CLOSER / ŠRÁMY 3
The indoor stage show “Closer”, by Marina Mezzogiorno-Brown is an exploration of loss, and the visible and invisible elements of our relationships—how we hide and how we are seen.
This project uses costume, new circus, aerial rope, physical theatre, and ethnographic/oral history interviews to weave a story with a strong aesthetic feeling.
Visually maximalist, “Closer” explores how presentation in the world changes perception. Marina will work with various collaborators to tell a story that looks through her personal lens, while including many people’s experiences. She will conduct interviews with relevant people, and integrate their memories to inform her own understanding of grief, growth and identity.
Her starting questions are:
Who lives inside us? How do the people we love inhabit our skin once they are gone? What do we show and what do we hide, when, why? How does hiding protect us, how can it endanger us?
What happened in that historic moment of freedom and new-found open expression of gay love when AIDS came? How did the necessity for visibility—invisibility equalling death—change our world? Who are the missing ones? How do they live inside us?
Costume—how do we change our roles, our tribe, our obligations, our inhibitions by changing how we adorn our bodies? How does changing how we are seen free us to express things we otherwise keep hidden? How is costume so powerful a way to remove or expand the ego and reveal the self?
Concept / Performer: Marina Mezzogiorno-Brown
Outside eyes: Stéphanie NDuhirahe, Natalie Oleinik, Morgane Widmer,
production: Schmilblick spolek
supported by: Ministerstvo kultury ČR, Státní fond kultury ČR, Cirqueon, The Goethe Institute and the European Union
This work was produced with the financial assistance of the European Union. The views expressed herein can in no way be taken to reflect the official opinion of the European Union.
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