Mlis & me

the future aint what it used to be

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by and with Michele Cremaschi realtime programming, interactive design Andrea Cremaschi scenes Silvio Motta costumes Elisabetta Cosseddu mse en scene support Umberto Zanoletti photoes Marco Riva producted in Residenza Teatrale InItinere supporting sponsorship Fondazione Cariplo - Bando tre, Consorzio del Parco dei Colli di Bergamo other artistic residencies International Street Theatre Festival Feste in Costa, Bergamo, april 2011; LPM - Live Performers Meeting, Roma, may 2011; International Street Theatre Festival La luna nel pozzo, Caorle, september 2011; Residenza Teatrale InItinere, Bergamo, january-june 2012 Teatro Sociale, Bergamo, Nuove tecnologie in scena, march 2012.

the idea

When Mlis first encountered the cinema, it was still a young technology that even its own inventors the Lumire Brothers didnt give much chance of surviving. Mlis was the one who combined passion for technical experimentation with a vision of the future and laid down the rules of writing for the cinema and demonstrated all its potential.

When cinema was a young technology, Mlis taught us its magic.

Todays technology lets us review the entire movie-making production process in the blink of an eye. Filming, montage, superimposure, editing, and projection can all be done and produced in real time, creating under the name live cinema an entirely new breed of live performance. We like to imagine what Mlis would have done with these tools in his hands and how much they would have served his fervid imagination. Just look what he accomplished with the rudimentary cameras and implements of his day! We like to think he would have canonized the rules of movie writing and developed a new language. More than anything else, we like to think how all this would have offered a new way for him to bring his fanta-science dreams, his most disturbing nightmares, and perhaps even his utopian ideas of the 21st century to the silver screen.
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I always wanted to be like him and now, nally, ill try!

But, this time, itll be LIVE.

the future aint what it used to be

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from the origins of the cinema to the future of the cinema

George Mlis Live cinema

Maries-Georges-Jean Mlis stato un regista e illusionista francese. Maries-Georges-Jean Mlis was a French illusionist and movie director. Known as the cinemas second founding father after the Lumiere Brothers, Mlis introduced numerous technical and narrative developments. He is recognized as the inventor of ctitious cinema (the lming of worlds "other than real) and lm montage and editing, perhaps the new idioms most distinctive feature. Mlis is also universally accepted as the father of special effects. Discovering the substitution stop trick quite by accident in 1896, he was one of the rst directors to use the techniques of multiple exposure, dissolves and hand-painted color (directly onto his lm).

Live cinema is a term coined recently to dene a certain type of real-time audio-video performance. The typical creator of live cinema events is currently the so-called VJ, the younger brother of the more famous DJ wielding higher technology tools that in addition to generating soundscapes also permit the projection of pre-recorded images taken from footage tapped from video clip and sound effect archives. Many VJ have no training in the arts and do not create the video content they mix and project during their shows. This makes many performances little more than giant screensavers with a synthesized soundtrack. The exploration of technical possibilities often appears to prevail over artistic ends. The impression is often one of witnessing self-referential events geared to audiences accustomed to reading the underlying technological more than the telling of a real story, even if the means of expression adopted is the latest there is. Rare examples are provided by shows in which the real-time nature of the audio-video work serves a more specic purpose, however explicit or concealed it may be; in cases like these, the installations ingredients rarely feature digital material that has not been carefully selected if not recorded ad hoc for the occasion or even live on the spot. These performances can nearly always be considered contemporary art or video-art.

Even more rare are live performances with some degree of expressive research in which video a part of the theatrical stage set for years now is anything more than just a playback of prerecorded material that has little or nothing to do with the action on the stage. This is therefore not live cinema but rather a form of classic cinema matched with greater or lesser success to the presence and action of the actors in esh and blood. The concept of here and now so tangible in live performance runs up against the inevitability of pre-ordered and unchangeable production time required by the audio or video track shown on stage. As in even older times where music played live came to claim a space of its own on stage in symbiosis with the movement of the actor, now video can take the same step, creating itself and/ or replaying itself at the whim of the actor on stage or as dictated in the script read by both. This leads to the birth of a form of performance somewhere between theater and cinema in which the videos and sounds generated at the moment serve the purpose of drama and one in which the actor is no longer a slave to the time necessarily required by pre-composed multimedia editing but is himself the articer requiring no other interface than his body alone, no other codes than that of movement

Mlis & me

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Why Mlis?
In the theatrical experience that has brought us to this point, we have explored the relationship between movement and image in various forms, from those drawn or painted live using the simplest of tools to computerized animation. The possibility to spontaneously draw fantastic worlds appeared immediately tantalizing. The need to adapt stage movements to the rhythms and times required by the animator or the image processor imposed certain limits. The challenge lay in reclaiming our right as actors to tailor our actions to the feelings of the public, the mood of the evening or the ash of improvisation repressed until now. We wanted to return to center stage and reinforce the illusion of image-atthe-service of the story that could only be simulated before and now has become a possibility. Our encounter with Mlis was electrifying. We identied completely with his early dabbling in the cinema as an extension of his art of illusion. We imagined how he would have tried to reproduce the disappearing acts that astounded audiences every evening on the Robert-Houdini stage, committing them to lm thanks to a skilled and visionary use of dragging and dropping prerecorded material. We absorbed the passion he brought as an actor in his own lms when, with silent lm mimicry, he announces his next trick, 4 the next illusion. We imagined how excited he would have been by the potential for multiplying his own image that the computer offered, far exceeding those hed employed in Lhomme orchestre. This performance is a tribute to the cinema of Mlis and his relationship with technology, a thing that arouses the same curiosity in us, triggering the same thirst for experimentation that drives the current generation of technological live performers. Like Mlis, weve played with technology using irony and creativity, never seeking amazement as an end in itself through special effects as in the Hollywood product Avatar; on the contrary, borrowing from the repertory of the excellent illusionist that Mlis was, we revived and reprocessed selected vintage theater tricks using todays technologies in witness of the testimony of the French master himself, who once remarked that the simple tricks are loved by one and all; the more difcult ones are loved only by those who can sense the effort behind their production. In all this, weve tried to pay homage to an artist who, now that the trip to the moon has been made, would certainly prove capable of telling tales and spinning dreams that go even further.

the simple tricks are loved by one and all; the more difcult ones are loved only by those who can sense the effort behind their production

the future aint what it used to be

Synopsis

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The future Mlis would have imagined

Scarcely over a hundred years ago, George Mlis performed the greatest magic trick of a long and distinguished career: the invention of a machine that would permit him to clone himself in the future in order to return and entertain his audience when the world would be ready to appreciate his genius. That future is here today. George Mlis will materialize on stage before your eyes, stepping out of one of his fortunately rediscovered lms never seen before, to nd himself face to face for a little chat with Ettore Cadamagnani, the illustrious professor and expert admirer who will be presenting an evening in his honor. Owning to an unexpected malfunction of the illusion mechanism, however, the unsuspecting professor will soon nd himself trapped in Mlis old lms. In an exchange of roles, the French director conducts an evening in his own honor placing these marvelous new technological tools to the service of his own fantasy and his own ends, which were always slightly mad to begin with. Meanwhile, the Professor nds himself in his dream-come-true: acting alongside the Master Illusionist himself on their own "A Trip to the Moon". The result is a knuckle-scraping chase with one in hot pursuit of the other inside and outside the lm where the Professor reveals a hidden knack for illusionism in his attempts to emulate his master that do not always provide the desired effect. Mlis, on the other hand, gets a taste of the potential of live cinema, and dedicates all his enthusiasm to the spontaneous creation of new works that blend magic and science ction. In the end, Mlis returns forever to the world of celluloid after freeing the Professor and allowing him to continue his amateur attempts at illusionism in vain, and after proving how now as then - technique and special effects are only half of the task. Just as in the days of Mlis, what counts is the skill and imagination you bring to the telling of the tale, even one as preposterous as setting foot on the moon.

Mlis & me

bio
After graduating obtaining a degree in Information Technology in 1997, Michele Cremaschi attended a European Social Fund Course in Theater at Cassina de Pecchi and received his diploma in 1999. He continued studying physical theatre under Pierre Byland, among others. Michele Cremaschi has been writing for the theater and acting since 1999, participating at festivals the length and breadth of Europe, and in Russia, Africa, and China. These include: The Santarcangelo International Festival , Italy, 2004, The Harare International Festival of Arts (Zimbabwe, 2010), The Edinburgh Fringe Festival (2006 e 2009) The Macao International Festival (2012) The National Art Festival (South Africa, 2012) He founded the Slapsus comedy group, with which he appeared on Italian (Zelig) and Belgian television programs. He directed the Erbamil Cooperative from 2005 until 2008, and has served as Director and President of the Retroscena Association and InItinere Theater Residence Program since then. Currently organizes the Nuove tecnologie in scena/New technologies on Stage review in collaboration with Teatro Donizetti in Bergamo. Prizes and awards received for his previous work include: 2003 Festival du Rire Rochefort Prix de la presse; 2009 Edinburgh Fringe Festival Long-listed for the Total Theatre Prize and Pick of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival; 2010 Winner of the Lalka te czowiek Festival (Warsaw-Poland); 2010 LAltro Festival Lugano Winner of the Younger Contestant Jurys Pirze; 2011 KingFestival (Veliky Novgorod-Russia) Winner of the prize for best Childrens Theatre Show, a prize awarded by the local tourism institute, with Honorable Mention from the Younger Critics Jury. 2011 E-Mix Quality Label a show selected for insertion in the E-Mix visual theater festival network For more information:

Legal status, administration, contacts

Associazione Retroscena Registered ofce: via lunga 50, 24125 Bergamo Headquarters: via Papa Leone XXIII 27, 24124 Bergamo info.retroscena@gmail.com Administration: Lucia Guerini, tel +39 380 3775764 the future aint what it used to be

www.michelecremaschi.it
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Work in progress
Augmented theatre ologrammi animati per la scena teatrale
The projects objective is the development of a control system for the virtual props, sets, and characters used on stage through the projection of 3D holograms through which the real performers will control their virtual characters and objects interactively. Augmented theatre can be offered with the use of exible mapping techniques applied by the real and virtual actors with real-time system management. The pepper ghost theatrical trick was used in the early 1900s to make performers appear and disappear as if by magic. Its revised and corrected version using avant-garde multimedia systems is perceived by the audience in the same way but the hidden technology is no longer mechanical and optical and instead based instead on sophisticated computer graphic animation techniques. The nal effect is the materialization of objects, human bodies, and scenery on stage.Their digital nature enables complete control of their existence beyond the most elementary rules of physics. Objects disappear, actors morph into virtual avatars, and the rules of gravity are deed: everything comes into discussion without any apparent tricks.

Previous works
M L I S

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The visual comedy/ slapstick of Slapsus Quartet

Michele Cremaschi founded the Slapsus Quartet in 1999 playing a key role in its non-verbal comic theatre until 2010. The result was two Sketch shows that bring the group national acclaim. In 2008, in fact, one of the sketches written and interpreted by the group Synchronized swim became an instant hit on Youtube and propelled the foursome to an appearance on Italian televisions top comedy show, Zelig. Two other works, Synphonia and FairPlay, have been staged at various international festivals since 2006, including Edinburghs Fringe Festival.

Hand-drawn theater
The production of ManoLibera in 2004 led to an artistic partnership with Anna Fascendini and Michele Eynard in a joint research at the edges of physical theater and drawing. The originality of the language marks the beginning of the worldwide circulation of the show, which in addition to nearly all Europe has gone to Russia, Africa, and China. Il Giorno Prima dellInizio del Mondo/The Day before the Start of the World is a further development of this language that continues, channeling research in a more signicant multimedia dimension, even if not yet interactive.

Mlis & me

Technical requisites:
Stage dimensions: 5 m long, 7 m wide from wall to wall, 4 m deep, 4 m high. A video-projector must be placed 7 m from the back of the stage. Audience all ages, from 10 years old on up. Duration: 70 minutes, Italian version; 55 minutes, international version. Number of people on tour: two; three, if no onsite technician is available. Timelines: assembly: 6 hours; disassembly: 1 hour. Complete technical data sheet and lighting layout available on request. Economic terms quoted upon request.

media
Video
Promo video: http://vimeo.com/micrem/mempromo Full show video (password on request): http://vimeo.com/ micrem/memfull

Photoes
Screenshots: http://michelecremaschi.it/meliesandme Hires Photoes for press: soon available

Posters
Print le: soon available

contacts
michele.cremaschi@initinere.net +39 320 2992681

Web
http://michelecremaschi.it/meliesandme

the future aint what it used to be