BOOK 02

Suspended Time Space. Robert Wilson’s Creative Process

PEDRO VALIENTE

“In words of composer Phillip Glass, the essence of Robert Wilson’ style is his sense of time, space, and stage movement, and his extraordinary use of light design that evolved over the years.” —PV

Suspended Time Space. Robert Wilson’s Creative Process is the second part of a series on Robert Wilson’s work following Robert Wilson. Planetary Performing Arts published by Ñaque Ed. Both are based on the PhD dissertation Study of Robert Wilson’s Creative Process.

Suspended Time Space. Robert Wilson's Creative Process​ (Tiempo espacio suspendido. Proceso de creación de Robert Wilson) with focus on three versions of Death Destruction and Detroit.

“The book looks at the creative process by Robert Wilson through three versions of Death Destruction and Detroit through three decades: DDDI (1979) with technical study, DDDII (1987) with comments by collaborators, and The Days  Before Death Destruction and Detroit III (1999) with journals from development workshops at The Watermill Center in New York. The book traces style and essentials of a unique aesthetic: from Wagner's total theater to space in non-conventional performing arts. The book also presents a commented chronology, documentation, and articles about figures such as Heiner Müller and Laurie Anderson.

How to lock in a title the essence of such a vast journey? Now, looking back to 'planetary' for the first book, I think that a word to convey integral/total could be better. (There is a documentary film called Absolute Wilson). For the second book, I went from compressed/expanded to floating (hover, hang, drift, glide, sail, travel), detained (slow down, delay), and finally suspended (hang, sling, swing). Tableau vivants in slow motion as dream-like landscapes of light.” —Pedro Valiente

DDDI DDDII DDDIII

DEATH DESTRUCTION AND DETROIT I DDDI (1979) technical overview I DDDII (1987) comments by collaborators I DDDIII (1999) workshops journals ABSTRACT Robert Wilson’s work, aesthetic evolutilon, and creative process through three versions of Death Destruction and Detroit over three decades: DDDI (1979) based on a technical overview; DDDII (1987) based on comments by collaborators; and THE DAYS BEFORE: death destruction and detroit III (1999) based on journals of workshops mostly at The Watermill Center in New York. I Style and essentials: from Wagner's total theater to space in non-conventional performing arts I Commented chronology. Extensive archival work. I Articles on artists including Heiner Müller and Laurie Anderson.” —PV

“Death, Destruction and Detroit play with Music in 2 Acts - A Love Story in 16 Scenes by Robert Wilson with additional texts by Maita di Niscemi. Premiered on February 12, 1979 at the Schaubühne am Halleschen Ufer, Berlin, Germany. Death, Destruction and Detroit (DD&D) started with a photograph to which Robert Wilson was inexplicably attracted.  He kept it on his desk in New York and unknowing of what it depicted.  It was not until a studio visitor told him that the image featured Rudolf Hess in Berlin’s Spandau prison, with two other Nazi war criminals, half-heartedly and one-handedly raking leaves.  This rare photograph was reimagined as the prologue to DD&D, starring the famous German actor Otto Sander (1941-2013).  Other iconic scenes from DD&D include the actors Philippe Chemin and Heike Pfitzner, lounging in “Beach Chairs” (designed by Wilson) on a roof over New York City, while the city below is burning; and Hess (Sander) as Siegfried fighting two dinosaurs. Wilson later conceived and directed two sequels to this piece, DD&D II (Schaubühne am Lehniner Platz, 1987) and The Days Before: DD&D III (Lincoln Center Festival, New York, New York, 1999 et al.).” —Robert Wilson Official Site

“The three sections of the extremely long opening scene of another work, Death Destruction and Detroit, 1979 (Berlin), make up an almost direct quotation of Busby Berkeley. In the second part, a troop of couples in black evening dress dance in the black space, their white profiles accentuated, while diagonal shafts of light are cast from a series of doors twinkling in the background. These are the same doors from which a quintet of identical waiters parade forth to serve a meal before the dancing couples change into a row of isolated, immobile figures. One person, a lone old man, continues among and around them, following the steps of his endless dance, drawing it out for over an hour, suspended between nostalgia for a lost waltz and the endless spinning that has become a hallmark of Wilson’s early fantasies.” I It’s About Time: Franco Quadri Artforum

IT’S ABOUT TIME

“The good thing about working in Germany is that the city of Berlin would commission an American to do a production on the scale of this one. The city of New York couldn't do it and wouldn't do it for an American, much less a foreigner. And I did like working with the professional actors, that went very well. Also, I was able to paint the decor myself, working in the shops with painters there which I couldn't do here. And I worked with a highly professional team of costume designers, scene painters, so on. Other things were difficult. The theatre was too small and we had to completely rebuild the space to make a proscenium theatre out of a non-proscenium space. And the technical aspect of the work was the weakest, which is where you'd expect the Germans to be strongest. Part of the problem was that there was no technical director on the project from the beginning. Peter Stein's last play was over a month late in opening because of technical problems, so my play was delayed because they couldn't start any technical work. The one area in which they thought I was extravagant, and I was more extravagant than I've ever been, was in lighting. I had three and a half weeks of lighting rehearsals. I did things like paint a white line on a hand, then light one side with a warm light (…).”

ROBERT WILSON'S TALE OF TWO CITIES

“DEATH DESTRUCTION & DETROIT An Opera with Music in 2 Acts. A Love Story in 16 Scenes. By Robert Wilson; Music: Alan Lloyd. Presented at the Schaubiihne am Halleschen Ufer in Berlin; February, 1979. Prologue, The Garden Wall Light. When the man is standing there in the beginning holding a rake, that's how the hand is lit and painted. All that was a bit much for them because Stein lights his shows at night without the actors, and I had all the actors there with the make-up artists and costumes for three and a half weeks setting up everything very carefully. I don't know anyone else who's doing that in theatre. Visconti did beautiful lighting at one time I think, but no one now. In still photography, there's Horst. He spends three hours to light a face with three lamps. I watched him work when he photographed Lucinda and I for Patio, and I couldn't believe he really spends all that time moving lights around. Also, I took a lot of stuff from Speer's designs. That lighting in Scene 9 came from this photograph of his Nuremburg staging. There are eighty lights on the floor, parallel beams that point straight up. It makes a wall of light. Most of Stein's company is in one age range, so I took only four members of the theatre's company, although one had a principal part. And I took Philippe Chemin from Paris. Then I found old cabaret performers , very old ones, and people from the street, like this young girl, twelve or thirteen years old, who had never performed before. We put together a company of nineteen people, then started working. The first thing I did was direct the whole thing very quickly in one or two days, which is unusual for them. Then I broke it down and started doing parts and detailing them. But once a week I would do the whole piece. The actors found that difficult. Each week, I had an open rehearsal to which people could come, because some of the people hadn't performed before and they could get used to people watching them.” —Robert Wilson I Ruth Waltz, Performance Art Magazine, The MIT Press, January 1, 1979

SELECTED PRESS Sammlung Online I Stadel Museum I Robert Wilson Delays his Death Destruction by John Rockwell, The New York Times, May 20, 1'979

DDDII CHAIRS and other artwork at Robert Wilson: From a Theatre of Images, Neuberger Museum, State University of New York, College at Purchase, Purchase, New York, 13 July–21 September 1980. I Photo: Cover at J.N. Herlin Antiquarian Bookshop

DDDII Stage: New Work by Robert Wilson by John Rockwell, The New York Times, May 2, 1'987

EXHIBITION The Days Before DDDIII CHAIRS and other artwork at Robert Wilson. Recent Sculpture. Paula Cooper Gallery, New York, 29 Nov 2000–8 Jan 2001. I “The Paula Cooper Gallery is pleased to present a señlection of recent sculptures by Robert Wilson. The exhibition will be on view at 532 West 21st Street from 29 November 2000 through 6 January 2001.  […] Consisting of five chairs, a table and a chair set and table-top “flowers”, this exihibiton focuses on Wilson’s recent theatrical works: THE DAYS BEFORE death destruction and detroit III (1999), The White Raven (1998), Wings of Rock (1998), and Time Rocker (1996). exemplify Wilson’s versatility: the Father’s Chair, a stylized thone carve in oak, the Queen’s Chair, an oval ring-like made of laquered wood, and the starkly geometric Fritzi’s Chair, made of clear glass with efeched-in polka dots.”

EXHIBITIONS Austere, Enigmatic innovator. And Charming Fellow, Really by Sylviane Gold, The New York Times, Oct 22 [2006]  I Robert Wilson on Video. Selected works in theatre, opera, film, video and installation curated by Bonnie Marranca, Location One, New York, Nov 9, 10, 11, 17, 18, 19 [2000]

ABSTRACT Creative process by Robert Wilson through three versions of Death Destruction and Detroit through three decades: DDDI (1979) with technical study, DDDII (1987) with comments by collaborators, and THE DAYS BEFORE: death destruction and detroit III (1999) with journals of workshops at The Watermill Center in New York I Style and essentials: from Wagner's total theater to space in non-conventional performing arts I Commented chronology, documentation I Articles on artists Heiner Müller, Laurie Anderson, et al. I Book 02 Tiempo espacio suspendido. Proceso de creación de Robert Wilson

ABSTRACT Avant-garde: Symbolism, Expressionism, Dadaism, Surrealism, Theater of the Absurd. I Visionaries: Alfred Jarry, Adolph Appia, Edward Gordon Craig, Oscar Schlemmer, Vsevolod Meyerhold, Erwin Piscator. Authors: Samuel Beckett, Tadeusz Kantor. Masters: Martha Graham, Merce Cunningham. I Aesthetic: Experimentation, postmodernity, multimedia, interdisciplinary, multicultural, ecological, oriental. I Artistic disciplines: performing arts, visual arts, film/media. I Creative process: scenic techniques, voice/sound, text/composition, performance/movement, light/costume, space/time, mise-en-escene, total theater. I Book 01 Robert Wilson. Arte escénico planetario

SUBJECT: Robert Wilson’s work (Part 1), creative process (Part 2). TITLE: Study of Robert Wilson’s Creative Process. LANGUAGE: Spanish. AUTHOR: Pedro Valiente. DIRECTOR: José Ramón Pérez Ornia. PROGRAM: Audiovisual Creativity and Production. UNIVERSITY: Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM). READING: PhD professors Jury from four universities in Spain. Mark: unanimous cum laude [sobresaliente cum laude por unanimidad]. (2024) E-PRINT UCM: 2000+ downloads from 50+ countries. PhD dissertation Estudio del proceso de creación en la obra de Robert Wilson

The Days Before DDDIII by Robert Wilson uses fragments from The Island of the Day Before by Umberto Eco, Tone Poems by Christopher Knowles as well as biblical and found texts. Recited by readers including Fiona Shaw and Isabella Rossellini as a series of visual landscapes, it’s inspired by Kabuki theater and contemporary dance. Light supervised by A.J. Weissbard and visuals by video designer Christopher Kondek and video design collaborator Pedro Valiente. Developed over three years at The Watermill Center, and also Piccolo Teatro di Milano and Teatro Comunale di Modena, Italy. Theater Original title: THE DAYS BEFORE: death destrucion and detroit III

RW Intro I Theater I Books I PhD