wild... weird... wonderful...
Wondermart
the eighth wonder of the world!
Created by Silvia Mecuriali
in collaboration with artist/performer Matt Rudkin
and featuring original compositions by musician Tommaso Perego, Wondermart takes a mischievous swipe at the dominance of supermarket culture and consumerism.
click here for upcoming dates
Wondermart is a unique, interactive audio tour that takes you on a journey of rediscovery through the familiar surroundings of the supermarket. Wearing headphones and anonymous behind your trolley, you are guided around the aisles immersed in a private soundscape. The real blurs with the imaginary, and the every day setting of the ‘high density retail environment’ becomes the scene of strange adventures.
“a delicious anti-consumerist meditation through the dream state of aisles... rendered powerless in a quirkily situationist amble" - The Herald Scotland
"wondermart (...) succeeds, like the best of theatre, in shining a new light on the quotidian of human experience” - The Irish Times
By turns amusing, moving and strangely entrancing, Wondermart builds upon Rotozaza’s previous work.
For ten years, Rotozaza has explored the use of instructions given 'live' to unrehearsed performers. This gave rise to their 'Autoteatro' strategy (pioneered by Etiquette) wherein participants find themselves exchanging audience and performer roles by simply following instructions, often heard via headphones. Located in an ordinary supermarket, Wondermart takes Rotozaza’s work into a public setting and gives the audience freedom within a carefully scripted audio-tour.
From an idea developed with Ant Hampton, with support from the Foundry Theatre, NYC
Subsequent R&D supported by Arts Council England
Commissioned by BAC
FURTHER INFO / BACKGROUND THOUGHTS
PRESS info, here
If you've done Wondermart, please sign the GUESTBOOK - thanks!
Tommaso Perego trained at Milan Conservatorio Giuseppe Verdi, in Music Composition, Conducting, Electronic Music and Double Bass. His latest compositions have been selected and performed at international festivals such as: ICMC (International Computer Music Conference) 2006 and 2007, SICMF Korea, Spring in Havana Electro-acoustic Music Festival 2006, Spark Festival Minnesota USA, Plymouth Festival England UK (Sonic Arts Networks), Signal and Noise Festival, Vancouver CAN and Druskininkaj Electronic and Youth Orchestral Music Festival. He has been playing in concerts with artists and composers of electronic music such as Richard Boulanger, Miller Puckette, Cort Lippe and Richard Dudas, and with performers as the Uusinta Ensemble (Helsinki) and the Surplus Ensemble USA. Recents awards are the iXem Prize for Experimental Music, Rome and a Commission for a 3D Audio Visual Piece for King s Place, by s.p.n.m and no.w.here. Website: http://www.toom.be
Matt Rudkin - Following an ‘Creative Arts’ degree at Nottingham Trent University, Matt’s career has encompassed a wide variety of performance practices, working as performer, director and writer. He founded and ran the original ‘Bongo Club Cabaret’ at the Edinburgh Fringe from '94 - '01, working as a puppeteer and maker with The Edinburgh Puppet Company during the same period. He studied improvisation and clowning with ‘Ecole Philippe Gaullier’ and ‘The Actors Space’; and in ’99 completed an MA in Performance Studies at the Central School of Speech and Drama.
Since 2003 Matt has also toured internationally with street theatre shows in collaboration with Three Monkey productions and Fraser Hooper. Matt has taught for 9 years at Brighton University where he is currently Senior Lecturer in Theatre and Visual Art. He has also taught at Rose Bruford, Goldsmiths, Italia Conti, Circus Space and the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts.
Since graduation Matt has also continued to present both solo and collaborative experimental work, including appearances at such venues as 'The Green Room' Manchester, 'The Powerhouse', Nottingham; 'CCA', Glasgow; Whitstable Biennale, 'ICA', ‘Omsk’, ‘Shunt Lounge’ and ‘Chats Palace’ London.
click here for a video, in french, about Wondermart >