ROBERT WILSON

robert wilson

“In the frame of a PhD dissertation on Robert Wilson’s work and creative process that turned into a book series, I collaborated for three years on video design for The Days Before DDDIII with text by Umberto Eco, music by Ryuichi Sakamoto, ft. Fiona Shaw and Isabella Rossellini at Lincoln Center.” —PV

The Days Before DDDIII I Books I PhD

“Since the late 1960s, Robert Wilson's productions have decisively shaped the look of theater and opera. Through his signature use of light, his investigations into the structure of a simple movement, and the classical rigor of his scenic and furniture design, Wilson has continuously articulated the force and originality of his vision. Wilson's close ties and collaborations with leading artists, writers, and musicians continue to fascinate audiences worldwide.“ —robertwilson.com

“…Light is not an afterthought. It’s something that’s architectural, it’s structure, it’s thought about from the beginning, it’s part of the book, it’s like an actor. So it’s not a decoration.” —Robert Wilson, interview in Theater Week, 1994

“[I appreciate]… Hollywood portraits of the early 30s and those from Germany in the 20s where light performed as an actor, where every movement, every second was lit and sculptured, allowing us to hear and see more readily and intensely... Light in my work functions as a part of an architectural whole. It is an element that helps us hear and see, which is the primary way we communicate. Without light there is no space.” —Robert Wilson, interview in Dance Ink, 1995

ROBERT WILSON Official Site THE WATERMILL CENTER Official Site 

PRODUCTIONS Video Portraits I Les Fables de La Fontaine I The Life and Death of Marina Abramovic I Tom Waits I The Black Rider I Il Trovatore I Philip Glass I Einstein on the Beach TALKS RW Interview I RW at The Watermill Center I RW, Philip Glass, Lucinda Childs I RW, Willem Dafoe I RW, Rufus Wainwright PHOTOS SmugMug I Flickr

"The third work of a trilogy begun in 1979 in Berlin, with the second part created in 1987, this piece premiered in 1999 in New York City with a cast of almost forty actors, dancers and singers from all over the world. Mr. Wilson has described the piece as being for him a sort of dreamscape that has as its themes apocalypse and redemption. Each of its twelve scenes tells its own story with no overt reference to the other scenes – the themes for the scenes came from sources as diverse as the Bible, the tales of Edgar Allan Poe, a newspaper article about an old woman’s suicide, historical incidents. They are unified by Mr. Wilson’s staging and use of visual elements, by the text taken from Umberto Eco’s The Island of the Day Before, and by the music of Ryuichi Sakamoto. Additional text comes from a series of Tone Poems written and performed by Christopher Knowles. A simple, blond-wood stage reminiscent of the Noh theatre of Japan is transformed by the use of lights, video, painted drops and a host of objects flying in from above – an angel with the head of a deer, a little girl who wears the mask of a huge baby and rides on a comet, to name just a few." —Change Performing Arts

“I worked as video design collaborator during three years in the production The Days Before DDDIII by Robert Wilson. We developed the play every Summer at The Watermill Center in The Hamptons, New York. We also spent a week at Piccolo Teatro di Milano and a month at Teatro Comunale di Modena, Italy. Christopher Kondek was working as video designer for Laurie Anderson, Peter Greenaway, and mostly for the Wooster Group. He was way much technical and advanced than me. I mostly attended the content. What was going to be our visual proposal for the master of the theater of images? I got on a train from New York to Washington DC and found in the Library of Congress early cinema footage from 1895 to 1907. Not many understood back then what we were trying exploriing. Film/media wasn’t just part of the set: we were working on audiovisual narrative. Something that nowadays is in vogue.” —Pedro Valiente

PREVIEW Teatro Comunale di Modena, Italy, June 1999 I PREMIERE Lincoln Center Festival, State Theater, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, New York, July 7-10, 1999 I TOUR Festival de Otoño, Madrid, November 18-21, 1999 I Festival PONTI, Porto, December 3-4, 1999 I Istanbul International Theatre Festival, Turkey, May 27-28, 2000 I Compostela Millennium Festival, Santiago de Compostela, Spain, August 12-14, 2000. I Site

THE DAYS BEFORE: death destruction and detroit III (1999) by Robert Wilson

CREW Conceived, designed, and directed by Robert Wilson I Text: Umberto Eco (The Island of the Day Before), Christopher Knowles (Tone Poems) I Music: Ryuichi Sakamoto I Choreography: Suzushi Hanayagi I Costumes/makeup: Jacques Reynaud I Light: A.J. Weissbard I Set: Peter Botazzi I Sound: Peter Cerone I Video: Christopher Kondek I Props: Hans Thierman

Producer: Franco Laera I Producing director: Elizabetta di Mambro I Production stage manager: Sue Jane Stoker I Dramaturgy collaboration: Anna Merenyi, Susie Lim I Assistant directors: Koken Ergun, Urs Schoenebaum I Furniture supervisor: Chistian Prasser I Video design collaboration: Pedro Valiente I Props master: Daniela Balsamo

CAST Featuring Isabella Rosellini and Fiona Shaw, with Jeremy Geidt, Tony Randall, Semiha Berksoy, Dadon Dawadolma, Arthur Beatty, Elettra Botazzi, Francis Boue, Fritzi Haberlandt, Meg Harper, Makram Hamdan, Marianna Kavalieratos, Christopher Knowles, Restu Kusumaningrum, Keith McDermott, Brian Nishii, Fernando Nogueira, María Pessino, Arco Renz, Elizabetta Rosso, Inés Somellera, Carlos Soto, Tassy Thompson I A production by Change Performing Arts, Lincoln Center Festival, et al. I © 1999 RW Ltd.

“Robert Wilson. Planetary Performing Arts is the first part of a book series on Robert Wilson’s work which will be completed with the upcoming Suspended Time Space. Robert Wilson’s Creative Process. Over six hundred pages study took the form of a PhD dissertation as a way to dive into contemporary art in the frame of the avant-garde. For the last decades, Robert Wilson is well know as a master of opera staging with successful productions commissioned by the main opera houses mostly in Paris and Berlin. Although Wilson is essentially a theater author/director and visual artist who works with light and movement in space.

Robert Wilson has created an extensive body of visual work including drawings and paintings as well as furniture design, video art, and site installations. He is the master of light in the performing arts of the 20th century and beyond. Wilson is a great admirer of dancer Martha Graham, and a follower of the experimental tradition of The Black Mountain College with figures as painter Robert Rauschenberg and musician John Cage. Wilson appears in the iconic book Theater of Images along with Richard Foreman and Mabou Mines.

Robert Wilson belongs to the unique generation that took New York by storm in the second half of the 60s to set ground-breaking languages for contemporary art until today. Writers Heiner Müller and William S. Burroughs; musicians Philip Glass, Lou Reed, and Tom Waits are among his numerous extraordinary collaborators. I could not lock myself in for years into any other world. And besides of my dream to live in the city and study filmmaking, this is why I moved to New York.” —PV

BOOK 01 Robert Wilson. Planetary Performing Arts published by Ñaque Ed.

BOOK 02 Suspended Time Space. Robert Wilson’s Creative Process upcoming.

Robert Wilson. Arte escénico planetario, Recommended Book by Casa del Libro in Madrid, Top 10 Performing Arts Books by Librería Alibri in Barcelona. Reviewed for Acotaciones Magazine, RESAD [National Theater School] by Spanish writer Irma Correa. Book in Drama Technique series including authors Ian Watson and José Sanchis Sinisterra. Ñaque Ed. directors Fernando Bercebal and Cristina M. Ruiz Pérez, graphic designer, beautifully crafted the book. I Site

[SPANISH] ABSTRACT "Estudio del proceso de creación en la obra de Robert Wilson presenta una investigación acerca de uno de los creadores multidisciplinares más influyentes en las artes escénicas del final del siglo veinte. La primera parte, ‘Robert Wilson y la vanguardia escénica en el contexto del arte contemporáneo’ es un estudio comparativo entre Wilson y otros creadores y movimientos artísticos. También aparece un desglose de los rasgos fundamentales de su trabajo teatral, audiovisual y plástico, y un ensayo final enmarcando su obra en determinadas formas de arte ritual.

En la segunda parte, ‘Evolución estética de Robert Wilson a través de Death Destruction Detroit: 1979, 1987, 1999’, gira en torno al núcleo del estilo wilsoniano: el proceso de creación, tomando como referente las versiones diferentes de un montaje que abarcan las tres décadas en las que Wilson ha desarrollado su producción. Asimismo se incluyen textos en torno a Wilson y sus principales colaboradores, una referencia a la vanguardia escénica española, y el catálogo de su obra”. —Universidad Complutense de Madrid

Study of Robert Wilson’s Creative Process (2000) PhD dissertation,  Audiovisual Creativity and Production [Film/Media] Department of Audiovisual Communication and Publicity, Faculty of Information Sciences, Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM).. Presented before a Jury formed by PhD professors from four universities of Spain. Received the highest mark: unanimous cum laude. Eprint by UCM. I Site

RW Intro I Theater I Books I PhD