Giulio Paolini’s Set Design for Teorema (1999)

On the occasion of the staging of the ballet Teorema in 1999, (produced by the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino from an adaptation of the novel and film by Pier Paolo Pasolini) artist Giulio Paolini was asked to design sets and costumes.

Accompanied by the music of Pierre Henry, Arvo Pärt, Henryk Gorecki and Galina Ustvolskaya and by the choreography by Davide Bombana, Paolini’s work is the creation of a horizon on the outside world, represented by picture gallery of a crowd framed by 49 squares.

The frames fall gradually (along with parts of the actors’ costumes), until the “guest” enters the scene and none of the frames stands still anymore. At the dissolution of the spiritual figure, an intense light appears, leaving the bare structure standing at the back of the stage.

In the end it is the same structure, now reduced to empty frames, that falls down.