SC.net: had the chance to talk to Vittorio and learn more about this new, bizarre, and very interesting conceptual opera.
SC.net: First of all, thanks for giving us a few minutes to talk about your new project. We know you are extremely busy these days.
Vittorio: Yes, extremely. I have no free time at all, but I was able to find some time to dedicate to you. Indeepandance is keeping me busy almost every hour of the day, but I’m happy with the result.
SC.net: Great. Tell us something about it. The name suggests many interpretations…
Vittorio: Sure. It can be read in different ways and have different meanings. About four years ago I started thinking about this project. It took me some time to realize what I really wanted to create, but I needed the right partners. I talked about what became Indeepandance to some of the people I used to hang around with. Aldo Nove (www.aldonove.com), beyond being a good friend, is one of the most talented writers in Italy, and I showed him what I had in mind. Same for Masbedo (www.masbedo.org), a collective of video artists. We’ve collaborated in the past and have done video and audio installation performances in Paris, Rome, and at the Locarno Festival. I thought that the best thing to do would be to stay together, away from the city, to concentrate on my ideas in order to develop them and see what could come out of them. We went to Roncegno, a small village in the mountains in the north of Italy, and talked about this conceptual performance that I had in mind. I wanted to mix these different arts such as music, literature and visual performances. Talking about it, we discovered that we were focusing our discussion around the human being and its many attitudes and feelings.
SC.net: Sounds interesting. You can tell that it’s a kind of journey through the human being.
Vittorio: Yes, something like that. I want to bring the public to a place at the edge of their own universe, crossing all kinds of life experiences that surround us every day, such as fear, happiness, curiosity, dreams, the fast rhythms of life, as well as the moments of complete peace.…
SC.net: Okay, let me see: when I come to INDEEPANDANCE, can I really feel like I’m in the middle of a trip through my own existence?
Vittorio: It’s a sort of a journey, yes, but don’t be scared; it’s not difficult at all. One of the most important issues we are concentrating on is taking the human being outside his usual closet and allowing him to venture beyond his natural space. I’ll give you an example to help you understand better. Imagine going to a club and dancing all night. You are sweaty, you’ve just had fun, but on your way home you realize that someone, while dancing and having fun, was telling you something about death, a really deep concept. Two completely different issues, but mixed together at the same moment. Or imagine going to a very serious poetry reading, sitting or standing through the whole performance. But when you leave the room, you feel sweaty and tired, as if you’ve just danced or laughed at every word. These are some examples to explain the feeling that I wanted to create.... Do you get it?
SC.net: Yes, but thinking about such a project is one thing; creating a show where this is the message is another. How does it happen? What can people expect when they come and see the show?
Vittorio: I call INDEEPANDANCE a ‘Video and Audio Opera’: you find yourself surrounded by four big screens that show four different movies, and there is a central stage where there are musicians. It’s not a concert, and it’s not a screening, but both of these. The performance is presented in several different paths or themes, such as ambience, body, universe, fear, self-control, speed, and other major issues that affect the human being. While you watch the movies on the big screen, you listen to the music created for the show. The images are different from screen to screen, but sometimes you can see the same thing on two of them or even the same on all four of them, depending on the moment and the feeling we want the public to feel.
SC.net: You wrote the music specifically for INDEEPANDANCE then.
Vittorio: First of all, I have to tell you that the music is partially live and partially recorded. I’m one of the musicians on stage, but there will be several musicians that will share the stage. The whole soundtrack of the performance was written by me and some of the collaborators: Mum from Iceland wrote and recorded one track specifically for Indeepandance. They did a great job. I also went to Bjork’s studios in Reykjavik and recorded one track with the musicians that usually play with her. David Rhodes and Richard Evans did another great track recorded at Peter Gabriel’s Real World studios . I like Jaques Morelenbaum a lot, and when I told him about my project, he immediately gave his okay. I even involved the Orchestra of the National Radio in Zagabria. Howie B was involved as a performer, and he also mixed the sound for the whole show. And I called Stewart Copeland….
SC.net: Ah, the big question. You are on SC.net, and you can bet our readers want to know everything about Stewart’s collaboration.
Vittorio: I told Stewart about Indeepandance, more or less, three or four years ago while we were touring with Gizmo. I showed him my ideas--I used to have everything on my laptop, graphics and drawings for the show, and asked for suggestions from all of my friends whom I knew might have an interest in something like that, even if the real project wasn’t exactly like it is now. Stewart said that if I needed some help with the music, he would be available, having found the project very interesting. Nothing was definite, and I had no idea how we would be able to collaborate on it, but knowing that Stewart had an open mind and with his experience in the soundtrack world, I was sure he could be one of the musicians involved. While working on the various subjects of the show, I thought his drumming would be perfect for one of the sections dedicated to speed: all of the information that now runs at the speed of light, fast communications. He got the concept very easily, and the result is a great piece of music where he uses a lot of hi-hat that sounds really perfect with the images that I used, as well a perfect rhythmic groove.
SC.net: Great, but how did you manage to schedule a recording with Stewart on tour with The Police at the time?
Vittorio: On my way to Iceland. I scheduled the recordings in Iceland a few days after the show that The Police did in London, Hyde Park. He agreed to record everything the day after the show, and we booked a studio in London, the same that Oasis usually use to record their albums. I had no other choice since he was extremely busy, and I only had three months to record and work with everybody on Indeepandance. We spent the whole day working on the ideas originally planned. We not only recorded the track about speed, but we did another piece of music that will be inserted into a moment where drama and fear are the message that we want to convey to our public. It’s a kind of industrial piece. It’s a loud track: we used a thunderstick to make the big sound of thunder and a big orchestral bass drum. I thought Stewart would be the right person for this drama sequence, and he did a great job!
SC.net: I hope that one day all of these recordings will be released on CD. By the way, you said the project was born four years ago. Why did you work on it for only the last three months?
Vittorio: When we first realized what the project was, we immediately started looking for partners. We have music, poetry, literature, visual arts. We asked everybody in these different fields if they would be interested in collaborating and finding sponsors for such a bizarre show, and it took some time to find people. Last year I contacted Caterina Caselli--not only one of the best-known Italian singers of the late 60’s and 70’s, but also one of the most important discographers in Italy right now--and she immediately understood the importance of this artistic creation. She’s a dreamer, but she is also very concrete. Six months later, by April 2008, she came back to me, saying that she had found the right partner and sponsorI told her that we can finally work on it for the next year, but she said, ‘Why not in three months?’! Now you know why I had no time at all for anything other than work on this project for almost 24 hours a day for the last few months. As for recordings to be released, I can tell you that by now I have filmed most of the sessions in the studio, but there are no definitive plans on how to use them. Of course, I have all of the sessions I did in London with Stewart.
SC.net: I read that you will have different guests at the three performances.
Vittorio: Yes. Some of the artists that worked with me on the music were asked to come and perform during the show. As I said, it’s not a concert: there is a stage, but it’s not like going to a concert and keeping your eyes focused on who is on stage. These musicians will perform part of the music written for the show, and we will have several people coming up and down from the stage. This will make the three shows slightly different from one night to the next, being a unique performance every night. Most of them are Italian, well-known musicians such as Marlene Kuntz together with Gianni Maroccolo, but we will have Mum on stage as well as Howie B. At the end of the show, I have also invited some deejays for a DJ set--different every night--but this can be seen as more like an open after-show party.
SC.net: Vittorio, I really hope this won’t be the only chance to see the show. Do you have plans for the future of INDEEPANDANCE?
Vittorio: Sure. We are so excited about this project that we are already thinking about a new performance around spring or summer of 2009 with more musicians and more ideas. We’ve worked on this for a few years, but we’ve only had a short time to realize it.
SC.net: Fantastic! Will you have time for Gizmo?
Vittorio: Absolutely yes! Well, I have some very interesting things to tell you about the development of that project, many things to say. But right now I don’t know exactly when Stewart and I will be back playing as Gizmo…but I should save all of those details for a next interview. What do you think?
SC.net: I think that’s great…but I’m also thinking about those videos you did in London with Stewart! [Laughs.] Will you show me some? I may upload a few minutes of them for SC.net.
Vittorio: Of course. I’m sure it’s interesting for Gizmo fans to see us working together, even if not for Gizmo but for Indeepandance. I will talk about it with Stewart.
SC.net: I will as well. Thank you, Vittorio. Always a great pleasure to read about your work.
Vittorio: Thank you for promoting Indeepandance. See you at the show.