21 — 24.05
Romeo Castellucci, Scott Gibbons Cesena-Portland
To Carthage then I came
performance — premiere
| ⧖ ± 35min | €18 / €15 | Wheelchair accessible with assistance only, no accessible toilets | Standing, contains loud sounds
A procession of performers enters the space, one after the other, repeating the same gesture. They share an identical action that rises from the body to become sound—a signal, a warning—floating in a constant limbo between punk rebellion and ancestral prayer, a gesture of freedom and a theatrical bow.
Romeo Castellucci returns to the festival with a sound performance conceived in close dialogue with the top floor of Parking Panorama. This car park in the centre of Brussels is an architectural gem with a conical roof that evokes both a circus tent and a bell tower. Gradually, the gesture of the performers makes the architecture resonate, building into a polyphonic crescendo. The architecture, in turn, shapes the action we are witnessing. The mechanical movement of bodies in relentless repetition is transporting, as if we were inside a combustion engine or atop a bell tower where a human hammer strikes the bronze without pause, marking the time of an alarm.
Castellucci collaborates with long-time sound partner, Scott Gibbons, to create a work on the threshold between theatre and concert. A performance that returns to the core of his practice, probing the almost spiritual boundary between individual presence and the constant possibility of belonging to a mechanism larger than oneself.
To Carthage Then I Came
Major Tools
Beneath the vault of a roof, six long golden tubes hang at head height.
The tubes vary in length, like ancient units of measurement.
Mene Tekel Peres
Their diameter is that of a fist
No light, only the intrinsic glow of gold.
The tubes are struck by the long hair of several people who, without even being noticed, enter the space, one after the other.
The movement of their bodies is undulating, obstinate.
The rhythm and violence of the blows on the tubes generate the music of the spheres.
It happens that the hair, like snakes, coils around the tube, trapping the body.
The volume increases logarithmically.
The sound arises from the people’s exertion because it is a gesture, not an artistic expression.
The sound is that of an alarm announcing a fire.
Carthage
Q&A with Scott Gibbons
Can you tell us about your long-standing partnership with Romeo Castellucci?
We’ve been working together for more than 25 years now! Crucially, we still don’t know what will happen when we embark on a new project together. It’s always different, and often surprising for me to discover as it unfolds. I think we have similar lines of curiosity, and our skills and instincts complement each other very well. We share a mutual aesthetic language where light, sound, and visual matter are treated with equal importance to create immersive, “total” sensory experiences; wherein each spectator is a performer of their own experience as they shift, refocus, and adapt. We aim to create moments that go beyond cognitive understanding, aiming instead for direct, visceral, and perhaps even unsettling encounters. It’s a kind of sensory subversion where the audience doesn’t just listen or watch, but feel and experience in a way that bypasses logical thought.
How does your collaboration with Romeo Castellucci in this piece take shape?
The space itself is hard and unyielding. The actions are direct, matter-of-fact, unflinching. We have microphones inside objects in the space, as well as a library of sounds pulled from them. These are processed dynamically, and distributed through the duration of the piece to create a sonic-visual event. The sound does not explain the action, and the action does not define the sound.
How will you integrate the specific acoustics of the Panorama parking into the piece?
My work involves a subversion, distortion, and deconstruction of the sounds in the space to create a tangible presence. Sound is a fundamental matter that produces immediate, pre-verbal emotionality. The acoustics of the site are an integral part of the musical design which integrates spatial acoustics, audience placement, and the positioning of sound sources into the core of the work’s structure.
How are performativity and music intertwined in this sound performance?
The work is a single performative system where sound, image, and body co-create an event that acts on the audience. From the beginning of our work together, we have avoided adding music to theatre. I have no interest in making a “soundtrack” per se. Our use of music is not illustrative or supportive; it acts.
21.05
- 17:00
- 18:30
- 20:00
22.05
- 17:00
- 18:30
- 20:00
23.05
- 15:00
- 16:30
- 18:00
- 19:30
24.05
- 13:30
- New representation added
- 15:00
- 16:30
- Cancelled due to heat. Ticket holders are informed by email.
- cancelled
- 18:00
Presentation: Kunstenfestivaldesarts, Bedford Hotel
By: Romeo Castellucci & Scott Gibbons | Movement care: Gloria Dorliguzzo | Sound architecture: Claudio Tortorici | With: Maxime Arnould, Catherine Rans, Lydie Decouvelaere, Dima Emelianenko, Golestân Outil-Rouhi, Magdalena Górnikiewicz, Rosalie Neal | Technical direction: Eugenio Resta | Production: Caterina Soranzo | Head of production: Benedetta Briglia | Organisation: Giulia Colla | Technical team in Cesena: Carmen Castellucci, Francesca Di Serio, Gionni Gardini, Dario Neri | Administration: Michela Medri, Elisa Bruno, Simona Barducci | Finance: Massimiliano Coli
Production: Societas | Coproduction: Kunstenfestivaldesarts
To Carthage then I came is conceived as the second phase of the project Senza Titolo, a production by Triennale Milano and Societas commissioned on the occasion of the centenary of Triennale Milano (2023)
With the support of the Ammodo Foundation
