Live Video Projects

Elevator
music by Monteverdi
Garage Theatre London
2002

team

conceived and created by Netia Jones and Pippa Nissen
musical director and harpsichord: Christian Curnyn
singers: Suzanna Anderson, Claire Booth, Joao Fernades, Ben Hulett, Adrian Ward,
muscicians: Reiko Ichise, Yair Avidor
lighting/extra film work: Rodney Grant
actors: Becca Manley, Ben Moor, Rachel Nicholson, Richard Pope

description

Elevator is performed live by five singers, four actors and three musicians on period instruments, and is presented with video/film projections on a big screen, live filming, and video material on television monitors, all mixed live. The aim of this work-in-progress was to present these ground-breaking and avant-garde works by Monteverdi in a vigorous and contemporary way.

1: Ch’io non t’ami cor mio - Live Action: the song plays with only filmed action.
Screen: Four people wait at an urban bus-stop. Although they seem to be together, it becomes apparent that they are not there simultaneously but each one lost in their own world.

Small Screen 1: bus stop
Small Screen 2: trees
Small Screen 3: text

2: Eccomi pronto ai baci - Live Action: A young man places a lonely hearts advertisement, and waits in his room ready for his first call.
Screen: A real scale room.

Small Screen 1/2/3 : stop/start animation of 80 moods and expressions of the man in extreme close up.

3: Lamento della ninfa - Live Action: A young woman spies on her lover through binoculars. She discovers that he is being unfaithful to her.

Screen: A frame by frame treated image of breaking waves
Small Screen 1: extreme close up of the woman looking bewildered
Small Screen 2: extreme close up of the woman crying
Small Screen 3: text

4: Zefiro torna - Live Action: A married man and a married woman meet secretly. An elaborate game of chasing and being chased begins.

Screen: abstract blocks of colours chase the running performers on screen and on stage
Small Screen 1/2/3: abstract blocks of colour

5: Combattimento - Live Action: The relationship is at a breaking point. They sit still staring out.
Screen: and angry and bitter fight between the man and the woman.

6: Ohimè - Live Action: The abandoned woman is getting ready to go out and find a new life for herself.

Screen: The cheating man is alone at his office desk.
Small Screen 1: becomes a mirror as the woman gets ready
Small Screen 2: text

7: Io che nell’otio naqui d’otio vissi - Live Action: The lonely hearts man is awake in the middle of the night

Screen: The real scale room as if seen on a surveillance camera
Small Screen 1/2/3: surveillance cameras

8: eri già tutta mia - Live Action: The jilted wife and the lonely hearts man try to meet but constantly miss each other. At last they meet. Each of the four characters has swapped places.

The story begins again.
Screen: Abstract images of the city

Live Video Projects
Netia Jones and Pippa Nissen set up Live Video Projects in early 2001 to explore in detail the relationship between projected video/other media and live classical music performance. Each Live Video Project workshop performance investigates a different aspect of this relationship, both artistically, and technically. The aim of Live Video Projects is to pursue a convincing and successful interaction between video and live classical music in performance, allowing the video and projected media to perform with the flexibility and spontaneity of a live performer.
The Elevator project was the first in a series of these planned explorations.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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