MEDIATHEK

'La Celestina' is a performance-installation piece, created by ERRATICA in collaboration with Chicago-based puppetry company Manual Cinema and composer Matt Rogers. It was commissioned and presented by New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. Through projected shadow puppetry and multi-channel sound, the installation brings the museum’s early sixteenth-century Vélez Blanco patio to life, retelling the story of the celebrated, eponymous Spanish novel by Fernando de Rojas (published in 1499), among the marble statues and behind the shuttered windows of a Renaissance Spanish courtyard.

The tragic fate of lovers Calisto and Melibea, and the bawdy schemes of the procuress and witch Celestina, are recounted in snatches of rumour and gossip by an ensemble of voices whose idle speculation blends with fragments of 16th-century villancicos and Ladino folk music. As an installation in the Metropolitan Museum's Vélez Blanco patio, 'La Celestina' surrounded the audience with sound. Each of the ten statues in the space was associated with one or more speakers, casting each marble figure as a performer and character, in addition to an accompanying bass viol player. These singing statues narrate and comment upon the story, which is depicted mainly through the use of shadow puppetry projected in and around the windows of the courtyard’s façade. A dynamic lighting design adds to the immersive theatre of the piece, by highlighting the various statues as they converse, and throwing their shadows across the space to commune with the shadowy characters in the windows.

The piece lasts for 24 minutes, and plays on a loop every half hour. The scale of the installation encourages audience members to move between the statues and hear the piece from a range of different perspectives. Although originally designed for the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the piece was was also performed at the Marian Goodman Gallery, London. It can be re-adapted to fit other large architectural spaces (indoors or outdoors), museums, or galleries. And although it was originally conceived with sculptures from the Metropolitan's collection, it can be re-performed with a variety of artworks, including abstract pieces, or simply with speakers positioned in space.