each artwork is designed to dialogue with players in motion, individual dancers or children. Images and sounds interface with the moving bodies on stage, transforming live gestures and virtual landscapes into a charming interactive art environment.
In TPO productions the role of performers achieves a special valence; thanks to the interactive effects the dancers on stage use their bodies in movement to “paint” and “play music” but, above all, they invite the audience children to explore the space with an approach to theatre that emphasizes the use of the body and the gaze. The TPO Company’s work is directed by a versatile and tight-knit team composed of Davide Venturini, Francesco Gandi, (artistic direction), Elsa Mersi (visual design), Spartaco Cortesi (sound design), Rossano Monti and Martin von Günten (engineering). On stage a team of dancers with international experience develops a constant aesthetic and expressive exploration in order to put the children in touch with contemporary dance.
Between 2002 and 2007, TPO collaborated with engineer Martin von Günten to conceive the CCC [children’s cheering carpet], a large dance mat able to animate sounds and images through pressure sensors. A "magic carpet" which turns natural images/texture into an interactive environment. The CCC project became a trilogy focused on garden types (Japanese, Oriental and Italian). The success of this format brought TPO international renown.
From 2008 to 2009 the group adopted max_msp software as a creative and technical support for interactive theatre. In this research the group was able to capture the stage, with cameras, and link the performers or audience movement to the scene dynamics. The company then began developing software-controlled props that were designed to enrich and widen the theatrical effects. This is the origin of such emblematic choreographies and set designs as Farfalle, Barocco, both presented in Krokus Festival (Hasselt, Belgium) as well as Saltbush, (in collaboration with Insite_Art, Melbourne and Vertical Production Shanghai).
In 2010 the group focused its research on electronic music in order to create an interactive orchestra called Play Please! In this project the stage is divided into illuminated areas while glowing objects, controlled by sensors, act like virtual musical instruments. At the same time TPO began to produce multimedia installations for both children and adults.
In 2010 and 2011 the company created Kindur, The Adventurous Life of Sheep in Iceland, a work that grew out of two site visits. The production, dedicated to the dramatic force of Nordic nature, called for three dancers to enact the epic tale of Icelandic sheep going from their winter pen to their summer pasture. Audience children, too, are directly involved and, by wearing a woolly heart with a digital light command, they are called on stage, a few at a time, to participate in this adventure.
The year 2013 saw the début of Babayaga, a large-scale show based on French artist Rébecca Dautremer’s illustrations of the Russian tale. In October of the same year, in collaboration with Marseille 2013 European Culture Capital, TPO presented BLEU! in Théâtre La Minuterie. This creation devoted to the sea is characterized by a stage set that envelops the audience in the transparencies of an enticing virtual aquarium.
Over the two year period 2014/15 the company based in Prato (Tuscany) adopted an abandoned area adjacent to their Teatro Fabbrichino headquarters where they planted an urban garden. In this area, suitable for outdoor shows, they inaugurated the first edition of Ex Fabrica summer festival. In November 2015, in co-production with the Théâtre National de Chaillot - Paris, TPO created the show Pop Up Garden inspired by the landscape designer and gardener Gilles Clement and by the idea that anyone can change one’s self and the world tending gardens in the most unexpected places.
In 2016 the company undertook an investigation of China in a study ranging from the culture to the landscape of that huge country. This was the beginning of an important collaboration with Tong Production (Beijing) which funded the production of Panda’s Home and managed the very long tour across all of continental China. During the summer period TPO produced its first work for an adult audience, Landskin, where the bodies of two dancers act in symbiosis with real eucalyptus leaves and images of bark projected onto their skin... a unique performance of electronic land-art.
Davide Venturini (Artistic Direction) Studied sociology at Cesare Alfieri University in Florence. Has been with the TPO since 1983. Within it, he has directed productions with an eye to the pedagogical aspects of art, and in particular the processes of visual communication, emphasizing the value of images and the use in theatre of hi-tech devices. He currently holds the post of TPO author and Artistic Director.
Francesco Gandi (Artistic Direction) Studied at the DAMS Academy in Bologna. Since 1987 he has conducted his research activity with the TPO in the roles of author, director and actor. His works typically make prevalent use of images, props, figures and, in his latest productions, technology. He currently holds the post of President of the TPO Cultural Association.
