ThE DAYS BEFORE DDDIII

THE DAYS BEFORE: Death Destruction and Detroit III by Robert Wilson

(1999, United States/Italy, 105min) conceived/designed/directed by Robert Wilson

NOVEL “If the island rose in the past, it was the place he had to reach at all costs. In that unhinged time he was not to find but to invent the condition of the First Man. He would find that a new language could be born from a new contact with creation. The bay, alas, is too yesterday.” —UMBERTO ECO The Island of the Day Before

PRODUCTION “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, Italy, produced The Days Before DDDIII

COLLABORATION “I worked in New York for three years with director/artist Robert Wilson as video design collaborator for The Days Before DDDIII as I wrote a PhD dissertation that turned into a book series on Wilson’s work with focus on creative process.” —PV

CREW Conceived/designed/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 Schonebaum I Furniture supervisor: Christian Prasser I Props master: Daniela Balsamo I Video design collaboration: Pedro Valiente

CAST Featuring Isabella Rossellini 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

TECH INFO Running time: 105min I Year: 1999 I Theater-dance I Country: US/Italy I A production by Change Performing Arts and Lincoln Center Festival I © 1999 RW Ltd.

“[America]'s or even the world's foremost vanguard 'theater artist.'" —The New York Times

Robert Wilson “Stage director, author, light/set/costume designer, and visual artist, Wilson has created a unique art world on performing arts (theater, dance, opera) and visual art (work on paper, furniture design, sculpture, environment/video installations.” I Umberto Eco “Italian novelist, literary critic, philosopher, semiotician, and university professor, widely known for The Name of the Rose. Eco later wrote Foucault’s Pendulum and The Island of the Day Before. The Prague Cemetery topped bestseller charts in Italy.” I Ryuichi Sakamoto “Japanese composer, singer, songwriter, producer, activist, and actor; collaborated with Yossou N’Dour; and composed music for the Barcelona Olympic Games, and films such as The Last Emperor and The Revenant.” I Isabella Rossellini “Italian-American actress, filmmaker, author, philanthropist, and model; daughter of the Swedish actress Ingrid Bergman and the Italian neorealist film director Roberto Rossellini; known for films such as Blue Velvet and Death Becomes Her.” I Fiona Shaw “Irish actress and theater/opera director known for roles in Harry Potter, HBO‘s True Blood, and BBC’s Killing Eve. Shaw has worked extensively with the Royal Shakespeare Company.” I Suzushi Hanayagi “performed, taught and choreographed in classic Japanese and contemporary dance in collaborative multimedia performances; and worked with Robert Wilson from 1984 to 1999.”

Einstein on the Beach (Clarín) I The Life and Death of Marina Abramovic (Teatro Real) I Adam’s Passion by Avro Part (Accent Us Music) I Lecture About Nothing (Nonlinear Studio) I Reading Poems by Christopher Knowles (Other Rooms Other Voices, 1999) I The Watermill Center (Coll Documentary) I RW 75 Anniversary (Nonlinear Studio) I Media: © RW Ltd.

REVIEW  I “A journey in a labyrinth of dreams as a chaos as its logic shows visually hypnotic scenes of destruction and apocalypse. The Days Before creates a gallery of melting pictures drawn by the grammar of dreams.“ Ben Brantley TNYT I Anne Mignett TNYT I Mark Swed LA Times I Debra Jo Immergut The Wall Street Journal

TURKEY Istanbul International Theatre Festival I NEW YORK LA Times I Playbill 1 I Playbill 2 I Lincoln Center Festival The New York Times I Playbill 3 I Art Miami Magazine I SPAIN Santiago de Compostela: INAEM Ministry of Culture of Spain I EU Spanish Presidency I Photo: The Days Before DDDIII: PV

MUSIC I “The music by Ryuichi Sakamoto and above all the sound design by Peter Cerone inspired a full article at TNYT. Apart from the official review, the music expert praised the concept of the music/sound in the frame of contemporary performing arts” Bernard Holland The New York Times

Backstage

EXHIBITION I 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 I Austere. Enigmatic iInnovator 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]

2013 The Watermill Center Summer Benefit I “Founded in 1992 by avant-garde visionary Robert Wilson, The Watermill Center is an interdisciplinary laboratory for the arts and humanities situated on ten acres of Shinnecock ancestral territory on Long Island’s East End. With an emphasis on creativity and collaboration, The Center offers year-round artist residencies and education programs, providing a global community with the time, space, and freedom to create and inspire.” —The Watermill Center I “Every year dozens of international artists and professionals meet at The Watermill Center to collaborate in productions by Robert Wilson. These pieces are created simultaneously over long periods of time mostly for opera houses in Europe. The Days Before DDDIII was developed at TWC.” —PV I Photo: PV I WMC Behance

Summer Benefit

2023 Artist Talk I Isabella Rossellini talking about her work and collaboration with Robert Wilson, including The Days Before DDDIII, at Viewpoints, year-round conversations series at The Watermill Center. I Photo: © WMC I WMC Instagram

RW Intro I Books I PhD