Rear View 360

Modern attempts to force the boundaries between artistic discourses generated in the last century a series of innovative experiments that defied pre-established reports of generic purity. Thus, novelties such as theatrical installations that go beyond the more or less rigid conventions of the “classical” theatrical experience come to complement the artistic panorama of contemporary society, shaping new forms and strategies to interact with creative energies. ‘Rear View 360‘ is part of that category of heterogeneous, syncretic artistic products that will surprise not only technology enthusiasts (who will experience a 360° tender and sensible performance), but also contemporary art amateurs through its multi-layered formula that combines seemingly disparate artistic inflections in a unitary product. More specifically, this project is a combination of the basic principles of a one-woman-show, poetry, “mobile” show that gives the audience not only live contact with performative act, but also the opportunity to literally follow the pilgrimage of the character through the city of her confession using a means of transport. Creating a kind of teaser that cuts off sensitive elements of the protagonist’s speech, directors David Wheeler (who is also one of the co-authors of the script) and Joby Catto recreate an intimate micro-universe, carefully selecting with the sensibility of some fine connoisseurs of the artistic act a series of fragments of a special poeticism embodied by actress Cecilia Knapp who also contributed to writing the text.

Sensitivity, obsessive memory, childhood, maturity, suffering, imperceptible detail that triggers genuine emotion, almost evanescent stylistics of poetic discourse are just a few of the co-ordinates of this non-conformist performance / theatrical-poetic installation plunging into the past of a character confronted with the existential emptiness of old age.

From the narrative nuclei that synthesizes a woman’s attempts to express her artistic freedom to the tender declarations of the mature self to its younger version, the performance animated by Cecilia Knapp is an implosive and overwhelming incursion into the painfully poetic sincerity of an individual who analyses her feelings, fears and even the imminence of her death with a trenchant and fascinating lucidity. Far from adopting the discursive premises of a pathetic confession, ‘Rear View 360’ impressed us not only with the nonconformism of the project itself defying the predetermined generic categories, but also with the initiative of directors David Wheeler and Joby Catto who offered us an intimate, almost tactile, experience creating an intense complicity with the character.