I swear, she spoke to me
His shows are made of the stuff of which dreams are made
(LA STAMPA – ORIGAMI – 22/02/2018 – RAFFAELLA SILIPO)
His shows are made of the stuff of which dreams are made, always bathed in the magical light of the Moon. Complicit, mysterious, smiling upon them. In his latest show ‘Solo’, currently touring through Europe, Arturo Brachetti holds Lady Moon by a thread, almost like a balloon that’s about to flee into the night sky. «The Moon is often on stage with me» explains the quick-change magician, with the cheerful and thoughtful eyes of a sixty-year-old boy. “It brings me luck, it’s an important presence, also because I live at night, like vampires. I often can not fall asleep. We are a race apart, us nocturnal animals, we find ourselves wandering the streets at three in the morning, imbued with a mysterious restlessness. That the full moon really influences me, on a physical level, I suddenly understood one night, in London: I could not sleep and I found myself driving around through less than safe parts of the city, thinking of Jack the Ripper. I looked up and saw her up there… pale, huge in the sky. I heard her speak to me. After all, it influences the tides of the vast oceans, how could it not affect humans?” And it is all the Moon’s fault, Shakespeare wrote in his in Othello, “when it gets too close to the earth it drives one crazy”. And, Brachetti assures, “even the audience is different on a full moon”. Luna, lady of illusions: “Yes, because its cold light is deceptive,” continues, dreamily, Brachetti. “It is much easier to orient yourself in the woods in total darkness than on full moon nights: thanks to its rays you can see, but in a distorted way: deceptive, skewed”. It is no coincidence that “almost all artists are lunatics, an astral conjunction that governs us most sensitive, with feet less on the ground than others. As the saying goes “when the wise man points to the Moon, the fool looks at his finger”. See, us artists we immediately learn to ignore the finger. Having my head through the clouds and fully into the Moon was my luck: I’m an eternal Peter Pan, flying back and forth from Neverland. Thinking it was time for me to change, to mature, I once went to a psychoanalyst, who told me: “Hold on tight to you dreams, to your slight immaturity, that’s your fortune”».
Like Brachetti, the Moon transforms, it changes according to its phases. “And like every quick-change artist it loves to hide: that other side of the Moon… we do not know it, we saw it only through the astonished eyes of the astronauts and the prophetic ones of Jules Verne in his “From Earth to the Moon””. Verne, another eclectic soul bewitched by the night… it would be impossible to quote them all, the lunar literature has no boundaries, “on the other hand it’s a powerful symbol of mystery, magic, the absolute protagonist of fairy tales and legends. Every satanic ritual, every esoteric evocation requires its presence. I like to think about how much Federico Fellini loved the Moon: heoften drew it, he dedicated beautiful things to her, such as his “Voce della luna”. And let’s not forget George Meliès, the father of cinema, a master of illusionism. In his most famous and iconic, now viral, creation, the Moon looks at us looking at it. The perfect illusion» The Moon is also mistress of the romantics “and I am, a romantic. Well, truth be told I like to turn myself romantic, to paint myself romantic, to create romantic situations. Because romanticism must be helped, it must be built. Torn by everyday life we become cynical, disillusioned, we do not notice the simple and unattainable beauty of the Moon in the sky. Instead you have to revert to a childlike state of wonder, bring your beloved on a full moon night to the Sacra di San Michele, gaze from the windows overlooking the valley, with the right background music. Or in Bologna, look out from a window on the roofs of the old town and be able to tell the woman by your side: “See, I rented the moon for you tonight”». Magic, romance, illusions. Yet there are the technological inventions that have allowed us to reach the Moon. «Of course, technology is a very amusing toy and I use it as an artist and as a man. But, at the end of the day, there must be real emotion: love, poetry, madness. Those remain. In my show and in life”.
