Sonora Desert is an original format straddling live concert, installation and performance.
Sonora Desert is inspired by a journey in the Sonoran Desert, one of the largest American deserts, located between Arizona and Mexico. Starting from the diary of the journey through this mythical place, Sonora Desert brings together the investigation on the nature of time that the company is carrying out in recent years with the research carried out in America in the ’60s on the relationship between vibrations and states of consciousness.
Sonora Desert is a place lived between sleep and wakefulness, which invites the spectator to experience a liminal dimension of the self where he can meet his own unconscious and archetypal memory.
An ambient made of sounds, lights, color and physical vibrations, in dialogue with the music specially composed by Alvin Curran, puts the viewer in a deep relationship with the reality of a world where time and the self tend to merge until they disappear.
The desert is absolute space, empty of culture and sense, absence of sociality and relationships. The scene disappears, every human presence disappears, the possibility of a story disappears: everything happens in the mind of the spectator.
Muta Imago is a theatre company and an artistic research project born in Rome in 2006. It is led by Claudia Sorace, director and Riccardo Fazi, playwright and sound designer. It is composed by all the people who have been, are and will be involved in the realization of the works. Muta Imago is constantly searching for forms and stories that relate the sphere of imagination with that of the present, human, political and social reality, investigating the relationship between the human being and his time. The company’s shows have been hosted and co-produced for years by the most important national and international festivals, including Romaeuropa Festival, Napoli Teatro Festival Italia, Vie Scena Contemporanea Festival, Biennale Teatro, Santarcangelo Festival Internazionale del Teatro in Piazza, Inteatro Festival, Bassano Opera Festival, Primavera dei Teatri, Biennale dei Giovani Artisti d’Europa e del Mediterraneo; and in several international festivals including Premiéres Festival (Strasbourg), Festival International des Brigittines (Brussels), Théâtre de la Ville (Paris), Festival Cyl (Salamanca), Fadjr Festival (Tehran), Bipod Festival (Beirut), Clipa Aduma Festival (Tel Aviv), Unidram Festival (Potsdam), Temps d’Images (Cluj-Napoca, Budapest), Teatro/Theater: Italienischer Theaterherbst (Berlin), Escrita Na Pasaigem (Evora), Na Strastnom (Moscow), Sirenos Festival (Vilnius), Mot Festival (Skopje), Festival Notafee (Viljandi).
With his latest productions, including Sonora Desert (2021), Combattimento(2019), Lontano da qui (2018), Canti Guerrieri (2017) Muta Imago has met the world of musical theatre, collaborating with I Teatri di Reggio Emilia, Romaeuropa Festival, la Stagione Lirica Sperimentale di Spoleto, the Sagra Musicale Malatestiana and the Muziektheater Transparant in Antwerp.
In addition to the production of the shows, Muta Imago has an intense teaching and training activity.
In 2009 the company won the Ubu Special Prize, the ANCT Critics’ Prize and the DE.MO./Movin’UP Prize. In the same year Claudia Sorace won the Premio Cavalierato Giovanile della Provincia di Roma and the Premio Internazionale Valeria Moriconi as “Futuro della scena”; in 2011 she won the prize for best director and best show at the XXIX Fadjr Festival in Tehran. In 2013 the project Art You Lost? was a finalist at the Ubu Awards. In 2021 the project Radio India won the Special Ubu Prize and the Rete Critica Prize.
Since 2018 the company has been funded by the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities and Tourism as a research and innovation theatre production company. For the triennal 2019-2022 Muta Imago is a resident artist of the Teatro di Roma, within the project Oceano Indiano.
During 2022, Muta Imago will be working on the new production Tre Sorelle, which will make its debut in 2023.
