Original subtitles

[Music]

this is the work of Robert

Wilson stage director lighting designer

Furniture designer architect visual

artist actor playwright choreographer

Sculptor

and overall

impar I worked on a Robert Wilson

production in 2011 called the life and

death of Marina Abramovich that was

created for Manchester International

Festival that was the first time I'd

ever heard of Robert Wilson and it was

one of the greatest experiences of my

life pivotal for my interest in theater

I had little interest in theater before

that besides reading plays when I saw

that performance I thought oh this can

be theater Wilson and defo returned to

the next Manchester International

Festival with a production of the old

woman for the 2013 festival and I was

able to sit in rehearsals for the 2024

Jungle

Book at the time of life and death I was

working for the riba and shortly after

the production I would participate in

the 2011 edition of the European

architecture students assembly it was a

life-changing summer that seemed to open

up a wormhole to a new trajectory of my

life that had changed from the beginning

to the end of that

summer Tom we said of Robert Wilson I

don't think anyone can meet Bob and come

away from the experience and not be

completely changed it's difficult to

understand an artist by just looking at

the results of their work people talk

about Robert Wilson with great awe and

reverence as a man with a mysterious

Vision but that's not very helpful to an

artist wanting to learn you can't learn

from an artist if if you only stand in

awe of them that mystery has to be

grounded in techniques we have to talk

about them as a person who makes things

and talk about their approach to making

they have to become Human Again part of

that involves contextualizing the person

so let's start

early Robert Wilson was born in Waco

Texas in

1941 Wilson described the way of his

youth as a place of extremism that

incites division also as a conservative

place of seventh day Adventists and

sther Baptists where one had to pray

every day and confess their sins he said

I would come home from school go to my

room and close my door and lock it I was

not interested in playing with the other

kids in the neighborhood I was perfectly

content to be alone from 1959 to 1962

Wilson studied business administration

at the University of Texas

and then he moved to Brooklyn in

1963 where he studied architecture at

the Pratt Institute and became ever more

interested in the visual Performing Arts

I've always admired that Robert Wilson

said when he first arrived to New York

City that he saw the theater and didn't

like it he saw the Opera and didn't like

it and then he saw the ballet and quite

liked it he doesn't name anybody but

he's probably referring to the theater

of realism or psychological realism and

the idea of the theater as an

intellectual experience and within the

melodrama of tragedy that are in essence

romantic in narrative with actors that

Wilson would consider moving in hurried

time with gestures that were literal in

their expression upon a stage that

Wilson describes as decorative most of

which could be said of Opera which would

probably have been in the old 1883

Metropolitan Opera House as their

presently standing Met Opera wasn't

built until 1966

but these were all things that Wilson

did not find in

ballet discounting Cinema which belongs

to the 20th century other than popular

music ballet is the art form that moved

the furthest in the 20th century in the

1960s when robbert Wilson was in New

York he's in the epicenter of ballet at

that time the ballet Roost are over and

George balentin who was dancing with the

ballet ruse is leading the New York City

Ballet in 1964

January 26th marks the last performance

of the New York City Ballet at city

center and the company dances on April

24th for the gala opening of the New

York state thto which is to become its

new home balenine Martha Graham M

Cunningham and John Cage Wilson must

have gravitated to the immersion of the

New York dancing he met Martha Graham

and she gave him some advice when he

expressed that he didn't know what he

wanted to do Martha Graham said if you

worked long and hard enough you'd find

your purpose as an artist Wilson's first

events as he calls them were in

1964 back in the 1960s artists in New

York were making work in Alleyways

garages gyms churches and other

nontraditional spaces what's now called

Soho in New York was then a cast iron

back zone of New York City that was an

industrial area of factories and cast

iron buildings it was the artists that

moved in and renovated it into the

fashionable District it is today Andy

warhol's Factory was just south of

Soho Wilson had already been doing the

stage design for dance work as early as

1964 notably for muray

Lewis in the early 1960s Robert Wilson

worked as an assistant within the office

of the architect Philip Johnson Johnson

asked a few Young artist among them

Wilson as well as a former student of

Martha Graham to create events for for

the New York World's Fair 1964 Dury

gliten tomorrow in 1965 the piece was

also shown as part of the spring dance

recital at the New York Pratt Institute

where Wilson studied architecture in

this same year when Robert Wilson was 27

he created his own Theater Company on

147 Spring Street in SoHo named the bird

Hoffman School of birds named after his

childhood teacher bird Hoffman who

helped him overcome his St

Wilson had already staged birdwoman

which featured a certain Raymond Andrews

who I'll mention again later Robin brano

who was a performer and an office

administrator with the company said that

the first office space was under

Robert's bed which had a built-in desk a

few file drawers and a phone in the

beginning they did everything in the

Soho Loft workshops making costumes

props doing business their first show

the king of Spain premiered on January

30th

1969 at the now defunct Anderson theater

on Second Avenue A year later and their

first International success death man

glance performed on December 15th 1970

at the center for new Performing Arts

iOS

City the earliest work in Robert

Wilson's career that I found arresting

particularly to memory was Dean's glance

inspired in part by Wilson's important

friendship with a deaf boy named Raymond

Andrews who who he adopted as his son

given Wilson's training as a visual

artist it's no surprise that one of his

specialities is stage imagery in death

man glance the importance of image is

already evident the plays characters are

mute and only the images allow us to

understand the story Wilson uses the

power of imagery as a fully-fledged

language throughout his career the

mostly silent work was constructed of

Fantastical scenes composed purely of

performed images this was not

performance that resulted in images but

images that essentially called for

performance one of the foremost

Advocates of surrealism Louie aragan the

French poet and writer likely saw Robert

Wilson's death man glance either on

April 22nd 1971 at the Grand theatri

denans in Paris because arrogant rights

regarding attending the performance to

get there you have to go through the

hell of Paris the T uous Boulevard

Sebastapol and all of a sudden one no

longer needed or hardly needed his ears

implying that he saw it in Paris what's

often overlooked about this letter from

Lou Aragon to Andre Breton is that Andre

Breton was dead at this time Andre

Breton died around four years earlier in

September

1966 aragan commences this letter with

my dear Andre it wasn't very likely I

would ever write to you another letter

it's already been 40 years I didn't do

it with you living and afterward I

remember my anger When a Stranger

brought me a letter for the dad Elward

begging me to place it on his grave

that's not what I'm doing now for you I

write because I didn't write before

aragan continued to describe a memory

between himself and Breton all of a

sudden in the deepest seriousness you

continued it's because we have become

deaf that we think Paris is mute well

that's precisely the miracle the play

they did was called de man glance my

friend but was it a play and were they

acting Bob Wilson's peace and I hope he

forgives me for preferring the

diminutive of his first name Bob

Wilson's peace which comes to us from

Iowa the world of a deaf child opened up

to us like a wordless mouth for more

than 4 hours we went to inhabit this

universe where in the absence of words

of sounds 60 people had no words except

a move I want to tell you right away

Andre because even if those who invented

the spectacle don't know it they are

playing it for you for you would have

loved it as I did to the point of

Madness I never saw anything more

beautiful in the world since I was born

never never has any play come anywhere

near this one because it is at once life

awake and the life of closed eyes the

confusion between the everyday life and

the life of each night reality mingles

with dream all that's inexplicable in

the life of deaf man never as here from

a dark hole in the theater have I

experienced the feeling in confronting

the spectacle of Robert Wilson that if

ever the world finally changes and

ceases to be this hell one sees at the

end of almost 4 hours on the stage and

it is the hell where is the slag pit of

the mine that if ever the world changes

and Men become like the dancer I spoke

of free free free it's through Freedom

man will have changed Freedom radiant

freedom of the soul and the body Louie

aragan letter to Andre Breton signed

June 2nd

1971 Wilson's whole method of visual

books perhaps comes directly from death

man glance Wilson is known for pushing

the boundaries of theater staging plays

with extreme relationships to space and

time for example The Life and Times of

Joseph Stalin last 12 hours and the

performance of car mountain in 1972 was

staged on a Mountaintop across seven

hills and last for 7even days with over

700 participants a few years later after

1974's a letter to Queen Victoria when

Einstein on the beach premiered in 1976

Wilson was manifesting his own

theatrical style visually as well as

conceptually in these early years Wilson

was asked if he was influenced by

Japanese theater he replied that he knew

nothing about it it was a reasonable

assumption not only because of the style

of Robert Wilson's work but because of

how Japanese theater had already

affected European and American Theater

by that time the designer Adolf apia

revered the music of Vagner but was

revolted by the cluttered and fussy

stage he saw at beuth which he thought

of as the antithesis of the Sublimity of

the stage which he thought of as the

antithesis of the Sublimity of Music

rather than backdrops adulf Appia

created environments enhanced by

dramatic lighting effects made possible

by the introduction of electricity the

more realistic the play the more the

stage needed separation from the

audience the auditorium required

darkening and the stage needed to be

filled with accessories just as the new

direction of 19th century drama of Ipson

and cckar required new set design the

new set designer found it necessary for

new the

and new acting techniques to break away

from the stale 19th century realism they

looked the stylized artificial

presentation a Far East dramatic

performance Japanese troops would

occasionally tour and were seen

therefore in Europe This resulted

however in a kind of constructivism

wherein the actor and writing were

subservient to an almost mechanical

Scenic Design Susan sag said experience

is a way of thinking a stage work is an

organized pie piece of human experience

which the audience must as far as

possible be allowed to share with the

actors theater of the West is the last

stronghold of realism that is the idea

of theater as belonging to life and not

to Art a few people from America and

Europe wanted to go in the opposite

direction they would like to see a

theater that aims boldly at stylization

and simplification discarding the

entirety of pretentious tumber of 19th

century drama

that such a theater exists and had long

existed in Japan has been well known

here for some time but so far very few

plays have been translated in such a way

as to give the Western reader an idea of

their literary value it wasn't until

around 12 years after he received these

comments comparing his work to Japanese

theater that he actually visited Japan

with his friend Susan sag where he saw

bunraku Kabuki and no theater but it was

no theater that he held a special

Affinity with the gestures weren't to

illustrate the story or the music or the

emotion of the character they were

idiomatic they were pure movement this

again is like modern ballet I've been

fascinated by no drama for about 15

years but I'd like to save exploring it

for a future video on my favorite

theater director Yukio

ninagawa Wilson has said of his own work

Everything I Do Is Dance Wilson's

direction is poly rythmic and

multi-directional in that the actress

performed form on distinctly independent

lines across the

stage Wilson doesn't want theater to be

patronized by language in both senses of

the word that it shouldn't be the

foremost cerebral essence of what brings

the theater to life the theater

shouldn't be merely dramatized text and

it shouldn't undermine the ways theater

can communicate by using every element

of the theater to translate the text

into their own craft

nothing else of the theater should be

doing the business of language but the

language but he also appreciates that

Shakespeare is diminished if his

language is abandoned but not if the

actors are he doesn't want language to

explain otherwise it is explaining

itself all these attentions to imagery

in Wilson's Productions lead us to

conclude that his theater is an image

theater his plays can be interpreted in

an idiomatic language this recalls

watching a ballet where the idiomatic

language communicates to you you

intuitively comprehend the piece because

the succession of images demonstrate the

intention of the work they don't explain

themselves Wilson himself says I do the

movement before working on the text

later we will combine text and movement

I do the movement first to ensure it is

strong enough to stand without words

movement must have its own Rhythm and

structure it should not follow the text

this can strengthen a text without

illustrating it what you hear and see

are two different layers when combined

they create another texture Wilson's

philosophy stems from the 20th century

language crisis highlighting the idea

that language confines our thoughts

within words whereas thought itself is

vivid and constantly moving although

language allows us to conceptualize

things it can sometimes fail to

represent what we truly mean

Wilson's work illustrates how language

is elusive often evading the reality or

the meaning we wish to convey Wilson

doesn't lend his staging to the ego of

language that text-based theater

supports he disjoints it

decontextualizes it discards it

discontinues it collapses sentences into

silence dissolves it into sound overlays

it jamming turns it into ritual turns it

into absurdity

[Music]

Wilson's audible layers consist of Music

concrete using repetition to distance

itself from naturalism music though

certainly expressive in itself is often

irrespective of action to attain a kind

of objectivity paral Linguistics animal

sounds welps as well as an unusual

pitches and tomra of voice vocalization

often without context a character or

plot in a way that makes the meaning of

the words insignificant except

occasionally alluding to something about

the work subject matter and in a true

John Cage sense of the word silence all

the actors perform through wirefree

microphones Wilson's Productions are

sometimes dominated by music with

Einstein on the beach and Adam's passion

as well of course as his operas this is

certainly the case theater after all is

a place of hearing as well as seeing and

of his operas Wilson has said if I go to

the Opera I really want to hear the

music I close my eyes so the challenge

is to find how can I keep my eyes open

how what I see can help me hear music

better but let's look at how he opens

his production to gl's Opera orus and

yich I've had to speed this up for the

purposes of this video but whilst the

music plays during this opening we see a

square incrementally becoming larger

until it dominates the background of the

stage both subtle and Powerful it

commands your attention whil hardly

doing anything and whilst it seems slow

if you close your eyes for a few seconds

and reopen them you realize you've

missed something the stage performs in

harmony with the

music Robert Wilson is particularly

recognized for his work with light he is

considered the greatest lighting artist

of our time and Remains the only major

director to have been build as a

lighting designer Wilson's athetic

vision is architecture and light without

light there is no space Robert Wilson

uses the Practical elements of theater

to architecturally design his

performance environment not only set

design but more predominantly light

music and sound alter our relationship

ship to space Robert Wilson manipulates

Space by manipulating light music and

Architectural Design Within that

fabricated space Wilson utilizes

controlled or manipulated movement

through that space not forgetting

Wilson's collaborators who in their own

Fields costume design for example alter

our relationship to that space if done

well it becomes artificial space with

people moving abstractly through a

canvas of light in abstract

costumes the treatment of characters is

equally important in an interview when

asked why his characters are always

heavily made up Wilson responded makeup

is to have the eyes it captures the

light better and focuses the audience's

attention on the actor in Western

theater unlike in African or Asian

theater we've forgotten how important

the eyes are they are a language in

themselves Wilson has remarked on on

occasion that the theater of other

directors is not natural time but time

sped up compared to real life most

theater tells you what to think I allow

space to

think he often lights individual objects

like in a museum or Gallery Wilson

dismembers his actors with light

accomplishes the Erasure of Shadows when

needed and at times illuminates an

object or body as if from within Wilson

uses light as a surrogate for the

emotion displaced by his actors the

light in my Productions is like an actor

Robert Wilson said in a 2006 interview

his use of light architecture and music

in combination is very temporal

ephemeral active in nature which is

ultimately dramatic of his theater's

three main elements music architecture

light his actors walk through it as an

outward expression of Their Own

inwardness the dialogue frequently is

insignificant to character or narrative

Wilson's actors seem also devoid of

motivation to act at all Wilson's whole

Mison sen might be a surrogate for the

non-emotive actor his set is influenced

by daugh ISM bow house and German

expressionism which creates outwardly

the emotional landscape his non-emotive

actors step into almost walking through

their own subjectivity in his work after

Einstein perhaps discounting his operas

his set design particularly in props and

Stage structures has much of German

expressionism black Ryder McBeth the old

woman for example Wilson said in a 1999

interview that his ideal theater would

be a silent movie and a radio play

combined in a sense this also reflects

his influence of M Cunningham and John

Cage as this reminds us of one of their

1965 collaborations how to pass kick

fall and run his direction is often

Cubist presenting varied perspectives

and having actors perform together of

distinct angles and isolated lines

across the stage the theater director

which Robert Wilson most considered to

be his peer was the Italian stage

director Georgio strella and Wilson paid

homage to Georgio strella's The Tempest

in his staging of the same

play a stage is on like any other space

I hate naturalism to be on stage is

something artificial and if you try to

act naturally it seems artificial but if

you accepted it as something artificial

it becomes more

natural frequently Wilson's Productions

are thought of as slow referring not

only to the long duration of his

Productions by comparison the 5 hours of

Einstein is a short work but his

characteristically slowed down movement

of the actors Wilson sees ordinary

theater as hurried performance and not

in natural time Wilson not only says

that he gives his audience time to think

but it may also be thought of as musical

time time presented as in music

artificially and abstractly of this

artificiality Wilson says that directors

should accept the artificiality of the

theater and not try to pretend a reality

or a

naturalism often I feel that what I'm

seeing being on stage is based on a lie

Wilson says you know an actor thinks

he's being natural but he's not he's

acting natural and that is something

that is

artificial the slowness of Wilson's work

is perhaps most emphasized in his video

portraits of his own abstract

impressionism on audiences Wilson says

you are either interested in the

ritualistic pictures its verbal and

Musical convolutions and its lorious

sense of fantasy or you are

not Wilson presents a kind of time

dilation between the audience and the

stage Wilson says his role as an artist

is to create not to be a copy

reproduction or reflection to present

not

represent Wilson like a choreographer

gives the actor the steps but the actor

like a dancer must fill those steps with

form actors present rather than Express

they are not ventriloquists of the

theater Wilson gives the actors space

for authenticity within the cograph

count rehearsed so it becomes routine

irrespective of the music so they don't

respond to the melody after all they are

walking through architecture and light

whilst the music is heard contrapuntally

to the sense of pace or plot of the

scenes Arc in this sense by avoiding

literal expression of emotion Wilson

sidesteps melodrama which often Theater

falls into when utilizing music however

he understands the dramatic stage and

nevertheless Wilson uses crescendos in

his rhythm across his Productions

Wilson's themes are not mediated by

character dialogue plot but by color

imagery gesture movement Rhythm sound

objects garments presented in variation

Echo inversion and abstraction

as opposed to a theater where the

content is the meaning and a way of

understanding the piece together they

operate as Illusions connected in

constellation but not in linear

narrative Illusions made or virtually in

objects or space but without explicit

reference yet despite this abstractness

and classical form Wilson effaces the

boundaries between high and popular

culture sadly we were deprived of the

unmade theatrical collabor operation

between Robert Wilson and David Bowie

these come from a series of five

paintings that I did as a potential

cover for an album called outside and

this in fact was the one that I chose as

the cover um what happened to the album

uh not very much it did it it came out

and uh I think it was quite interesting

in fact I'm I'm supposed to be doing it

as um a theater piece with Robert Wilson

for the year 2000 so that's something

that we're supposed to be meeting if

nether of us can find a some kind of

place where we're both in the same

country at the same time well that would

be right now cuz he's in New York City

is he yes kill if

noton next FLT wherever you are contact

me with this album was potentially the

basis for an unmade work between the two

theater design shouldn't be decoration

it should be

architectural Wilson's composition for

staging is also reminiscent of Byzantine

and protor Renaissance painters Wilson

is a mannerist in the modern sense

Wilson's stage design in terms of

positions often reminds me of Egyptian

wall painting at times the grouping the

geometry of angles and spaces we can

compare this with nijinsky's 1912 ballet

[Music]

wison has said that everything he does

is Saison perhaps referring to their

shared interest in light and geometric

structure the acknowledgment of still

life above all and their shared

willingness to experiment Robert Wilson

thinks in terms of form and structure

he's not looking at content and asking

where are we and what does it look like

Wilson explains if you take a candal

aror and put it on a table that's one

thing but if you take a candal lra and

put it on a rock that's something else

and maybe it's easier to see the

candleabra when it's on a rock than when

it's on a

table there is a test which researchers

in cognitive neuroscience and psychology

call the vviq vividness of visual

imagery questionnaire it's a test to

suggest a Fantasia a condition where a

person is unable to visualize mental

images one of these questions request

the participant to picture an apple in

their mind then the researchers ask the

participant what color was the apple one

group of participants will Envision only

the conceptual idea of an apple

describing the Apple based on their

subjective familiarity such as that it's

sweet and juicy or they might categorize

it as food or fruit or something that

grows on trees or can be bought at

Supermarket or maybe they think of its

associations like picking apples or

baking apple pie but not a visual image

of an apple they don't see it this is

the group that likely has aphantasia

another group will picture the Apple in

their minds and say that it was either

red or green but another group will say

that the Apple was blue or pink or

rainbow colored the difference between

these two latter groups is that whilst

one group tried to PCT the Apple from

memory the other acknowledged that this

very real looking Apple was artificial

and was able to be any color they wanted

the result indicate that scientists

particularly those in the stem Fields

science technology engineering and

Mathematics are more likely to have

aphantasia a study published in 2018

found that 40% of mathematics and

scientists reported experiencing

aphantasia which is a higher prevalence

than in the general population another

the study in 2020 found that individuals

with aphantasia were more likely to

pursue careers in science technology

engineering and

Mathematics he says he usually starts

with structure and then once the

structure is in place he's Freer to fill

the form and let the form live for

Einstein on the beach Wilson wanted

three visual themes a train a trial and

a spaceship there there is an additional

field theme that occasionally overlays

one of the other themes Wilson decided

the performance would have a duration of

4 hours constructed of four acts with

five connecting interludes called knee

plays which would open and close the

production the structure is as follows

knee play one act one train and trial

knee play two act two field and train

knee play three act three trial and

field knee Play 4 act for train trial

and field and closing with KNE play 5

Wilson describes the structure of

Einstein musically as theme and

variation Wilson has also remarked in an

interview that despite its surreal or

abstract impression Einstein on the

beach follows a very classical structure

this is true apart from the lack of

prologue this sequence is the structural

basis of ancient Greek tragedy Wilson

has also remarked in an interview that

people thought Einstein was Avent guard

but it wasn't it was very

classical Illusions are scattered about

the production which are only capable of

being brought together in the

spectator's mind after the

performance it's worthwhile noting that

there are a lot of significant

collaborators and institutions that work

with Robert Wilson much more regularly

than Philip Glass there are actors drams

costume designers supporting

institutions too many to dive into a few

names and not others but the

collaboration with Philip gloss feels to

be both a landmark moment in Wilson's

career and also a particularly

interesting intersection of artistic

disciplines traditionally an opera would

be build as a composer's work the

librettist and everyone else would be

subservient to the composer or the

impressario that's producing it not only

is Einstein a true collaboration but a

significant collaboration for the

tradition of the form Philip gloss and

Robert Wilson met in

1973 gloss is said that he went to see

The Life and Times of Joseph Stalin and

in the morning ended up in Wilson's

rehearsal space in Manhattan the pair

got on immediately and decided they

would meet every week for lunch within a

few months they began to work on a piece

when they started talking about a

subject glass suggested Gandhi but

Wilson wasn't that interested glass

would go on to create a Gandhi Opera in

19 1979 as the second part of his

portrait Trilogy followed by Aenon in

1983 Wilson counted his idea with Hitler

which gloss didn't want to do then

Wilson said what about Einstein that was

it gloss had already been very taken

with Einstein who was a kind of popular

hero of the 1940s what connected Wilson

and glar was how they thought about time

and space in the theater Wilson

explained the rising and turning beam of

light as the very start there is is a

vertical bar of light that appears three

times then in the second scene you have

a horizontal bar of light together they

represent the cross of time and space

time shown as a vertical beam space as a

horizontal beam Einstein on the beach is

an opera that's over 5 hours featuring

repetitive music with the labretto

written by an autistic child which

concludes with a solo Dance by its

director the original title was Einstein

on the beach on Wall Street but glass

said he didn't comprehend the Wall

Street part so Wilson agreed to remove

it unlike traditional operas Einstein on

the beach has no conventional plot

Wilson and glass created a nonlinear

structure composed of a series of

Tableau that explores Einstein's life

and ideas Robert Wilson thinks with a

pencil and paper Wilson made some

drawings and glass composed the music to

these and then Robert began staging it

Wilson provided gloss with the visual

ideas which gloss would then respond to

with musical composition I these

compositions were repetitive musical

patterns and rhythmic structures

providing a hypnotic but meditative tone

to the dreamlike work Wilson explains

that he always starts with a title and

then after determining the structure and

duration of the proposed work fills the

architecture with

form in my work the whole stage is

something like a mask I work on the the

visual book first I direct the work

silently so what I'm seeing is one thing

and then I work on the audio book after

that and I work on that

separate the process of development is

as follows stage one preparation to

gather ideas information themes gestures

text color visual Motif language word

lighting then meets with the

collaborators the dramer costume

designer scenographer composer and

others to discuss the mapping out of

narrative content the reason for the

meeting is so nothing ends up incidental

and so as Wilson says they don't risk

illustrating each other and are not

dependent on each other in this he

respects the autonomy and purity of the

elements involved to maintain their

freedom autonomy and individual

strengths Wilson doesn't think of the

use of these elements of theater as

total art but as a textured

Arrangement then questions are asked to

visualize the moments much like

dramaturgy

and from these sessions come his visual

books which are often accompanied by

text on the side and beneath the drawing

Wilson's visual books are based on

Impressions and Sensations from a drat

turg's retelling and descriptions of the

work yet they are imaginative

compositions that think or see with the

theater and its mechanics collares cut

and paste Wilson then visualizes the

stage structure for each scene and each

scene must also have details of time and

these sketches are rough and often

geometrical rather than pictorial

figures indicate their relation to space

rather than costume design and the

collaborators also begin their research

and

Explorations stage two the first actor

Workshop lasts two or three weeks in

which a silent play is directed no

dialogue only movement and frequently

music this is to Define and familiarize

performance language in a routine manner

the ACT learn their gestures like

choreography except that they are devoid

of natural behavior and psychological

expression from this the dialogue is

noted and how long it should be

inserted stage three the dialogue is

inserted in the second workshop and the

dramat tur makes cuts and additions so

the text can live inside these

moments stage four finally the third

Workshop is the lighting

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Peter Hall compared Cinema and theater

by saying that Cinema is more or less a

literal space a real person portrays

another lifelike person and is placed in

a literal setting and moves at familiar

speed with familiar gestures theater

meanwhile is a metaphorical space of

symbols a real person stands on a stage

which we imagine to be something and

somewhere

else also Cinema is essentially a

two-dimensional experience anything

viewed through a screen is the illusion

of three dimensions but it's presented

in two Dimensions like a painting that

has the same illusion whereas theater is

in three dimensions in that sense more

like a sculpture in the modern theater

the natural space of the stage is

Darkness because modern theaters are

mostly indoors we throw light at it to

be seen but it's artificial light Wilson

Embraces that everything we do with the

stage is artificial and not natural even

down to the way a person walks stands or

sits the attitude to the stage is

fitting to Modern Art that embraced art

was made of its tools and didn't try to

hide its creative methods and materials

moving away from the illusion of real

objects people or places Wilson does

something else that's very important

despite being minimalistic he often

fills the space he frees the stage from

the inev able fate of onepoint

perspective that everything has to be on

the floor with all this empty space

above more importantly he does this

without raising the floor level Wilson's

work are postmodernist because they are

interdisciplinary not in the way that a

performance might have a dance section

and a spoken section but that his actors

are choreographed and they may also sing

but not singing songs we must remember

that in temporal experience which

performance is it carries and grows in

volume of a history that fills our

memory no piece is isolated we

constantly add up our

Impressions Robert Wilson's canvas is

fundamentally the prenium arch however

he has lately explored working with

other stage types an Arena Stage a

Thrust stage the theater in the round

and a classical stage his work is

greatest though in a prenium arch in the

darkened indoor theater the visual books

he creates are most suited to this form

and the best seats for a Wilson work

tend to be those just above stage level

but directly facing the stage so you can

see the stage as Wilson drew it and

directed it I think his work is best

considered as a whole structurally

performance is not just what we see and

hear but it's also temporal building on

previous images and

information he was asked in a 2017

interview how would you define the

artistic Avent guard today Wilson

replied ReDiscover the classics to grasp

the Red Thread that connects cultures

that have never met Egyptians Mayans

Romans Assyrians this does not mean

repeating previously used language but

rediscovering Universal geometries

references that touch us deeply I do not

like recipes but I can tell you what

does not work the update as if setting

hamlet in a Los Angeles Supermarket

could make it more interesting on the

contrary giving a specific reading of

such a complex work would irreparably

limit it the true artist produces

following a primordial instinct to live

it as a unique and relevant

experience I really enjoy to read these

books on the history of live art forms

and Robert Wilson is a significant

chapter in each of these independent

histories Robert Wilson has influenced

every kind of live performance since he

began working he's the kind of artist

that opens people's eyes and allows the

artist to recall the freedom of another

way it's important that he trained as a

designer because he allows artists to

free themselves from being essentially

designers if something is working well

it's designed well anything humans

designed is artificial but we feel it to

be natural because we're so familiar

with it Wilson allows us to be free of

that headspace to stop viewing things

the way things are done as the

appropriate way that something should be

Robert Wilson designed and founded in

1992 the Watermill Center on the site of

a former Western Union communication

research facility near Southampton Long

Island about 2 hours from New York City

the Watermill Center is owned and

operated by the bird Hoffman Watermill

Foundation the center serves as a

laboratory for performance and the

Watermill Center Fosters the research in

the Arts of the stage providing young

and emerging artists with the unique

environment for creation and exploration

in theater and all its related art forms

and developing a strong Global Network

that transcends age experience social

religious and cultural backgrounds the

Watermill supports projects that

integrate different genres and art forms

break with traditional forms of

representation and develop Democratic

and cross-cultural approaches the

Watermill offers a place for research

study and inspiration living and working

together and creating one's own

environment and sharing these

experiences with

others it's unfair to point to other

directors whose specific work seems

influenced by Robert Wilson they're also

influenced by other things but there is

a work that is what it is because Robert

Wilson's work demonstrated it's possible

to go in that direction Wilson's work

opened up new Pathways in presentation

of theater that people are excited to

explore he opened up a visual world for

directors and audiences that was not

thought possible however it must be said

that it didn't come from nowhere many

elements of Wilson's work existed prior

to his work but in Desperate forms and

from philosophies and perspectives that

differ much of Wilson's work had already

been explored in ballet but not in

theater when we talk about Wilson's work

as a theater director we forget to talk

about that theater was dragging behind

the other Arts the Arts that leapt

forward the most in the 20th century

were popular music music and ballet I'm

hesitant to say visual art because much

of it had already begun in the 19th

century and exploded in the 20th century

and Cinema doesn't have enough

precedence to compare it to another

Century before the 20th Robert Wilson's

theater is a theater about theater a

theater that discusses the composition

of theater and asks can this be theater

modern ballet and Modern Art took this

direction too and the music of the 1950s

in particular it was there the work of M

conningham and John Cage that have

profound influence on Robert Wilson's

work you could easily say that each

scene of Einstein on the beach is a

separate ballet other theater directors

seem to have influenced Wilson's work

also we've already mentioned the design

of AD doia but also Edward Gordon

Craig's view of the actor ISM marionette

as well as Gertrude Stein's profound

influence on his way of working with

words Wilson said in an interview I

never studied theater if I studied

theater I would not be making the

theater I'm making Wilson deconstructs

the contributing elements to theater and

questions each of them their

relationship to each other how they form

a textured Arrangement rather than

totality he joked when giving advice for

directors discover what you're not

supposed to do and then do that

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