VIE Scena Contemporanea Festival

1973

Massimo Furlan

08/10/2010 , 20:30
09/10/2010 , 18:00

A Massimo Furlan project

Direction: Massimo Furlan
With : Massimo Furlan, Anne Delahaye, Stéphane Vecchione, Marc Augé, Serge Margel, Bastien Gallet
Playwright: Claire de Ribaupierre
Lighting: Antoine Friderici
Scenography: Massimo Furlan, Antoine Friderici
Sound: Stéphane Vecchione
Musical preparation: Daniel Perrin
Sound ingeneer: Philippe de Rham
Technician: Thomas Hempler
Costumes: Cécile Delanoë
Make up: Julie Monot

Production: NUMERO23Prod. (CH)
Coproduction: Festival d'Avignon ; Arsenic, Lausanne; Grand Théâtre de Luxembourg; Théâtre de la Cité Internationale Paris; La Bâtie - Festival de Genève; Gessnerallee, Zurich; Kaserne, Basel; Pour-cent culturel Migros

Support: Loterie romande, Etat de Vaud, Pro Helvetia - Fondation suisse pour la culture, Ville de Lausanne, Pour-cent culturel Migros; Ernst Göhner Stiftung, Banque Cantonale Vaudoise, Fondation Artephila, Ernst Göhner Stiftung, Fondation Leenaards, Fondation Stanley Thomas Johnson, Banque Cantonale Vaudoise, Mediathek tanz
Creation: July 2010, Festival d'Avignon, France.

Performed in French, subtiteled in Italian

Running time: 1h30 min

NATIONAL PREMIÈRE

Image-memory:
“I remember this evening in April. It was in 1973. As always, my sister and I had been waiting for this moment since weeks. Finally it was starting and we could dream. Like us, millions of television viewers had their eyes glued to the television screen. It was the most important evening of the year. It was time for the Eurovision Singing Contest. We were Italians born in Switzerland. And in this contest our hearts were of course beating for the Italian competitor. But that night, things happened differently: I was stupefied by the performance of the Swiss competitor. A young man, tall and with long blond hair, was singing. He was young and seemed so at ease. Even though he was Swiss. He didn’t look like the people I crossed in the small town of Ecublens near Lausanne. He looked happy.”

The Eurovision Singing Contest (first edition in Lugano in 1956) was - during the 70s - one of the rare moments which united the best singers for variety shows. The contest evolved according to an immutable presentation ritual: one singer per country was selected to interpret a song, accompanied by an orchestra. The orchestra was of course one of the main elements of such evenings. Its’ function was to accompany the singer, but it also presented a certain splendour. Varity shows were barely starting at the time and it was a rarity to see singers on a television set. These were only the beginnings of music and singing on television.
The Eurovision Contest was also particular in the field of television in that it was international. It was broadcast live from the host country - which changed each year - to the other countries. The Eurovision Competition had a certain importance and prestige for the participating countries. The information was treated seriously and with reverence. It was maybe the most viewed programme, not only by national but also European audiences. Although today these competitions disappear in the midst of fifty daily variety shows, although they have slowly lost their meaning - because television, music and communication have changed and the contest is left with its pathetic aspect (today, participating in a contest is rather considered a failure in the career of a musician) - for generations such as ours, it represents a memory filled with emotion which brings us back to a time prior to the contemporary saturation of the media. There were only few shows at the time and every single one seemed precious to us. The Eurovision Competition failed to renew itself in its overall functioning. Nonetheless, since a few years, numerous shows have been inspired by it, in that they focus on the question of the prize-winner. In these television shows, the question of the elimination and the election of the winner is central.

The popular
This project thus questions a specific form of popular culture – a television show broadcast to a very large audience – and it opens perspectives for a discussion on mass culture and its specificities.

It addresses tow specific dimensions. The first is commercial, it concerns music as a market, as a phenomena of globalisation, of standardisation. The second is more symbolic and emotional: how and why does one come together for such a show, which presents it self as a kind of ritual ? In an anthropological perspective, we aim to understand the meaning of bringing together to elect the best. Does this reassure us ? Does this create a sense of community ? A bond ?
We are thus simultaneously confronted with the uniformisation of a genre, that of international variety music, and the persistence of local characteristics. For example, the Yugoslav singer is a star in his country and for his country, because he draws his inspiration from universal popular music but maintains his mother tong, his musical sources, which are specific to his culture.

Historical memory and individual memory
The central issue of the project is that of memory and oblivion. It brings to the forefront an event that our generation - born in the 1960-70s - has kept in memory. It revives a specific relation with what was then television. Thus it questions both collective memory - that of the specific context of Europe in the Pop years and its forms of representation (images, costumes, music, choreography) - and a more individual memory - the evocation of the event that Eurovision represented may take us back to our own story, or listening to a specific song may revive a particular memory. We know how important a vector of memory music is.
With this work one discovers that a process is set in motion, that memory is activated, but that in the same movement oblivion emerges. One no longer remembers competitors, since most did not leave their mark on the history of singing! One has forgotten the ceremonial characteristic of television at the time, how slow, sober and serious the show was. All seems suddenly far removed, fading.

Archive and music
Our only working material is the recording of the Eurovision Singing Competition which occurred on the 7th of April 1973 at Luxembourg’s “théâtre Municipal du Grand-Duché”, was produced by the radio-television of Luxembourg, and was presented by the famous Helga Guitton.
There are 17 countries: Finland, Belgium, Portugal, Norway, Monaco, Spain, France, Germany, The United Kingdom, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Yugoslavia, Italy, Sweden, Holland, Ireland and Israel.
« 1973 » is a musical project addressing music. Where does music stand in 1973 ? What are its avant-gardes ? What is the musical context in the 1970s in Europe and in the USA ? What aesthetics, genres, orchestration, voices, amplification? The project addresses a specific question: why is it that only Italians listen to Italian music?

Re-enactment
Like other projects by Massimo Furlan, the project 1973 follows the tradition of the re-enactment. With Number 10 or Number 23, the performance is related to the history of football, a specific match. Here the project is to re-enact as faithfully as possible a whole television show. To perform once again a historic event, a singing contest, an evening in April 1973. A piece of time re-emerges and offers a precise scenario. The event is interpreted on stage as faithfully as possible. But it is, of course, not identical to the original. The actors have changed, it is no longer the same period or context. History may be re-enacted but it never repeats its self. There is a gap between the original and the copy, which in interesting in a number of respects: it puts into question the history of television and music, it is inscribed in the history of representations. But most of all, through its re-enactment, the initial television event - the Eurovision Competition - becomes a musical : it changes form and acquires an other status.
In the project « single player », a kind of helter-skelter parade is engaged, the performer having to assume by himself the role of all the competitors, all the while attempting to remain close to the original. Each time he exits the stage, he quickly puts on a new costume, a new wig, changes his physiognomy, and attempts to interpret the song as faithfully as possible.
The project is based on the phenomena of incompetence. As we know, the motor of burlesque is most often inaptitude. The burlesque hero is he who does not know and who’s « non-knowledge » unleashes a series of accidents; provokes laughter. In this project, incompetence will underline the gap in between the original and the re-enactment. The result will be comical rather then cynical. The distance does not aim to produce an ironic position in relation to the Eurovision event, or to mock the participants of the 1973 edition. The performer, as in the burlesque, will embody its character as closely and sincerely as possible. The result is a child’s perception and memory of a past event, and children do not know irony or cynicism. They are moved and astonished by their curiosity, their desire for discovery. Everything astonishes and moves them.

Massimo Furlan and Claire de Ribaupierre

Massimo Furlan

Born in Switzerland to Italian parents in 1965, concluded his studies at the School of Fine Arts in Lausanne, begins a cycle of work focused on the theme of memory and oblivion.
He exhibited regularly since 1987. He is interested in visual representation and began working with numerous theaters and dance companies.
In 2003 he founded Prod No. 23, focusing on practice performance and installation.
From there, projects are born as "Furlan / Number 23", "International Airport", "(Love story) Superman," "Palo Alto", "Number 10" and "Les filles et les garcons"

www.massimofurlan.com

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