Light According to Robert Wilson

“Star and stone: a kind of love … some say” is an artistic projection on Rouen Cathedral, conceived by the American stage director and dramatist Robert Wilson. This piece acts as a 25-minute-long poetic journey, arousing pure emotions through powerful images (violent waves, lava, stars, fire…) and the highly impressionistic music of the American composer Philip Glass. Here, his Etudes for Piano have pride of place.

The work of Robert Wilson, associated with the world of theatre and opera, in which his unique mastery of lighting and sets clearly transcends the status of a stage director, is close to the approach of a visual artist (video portraits of Lady Gaga, Brad Pitt, Winona Ryder, Isabella Rosselini, ...).. This is because he puts innovation and experimentation at the heart of his work so as to transcribe /give/ offer a poetic reality and incite emotions. He projects scenes of daily life just as much as mythological or natural images into a different space-time made up of variations of light and colours and a perfect harmony between all the visible and audible elements in this show. There is also a play on moments of weightlessness. In this way, he seeks to reveal the invisible, amplify emotions and make time material. This perception of the world pushes him to place light at the centre of his art. “Without light, there would be no space,” he once told a French journalist.

Light is what makes the world and objects visible. It floods our existences to allow us to see. This artist uses light to show us a different reality from our routines. Like the Impressionists who painted the world around them, Robert Wilson guides us through a facet of the world that we have never visited.

                             “He imagines his shows by using a blank page and drawing light with a black marker. Light is one of the most important elements ‘because without it, space is not defined’. Then come the sound, text and music. This entire arrangement forms a scenic composition as important as the performance of the actors.”
         France Culture, “Bob Wilson: “light is the most important thing in the theatre” in “Affaire Culturelle”, 16 August 2022

Sound is also a vital element for this artist. It is omnipresent in our daily lives, and Robert Wilson chooses either to silence or augment it. As for speech in his works, when it is not muted, it has a capital importance. For this projection on Rouen Cathedral, the artist has given the floor to a woman of powerful words: Maya Angelou.

A writer, poet, Afro-American militant and descendant of slaves, Maya Angelou was born in 1928 and died in 2014. She spent her life struggling against segregation in the USA and for Afro-American rights, and published numerous biographies and collections of poetry. Maya Angelou was a spokesperson for minorities.

                            “I was born in Waco, Texas,” Bob Wilson recalls. “I grew up in a very conservative, racist community. I took a close interest in Afro-American culture, especially negro spirituals which lie at the heart of American music. Men and women were beaten, enslaved and chained-up, and the only book they were allowed to read was the Bible. They sang of hope, looking for light in the heart of darkness. Maya Angelou declared: ‘God puts rainbows in the sky to chase away the clouds.’ It is important for her voice to be heard. Above all in these complex times, when hatred is being propagated on a global scale.”
                                   The Art Newspaper, “Bob Wilson, en pleine lumière”, 4 February 2024

Here is the complete list of Maya Angelou's poems recited by Isabelle Huppert: 
- Call Letters: Mrs. V. B
- The Lesson
- Willie
- Refusal
- A Kind of Love, Some Say
- Just for a Time
- In Retrospect
- The Traveller
- Woman Work
- Still I Rise
- Through the Inner City to the Suburbs
- Just Like Job

Learn more about Robert Wilson : 
▶︎ Robert Wilson on the Wonder to Be Found in Time, Space, and Light - Time Sensitive
▶︎ Robert Wilson in Rouen: shining a light in dark times
▶︎ Robert Wilson - Introspective — Creative Exchange Agency

Learn more about Maya Angelou : 
▶︎ Biography: Maya Angelou 
▶︎ Maya Angelou, An essential voice in American literature and culture, EL PAÍS English 

Learn more about Philip Glass : 
▶︎ The Life of Philip Glass: Compositions, Operas & More