“H – Cirque du Soleil: when the show aims to raise awareness” is the name of my thesis project and was one of my greatest efforts, as it was the result of a whole year of work. “H” is a show inspired by some writings about the relationship between disability and photography. It is a work for which I took care of the direction, set design and costumes, trying to propose my own artistic vision capable of awakening the spectator’s perception of the “different”.
The show has been divided into four basic scenes, based on the four visual rhetorics of Dr. Rosemarie Garland Thomson, a scholar who throughout her career has investigated the different ways in which able-bodied people behave when confronted with pictures of disabled people.
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Thus four scenes (or pictures) were born: The Wonderful, The Exotic, The Sentimental, The Realistic, different situations in which the spectator can observe Cirque du Soleil artists and disabled athletes working together, in a moment of total inclusion.
From the very beginning of the project, several problems were faced, mainly related to the structural imposingness of the proposed ideas, which however found a solution in an intense research on technique and mechanics.
The show was realised inside The Han Show Theatre, a building specially constructed for circus arts located in Wuhan, China, capable not only of accommodating great works of engineering, but also of enhancing the provocative tone of this elaborate work.
A different and innovative project, weaving a delicate concept with complex scenic demands.
FEDERICA POCHINI