“Art is an attitude. This attitude should be the collective heritage of humanity” Adolphe Appia
 
APPI(A)PPIA is a lecture poetic performance by the choreographer Avatâra Ayuso and the Professor Ángel Martínez Roger that takes us on the aesthetic journey and revolution that Appia underwent from the 19th to the 20th century. Through texts by Appia himself, Avatâra and Ángel reflect on the radical and daring proposals of this set designer, whose work became a defense of an active and tridimensional body, set and the introduction on electric light in that context.
 
CREDITS
Direction, Dramaturgy and Performance:  Avatâra Ayuso y Ángel Martínez Roger
Set design:  Ángel Martínez Roger y Avatâra Ayuso
Lighting: Falk Dittrich and Avatâra Ayuso (based on the original designs by Alexander von Salzmann)
Director’s Assistant: May Alhares
Voice in off Gordon Craig: Ian Knowles
Original text: Adolphe Appia and Gordon Craig
Music: Parsifal (R. Wagner), Die Walkure (R. Wagner), Orfeo e Euridice (Gluck), We Stay together (Andy Stott), Mothertongue (Abigail Fischer)
Musical arrangements: Avatâra Ayuso
Music Technitian: Robert Freitag
Video Technitian: Sebastian Rietz
 
A production by European Center for the Arts Hellerau
Total duration: 40min
Premiere: 10th October 2017  at the European Center for the Arts Hellerau
 
 “Our work has been an investigation into Appia’s theoretical contributions and biographical details, as the basis for our dramaturgy. The objective was to create a theatre piece showing the essence of his theoretical side at the same time as his humanity. We have tracked his achievements in scenographic investigation while evincing the pain and suffering this creative process caused him: from his reflections on Wagnerian scenic design, his relations with Dalcroze, his personal correspondence with E. Gordon Craig (the other great scenographer of the early 20th century), the importance of electric lighting, and his visionary work with Salzmann. Our four scenes move through these states of mind, relations and questions which Appia considered throughout his life, fighting to achieve a long-lasting and revolutionary modern concept for scenic space”
Ángel Martínez Roger