Disegno d’ombre. L’innovazione scenica del Bauhaus

Abstract

The essay investigates how the Bauhaus theatre fits within the avant-garde chapter recovering the concept of "shadow" and which innovation elements of the Bauhaus are present in contemporary stage experimentation. Everything starts from the shadows. In fact, the return to the shadow theatre assumes, in the context of the Bauhaus, the same value that in the field of cinematographic experimentation meant focusing on the frame: 1) the elimination of any ornamental and superfluous element; 2) the return to the essential element of theatricality.With the shadow theatre, the scene is stripped of the scenography, the actors and the meanings it brought with it from antiquity. The Bauhaus in the domain of the shadow theatre is inherent in the rediscovery of this artistic form, which, after the nineteenth century, had lost followers, and we find them in the technological experiments carried out in the German school and which influenced subsequent artists in the realization of hoc to project their own shadow shows. Theessay analyses the works of the main heir of the experiments on the shadows of Bauhaus culture: the French artist Christian Boltanski. And following this linear “hereditary” he focuses on the works of Worthington, Kuwakubo and the “Interactive Media Foundation” where, in 2019, Das Total Tanz Theateris conceived and created or the theatrical experience in which Schlemmer’s legacy is strongly evident.