Sound Art, Video Art, Dance, Performance, Paintings, Sculpture, Score, Theatrical staging, Site-specific installations, Puppets show.
Il Bestiario della Terra, Reggio Parma Festival 2022
November - December 2022 | Teatro Regio, Teatro Due, Teatro Municipale Romolo Valli
Mostrario represents the epilogue and the heart of Il Bestiario della Terra, a project that investigated the relationship between man and animal, the differences between them, and whether it is possible to discover and recover the animal nested in every man.
In Mostrario, however, we assist to a shift in the question that now turns to the Monster. The creation of fantastic figures and chimeras, situated in a different world and parallel to our own, makes it possible to highlight certain aspects of the human nature - transgressive, dreamlike and sometimes frightening - that would not be possible to address in any other way. Here, then, the beast-the monster-becomes emblematic of the deepest side of man.
With his Mostrario Yuval Avital grafts his research into the long and complex tradition of bestiaries. Appearing in the West in the III d.C. with the Physiologus, a short treatise by an unknown author from Alexandria, Egypt, bestiaries are encyclopedias containing reviews of monsters and mythical characters, used as a mirror of civilization. These narratives are usually used to depict attitudes, virtues and vices that are transposed onto hybrid figures capable of becoming emblems of the complexity of our souls and offering explanations otherwise difficult to communicate. The allegorical meanings of the bestiaries are here taken up by the artist and reactivated in a contemporary key, sometimes with surprising reversals of roles.
Avital thus comes to construct his own personal bestiary composed of eighteen scenarios that, through fantastic and monstrous figures, address some of the most pressing issues of our time in search of the truthfulness of the soul through action. What makes us Human? The artist has answered this question in multiple ways, never definitively, as he strongly argues for the relativity of the present and the multiplicity of interpretations.
Fundamental to the construction of the self, sanctity and carnality, identity and instinct, fear and desire, light and darkness, dreams and affections, are all constant themes in his art and protagonists of this macro project.
Describing the journey that the viewer will take along the Mostrario is not easy; the extensive use of different languages, belonging to the world of performance, theater, concerts, clubs and museums, does not allow for pigeonholing into a single, defined category. We witness the staging of an innovative work, the form of which has very few precedents - theater is pushed beyond its boundaries. The grand spectacle that the artist has imagined and created for the audience echoes the Wagnerian tradition of the total work of art, which aims to bring the viewer into contact with all artistic practices, exploring every possibility, without systemic closures: the artist is scriptwriter, choreographer, composer, photographer, set designer and director. Each form is explored with daring mastery and proposed without hierarchies. For the Mostrario , indeed, Avital has created scores, theatrical texts ranging from monologue to puppet theater, sound works, films with a psychedelic and ironic language, stop-motion short films, the latest generation of software such as Midjourney, specially created artificial intelligences and icono-sound installations that collaborate synergistically in the representation of this kaleidoscopic multimedia fresco.
Of this vast and multifaceted production, the artist is not the sole creator. The chorality that characterizes Yuval Avital's work takes on great extension here, weaving dense networks of collaborations that shape every step of the process. For months, Avital has worked side by side with the Theatres' workers, with all the staff involved in the design and production of the shows, with local artistic realities, cultural associations and entire communities to create a work with shared authorship.
Mostrario is designed to invade all rooms of the theater, involving rooms that are usually precluded to the public or are not used for stage viewing. This invasion invites the viewer to the discovery and exploration that new life gives to the known environments but also to the kind of enjoyment of the show: no longer safe in the stalls and on the stages, separated from the show by the usual audience-stage distance, each visitor is called to an active investigation of the spaces in which every door is transformed into a portal, opening onto an estranging, surprising and exciting microcosm.
The viewer, equipped with a map, was free to discover the theater's spaces independently and to go through the scenes according to the order and timing he preferred.
Mostrario part I
Sound Art, Video Art, Dance, Performance, Paintings, Sculpture, Score, Theatrical staging, Site-specific installations
Il Bestiario della Terra, Reggio Parma Festival 2022
Teatro Regio, Parma, 18-19-20 November 2022
Mostrario part I, created and presented inside Teatro Regio, presents six scenes: la Sala del Gigante Argos, la Sala dei Licantropi/Il Ratto delle Sabine, il Coro degli Uccelli, la Sala delle Sirene, le Terme della Salamandra and La Discoteca degli Sciapodi.
Mostrario part II
Sound Art, Video Art, Dance, Performance, Paintings, Puppets show, Theatrical staging, Site-specific installations
Il Bestiario della Terra, Reggio Parma Festival 2022
Teatro Due, Parma, 2-3-4 December 2022
Mostrario part II, created and presented inside Teatro Due, presents five scenes: il Bosco del Cernunnos, La Sala della Medusa, Il lungo corridoio dell'Uomo Nero, La Classe dei Diavoletti e il Capro espiatorio and La Sala dei Golem.
Mostrario part III
Sound Art, Video Art, Dance, Performance, Paintings, Sculpture, Score, Theatrical staging, Site-specific installations
Il Bestiario della Terra, Reggio Parma Festival 2022
Teatro Municipale Romolo Valli, Reggio Emilia, 10 -11 December 2022
Mostrario part III, created and presented inside Teatro Municipale Romolo Valli, presents seven scenes: Il Campo delle Mandragole, La Città dei Peluches, Il Salotto dei Topi, La Sala della Vipera e dei Vermi Giganti, Il Giardino segreto dei Conigli, Il Porcile and Le Ninfee, le Libellule e le Idradi nello stagno.
