Matteo Marfoglia - People in Places with People

Performance Project (2018-Present) 

Abstract: 

In 2018 Matteo was awarded a Creative Wales Award by the Arts Council of Wales to undertake a year long research in investigating how to create work which is informed by the history of a place and its people, their histories and their experiences. Matteo has traveled to over 25 sites around Wales and connected with 30 communities through short creative residencies, run in partnership with a local artist from a different artform to inform the research from other creative perspectives. This ongoing research is currently exploring how some of the strategies could be developed into a model for creating new work for stages. The model is made out of three components: two fixed ones (people and places) and a variable one (this component is informed by the artistic research of that particular piece of work). In September 2022 Matteo staged a solo work in Italy where he is testing this formula on stage for the first time, combining people, places and poetry. 

Findings: 

• The main aim of the research is finding the tools for to pass on to the performers on how the performance act itself can still be informed by the research we have been practicing during the making process. The danger is that the performance can turn into a ‘showing’ experience instead of a medium to share and reveal the research. 

• In the past, the research has always been presented in the place where the research is being informed by, so one of the aims is how do we bring that component (place) into an empty stage space. The audience usually was directed by the performers to discover this place as it revealed in front of them during the performance. However, by not physically being in that particular place we discovered that the body required more effort on how to also express the place where the research took place and bring the audience’s attention and imagination to that space.