Inspired by the work of Mark Rothko, one of the most challenging young Polish directors in the world of European theater today, who boldly combines theater art with video and music in his performances, Lukash Tvarkowski with an international team and colleagues at the Daile Theater is creating ROTKHO’s most ambitious show. ROTKHO’s premiere is scheduled for March 12.
Juris Žagars, Director of Daile Theater: “This is the largest, most complex, most expensive and ambitious art project in Daile in the last two years. The artistic team of the new production is international. The director, playwright, video artist, composer is from Poland, the set designer is French, the costume artists are from Germany, and the lighting artist is Lithuanian. Most of the actors are from the Daile Theater, but the show also features two great Polish actors from the JK Opole Theater in Poland, as well as two non-professional Chinese actors from Riga. The performance will be in the repertoire at the same time with us in Daile and in the Polish theater with the same actors and artistic-technical composition. It must also be said that this will be the most technologically complex show in the theater so far, so we are especially grateful that we have succeeded in cooperating with LMT, which have become the innovation partners of the show.
The budget of the show is not small and it would not be possible for us to do it without other supporters – Adam Mickiewicz Institute and JK Opole Theater. Accordingly, this is the first show in Daile, which is being created with such extensive international cooperation. It continues to prove that we are all Europeans, we have common values and we can work and create together. ”
There is no genre for the show – drama, directing, scenography and acting with the technological solutions used in TV and cinema will create a unique art event in Latvia.
Lukash Tvarkowski: “Rothko, the artist and his works of art, is the prism through which the intangible capitalism of the 21st century is revealed – the value of things is revealed in the definitions of capitalism itself – they distinguish the true from the fake, the authentic from the counterfeit and the original from the imitation. Being a business success is now the most exciting part of the arts, Andy Warhol once said. Rothko’s art and his biography are the starting point – their projection in the theater allows us to see and question assumptions: a person can become a commodity, art merges with the market, spirituality is preached according to the laws of capitalism and vice versa. We conducted our creative experiments with the copying (Pjung-Chul Hans) and repetition techniques (Rothko), which strengthen and at the same time question the structures of capitalism – especially in art. ”
One of the most expensive works of art in the world – Mark Rothko’s painting “No. 6. (Purple, green and red) ”- sold for 140 million euros. Whenever the world is shaken by news of new art price records, the question also arises: what determines the value of this work in the art market? Nowadays, this question is becoming more and more difficult to answer, as the boundaries between works of art, their copies, the reputation of the artist and the technological development of the art market are becoming increasingly blurred. Lukash Tvarkowski is creating a show that seeks, among other things, to explore – what the new trend really means – creating works of art in a digital environment and providing them with blocking technology. What is the significance of the authenticity of the artist’s work and, most importantly, whether the direct experience of theatrical art is something that is shielded from such market principles. Fake and original are the central theme of the show’s story, as well as their paradoxical metastases in the virtual environment.
The title of the show, ROTKHO, is deliberately designed to confuse the audience, it would write Rothko correctly in English. On the one hand, ROTKHO is a distortion of the famous artist’s surname, similar to how famous brands are replaced by counterfeits such as Adibas or Dolce Banana. On the other hand, the title of the show illustrates Grem Rowlinson’s hypothesis that, regardless of the order of the letters, as long as the first and last letters of the word remain in place, we can understand the written text. Among other things, the show talks about what the new trend to create works of art in the digital environment really means and what the significance of the artist’s work is.
In order to implement the ideas of the creative team, a supporter has been attracted to the show – LMT have become the innovation partners of the show.
Juris Binde, President of LMT: “LMT, as the leading mobile operator and IT innovation company in Latvia, has supported culture in all its forms since its inception. Culture and knowledge are the two most important pillars that support society and serve as a basis for its development. In today’s world, the amount of knowledge has grown significantly, and the brightest manifestation of it is a variety of technologies that are evolving and improving at the speed of light. I am pleased that LMT, as an innovation partner, has the opportunity to support the ROTKHO show, which meets these two fundamental things where art is created with the help of technology. “
The stage space created by the artist and scenographer Fabiene Lede is a technological challenge of unprecedented scale in Latvian theater. The scenography of the show experiments with video and light, revealing the interaction between the mystery of physical art and virtual art, a copy of duplicate art.
The stage solution will consist of five moving but closed buildings. Viewers will watch what is happening there in seven live projections, four of which will be widescreen monitors. Six cameras will operate simultaneously, three of which will be equipped with wireless technology and will be controlled by the actors themselves.
Two professional cinematographers and a live television director are involved in the production. Their interaction will be ensured through a live video editing console.
Sound, light and video consoles will be synchronized with each other to provide unseen possibilities and sudden stage illusions. The sound equipment provides 120 decibels of noise equivalent to the sound power generated by a helicopter running side by side.
Łukasz Twarkowski (1983) is a director who creates multimedia performances combining theater, video and visual arts. Together with his team, he has created provocative performances in Poland, but has earned special public and critical acclaim in Lithuania with the 2017 show Lokis, which was nominated for nine Lithuanian stage awards and received four, including the highest, stage gold cross presented by Tvarkowski himself. . The most recent production, Respublika, drew attention not only to an ambitious staging that blurs the boundaries between reality, theater, and illusion, but also to its themes, which cover a wide range of contemporary issues of identity, virtual reality, and the nature of human passion.
The performance is co-funded by the JK Opole Theater (Jan Konchanowski Theater), the Adam Mickiewicz Institute and the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage of the Republic of Poland.
Innovation partner of the show “Latvijas Mobilais Telefons”.
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