Massimo Furlan / Numero23Prod.

Fortuna

Fortuna
A performance by Massimo Furlan, Numero23Prod.

Theme

This project questions the perception of space, the experience of losing one’s bearings and orientation. It provokes chance encounters, playing with fortune, fear and solitude.

We meet the phantom forms of Fortune, the Guide, and Death.
Fortuna (from the Latin fors, << fate >>) is a Roman goddess, and an allegory for luck and chance. She is the double of the Greek Tyché, who decides the destiny of mortals, playing with their lives and their happiness. She is the opportunity, that which happens, or that which does not. Nothing is predictable with Fortuna, who surprises us, and is the accidental.

Thus the spectator, lost in a mist-filled space, in this intense whiteness, may cross paths with Chance, Death, Man (as in a tarot reading) or encounter no one, wandering in a completely empty space. The story of each audience member is thus different, unique, and depends on their good or bad fortune, on the luck of their voyage.

Development

The number of spectators participating in the performance varies according to the size of the space in which it takes place.
In a closed space of small dimensions (about 6 m by 5 m), the piece is played for one spectator at a time every 3 minutes.
In a large space (about 30 m by 15 m) groups of 10 spectators can begin their voyage every 10 minutes.
The space is clear and empty. The colour of the walls and floor are not important. The lighting is simple, powerful yet diffused. The sound is loud and continuous. We cannot see anything, the white smoke so thick we can’t see more than an arm’s-length away. There are no reference points for the eye or the ear. We see only white, a blinding whiteness. The noise is loud, deafening.

The spectator waits, and is asked not to speak with others during the performance. A loud sound is heard coming from the room in which the performance unfolds. Then the door opens, and we are invited to enter. Inside the space, a man in white tails awaits. He welcomes the spectators with an enigmatic smile, barely discernible in the dense smoke. He points to the space. Everything is white, and we must enter. The man in white withdraws and disappears. We are lost.

The sound is so loud we cannot speak. We can’t see anything in the dense fog. Behind us the door closes. We advance slowly, arms stretched out, into the fog. Sometimes the man reappears, furtively, just a shadow taking the hand of a spectator and disappearing with them. Time passes, there are no reference points. And suddenly, she appears. Fortune. A young woman, naked, beautiful, covered only by a veil. She stares at us silently. She shows us something which we cannot see, then vanishes. We feel our way along, there are other silhouettes, perhaps of spectators, and then we sense something just behind us: the man in white is there, he looks you straight in the eyes, smiles and disappears. A man is stretched out on the ground. We don’t know if it’s a spectator or a performer. He doesn’t move.

Suddenly a woman appears, wearing a long black robe. Her hair is also long and black. She is frightening. She examines us in her turn. We don’t know where we are, nor where the walls of the room are. We see Fortuna again, the man in white points to us, and she approaches. She murmurs something in our ear, but the noise is too loud. We can’t understand what she says, and then nothing, she’s disappeared, as has the man in white. Behind us, very close, we feel the breath of the woman in black, she is there, she touches us on the shoulder and then disappears as well. Someone from the organisation comes towards us and invites us to follow them towards the exit. A door opens outwards, and we see the world anew.