RASHOMON – Movie Theatre 

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BITEF theatre 2007

Rashomon Movie Theatre was a multimedia performance in which I developed the concept of interaction between body and screen image. Live performers  enter a dialog with pre recorded material, but more importantly with their own live actions that are immediately being  transmitted on screen by seven cameras randomized by the computer. Provoking the view of the audience I place them in space in such position that they need to chose if they will watch the live act or follow it on the screen, which is in fact more comfortable. However the image on screen is always different form what is visible on the stage.

With this concept I have delt with multidinensionality of  reality and paradox of that what is commonly known as objective truth. Nowadays, in a world where wars are being led by the media, and where the political power and money decides what is “truth”, comprehension of provided information that we take as reality is more than questionable issue. How does one chooses what to believe in? Or in terms of everyday banality: why do I trust one newspaper rather then the other? What decides us? Prejudices, society, circumstances, intellect, intuition…? How does a human animal changes its identity and what makes the decision? It is more complicated than it seams. Especially when it comes to crime. Especially in times when somebody’s murderer is somebody else’s national hero.

It is obvious that our perception is subjective and therefore seams unreliable. But, what is much more important for this performance is the fact that there appear to be as many separate realities as participants and witnesses in the event. I would say that we play our performance in the spot where everything is truth and truth is everything that is opposite to it.

On dramaturgical level, the plot of performance was based on Akutagava’s famous story “In a grove” that follows different interpretations of one crime. Without attempt to “reconstruct the crime” author offers different versions of the event seen through the perspectives of different characters, leading the readers into confusion, since they can equally believe and not believe in each version of the story.

In our performance the story is happening inside an airplane. The audience is placed like passengers and corridor between the airplane seats becomes our performing space. Thank you for flying Air Rashomon -pilot welcomes the passengers, stewardess is smiling and our flight can begin. Suddenly spectators/passengers become witnesses and hostages of an aircraft hijack that ends with a crash. The terrorist attack is being repeated over and over through perspectives of different characters. Their inner realities interfere in a dreamlike succession of strange events towards unexpected final. The question arises: is my reality real? Or we are all just characters in somebody’s nightmare?

Following the line of multidimensionality of perception, and playing with the illusion and media, we are introducing a video screen (facing the spectators at the beginning of corridor) as equally important part of performing space, where action is extended simultaneously with the “live” act, combining film and performance into one unbreakable form.

author & director> Aneta Stojnic.

performers> Mariana Arandjelovic, Jelena Angelovski, Nikola Vasiljevic, Vladimir Cirkovic.

photographer> Ivan Grujic