“You don’t know if someone’s going to kiss you or kill you.” For Vinicius Salles, director, performer and long-time collaborator with companies such as Punchdrunk and Gecko, this spark of danger lies at the heart of how theatrical experiences can most directly have an impact on their audiences.
He joins us in the voidspace to talk about his experiences working with Punchdrunk, his new production, Immaculate, and the importance of the audience in immersive theatre.
voidspace:
Welcome to the voidspace! Please make yourself comfortable. To begin: you are well known for your work in immersive theatre. Tell us a little bit about how the work you make is different to conventional theatre.
Vinicius Salles:
I think the difference is that in a traditional theatre setting the audience has a different role. In immersive experiences, the audience must be the first and the last focus of whatever we are doing. I think the performer in an immersive theatrical experience must be very humble: they are not there to be a star. They are there to serve a purpose, of making that connection in between the audience and the story/conception. I think the connection is what I’m searching for, in a theatrical experience.
voidspace:
How would you define an immersive theatrical experience?
Vinicius Salles:
I personally think it should involve an idea of narrative, but also it should give the audience an experience of immersing themselves within a universe. You can have so many types of immersive experience, gaming etc, but I’m really interested in what I called theatrical experience, meaning narrative, character, storytelling, and of course, a physical exploration.
At the start I studied theatre. I wanted to be an actor. That was my big thing. And then dance came on the way of that. And of course, coming to these kind of physical theatre settings was perfect for me, because I couldn’t speak with a proper English accent. So, I left it to my body to take over the narrative and character, to tell that story.
All the companies I’ve worked with, Jasmin Vardimon, Punchdrunk or Gecko, all work with the idea of character and narrative. And, of course, each of them has their own take on physical theatre. However, the difference for a “theatrical experience” is the consideration of the audience’s presence. And how they can interfere in the action. I think what is interesting is to somehow implicate the audience in the action.
It’s like, if you commit a crime and you are implicated in that crime: it’s not just by witnessing the scene, as you do when you sit in a conventional theatre. The audience should be implicated by the emotion that they feel, or just by connecting with whatever the scene is, it could be a very mundane and durational action, does not matter. If the performers can incriminate the audience in that particular moment, in that particular action, that is when you, as audience, feel something very special. Because then some subtle “connection” happens between you and the performers.
voidspace:
You’re almost made to feel complicit in what’s going on.
Vinicius Salles:
Absolutely. I think it’s very important to feel incriminated, in that sense of being there, being part of it, being real. I love technology, but I think it’s important to have that experience when you cannot use your mobile phone. For example, when you get in a dark space, and you have to be obliged to feel your sense of presence and being in the moment. That is why for me, we cannot make an immersive theatrical experience if we don’t first think about the audience experience.
voidspace:
In Punchdrunk’s latest production, The Burnt City, you played Agamemnon, which is one of the main characters, or a character that really holds everything together. What I found really interesting, particularly about your interpretation, is how you managed to find ways, even while playing a character that has to really play to the whole building of bringing the audience in at key moments and while big scenes are happening. But then you’ve still managed to get that connection with one or two people in the audience and make them really feel that link.
When you devise that kind of character, how you think about the balance between playing a big role with lots of key scenes, and still bringing in the audience and making it a personal journey?
Vinicius Salles:
That’s a difficult question, because it’s a process we have been working on for so many years – I think I started this work in 2005 – so a lot of it comes unconsciously.
For Agamemnon there was this view that he was this nasty, selfish monster, very wrapped up with toxic masculinity. And I said, “oh my God!” Being gay and queer, how I could navigate around those issues? And then from that I started to research. We had Emma Cole, who was the academic that was supporting us. She mentioned something like some characters were in between gods and humans. The thing that struck me the most was how those in between humans and Gods would feel. How could a father kill his daughter?! What does it take for that man to go there and do that? And for me, that was the crucial element for me to understand his persona, his feelings and his journey.
To come back to what I said to you about connecting: For me, it was important to understand how human he was, what was his emotion that he would pass through to make him human. For me to empathise with him, for me to be able to connect, with my emotions, with what he went through. I needed to somehow understand his reasons. Of course, in any theatre you have to defend your character. You have to wear that character’s clothes and say, “I am here”.
To understand his sense of humanity, there were two important references to me. One was my father. He was a captain, he’s called Captain Salles. He used to live in the middle of Amazonia, and everybody was so scared of my father, he was really this stereotypical masculine cis man. To cry, even at Christmas and other occasions, he’d lock himself in our bathroom to be able to cry and not be seen.
So, this was a man who was not connected to his emotions. My father grew up in a priest school and went to the army. But at the same time there was this façade of a macho man. There was something very human in my father because he used to cry – he just didn’t want anybody to see it, because that’s the side of his human self he wanted to deny, he was locking himself in.
The TV series Succession – the father in that, he’s absolutely nasty. I was watching that by chance and then his figure became very present to me during the process of creation, his images, persona. He was a father and there was this power as well, like a king.
So, these two characters of a father were very much present in my portrayal of Agamemnon, and then I think my journey from there was to understand how they would negotiate and make sense in the scenes I was playing, creating. What I tried to achieve in this character of Agamemnon was to touch on his human side.
As Agamemnon, I had a whole army and they’re killing themselves. I had two soldiers and I created two relationships with two of them very differently. There was always this kind of power dynamic between them somehow, one that I loved and mistreated. One that I envy and care for. But always there was this sense of being a father figure in dealing with them. He had this social image of a king, warrior that he had to perform, a strong stereotypical male identity, but also this human side that he needed to hide.
After he kills his daughter and when is going to sacrifice Polyxena, that kills him because it was like he was revisiting the killing of his own daughter. Playing that moment was like he was watching himself in the mirror, and especially watching the queen’s pain. That usually would break me into tears. And the next scene, when Cassandra was teasing Agamemnon with the mask, that for me was his vanity, which he was trying to deny to himself.
But coming back to your question about the connection with the audience. Yes, I think it’s all about connection, being human, that’s what we go to the theatre for. For me, my journey was around that, to make that character a human, not a monster, not a king. He was a father, and that’s what drove me to connect with him. And hopefully the audience connected with that too.
voidspace:
I do feel like when people try and connect with the audience without the strength of the storytelling and the performance underneath it, it doesn’t really work. Because for that connection to be there, there has to be something meaty to actually connect with.
Vinicius Salles:
Absolutely. I think storytelling is fundamental for humans to understand ourselves, our society. I’m drawn into narratives. It’s really funny. I’m just creating a piece for Jasmin Vardimon, and the whole thing was all about narratives and characters and had almost no dance. All the movement came as a consequence of something that we were trying to say. Just moving for the beauty of it or for technique, those things are amazing, but it’s not so much my interest at the moment.
voidspace:
Tell me a bit more about the research that you’re doing.
Vinicius Salles:
I want to research the audience. I want to research this idea that we were just talking about connection, about the presence of what I always call “the other” in a scene. It’s important to think about the function of the audience within any immersive scene.
It’s about understanding the potential of how that audience will function in those scenes.
voidspace:
And that’s something that you’re interested in exploring more in your work, right?
Vinicius Salles:
Yes and no. The starting point, for me, is for the performer to understand the presence of the other, how the other influences you. When I’ve worked with performers who never worked for Punchdrunk before, they get there and say, “But there was no audience watching me!” Or “There was only one audience member“. And I say to them, can you imagine what it’s like for that person to have five performers and only they’re watching? How special that moment must have been for that audience?
It’s a switch of attitude. Because I think when you’re trained to be a performer, an actor or a dancer, you are trained to be appreciated. You go on stage and there might be like 25 people with you on that stage, but at least everybody will see you. But with Punchdrunk you can play a part, and nobody sees you for an entire 3-hour show. And I think that, for me, is magical. I think that’s what this is all about, because it’s not about me. It’s about a whole complexity of things that make up the meaning of the experience for those audience that come into the show.
I think it’s very difficult, for some performers sometimes, when people are talking or people are just getting in the way of where they pass through or where they want to sit. And I’ve said to those performers “But this is what this is all about!“.
I remember there was a scene at the beginning of my Agamemnon loop, where he used to watch Artemis, and he could not be seen by the audience. I always had to somehow creep into the scene. And there were sometimes audience members there where I was supposed to be, and I did as much as I could not to disturb them, and actually compose the scene with them as part of it. But they always went such a distance from me when they noticed me there.
The audience are always respectful because we still have, as an audience, a sense of politeness. But I don’t mind if people are impolite when I’m performing. I don’t mind the sense of anarchy, because we are creating anarchy anyway, in a system that said people should sit and watch a performance. It is immersive but let’s define the spaces where performance and non-performance exist? This is a fraud! I cannot expect people to behave in a certain way when I am giving them freedom.
It’s really weird because I always say as well, I think it’s immersive for the audience, but it’s immersive for the performers too. Some moments have been very frightening to me as a performer: in The Drowned Man when I had to come to my trailer, naked, to get dressed, and there would sometimes be someone sitting there just in front of me, holding my pants to me.
Of course, we have to have respect for the performance, but at the same time I am very forgiving. Especially audience members not being aware of what is happening in that space, because it’s dark, because they are limited by masks. If they don’t notice that I’m there, I’m forgiving. Actually, I love that, because when they see me, something changes, and I think that change is so beautiful. So many times, I’ve arrived in a space performing a character, and there’s already someone there, reading materials on the set, but when they suddenly see the character there, that changes the dynamic and the tension in that space.
Understanding tension is so important for what we do: how our presence is in the space, how the presence of the other in the space can change what we’re doing. I think the presence of the other in a scene is the tension that happens even if I’m just doing a durational scene, or if I’m doing something as simple as measuring the temperature of my coffee. With someone else there, it changes the rhythm. Sometimes it’s just the breathing. Breathing is such an important thing in theatre, right?
voidspace:
Right! And what about the more explicit type of interaction, when you directly interact with the audience?
Vinicius Salles:
First of all, there’s the idea of looking, or making eye contact. There are so many nuances in that. There are moments you can look, but you’re actually not seeing anything.
The most dangerous thing in this world is touch. When I’m working with performers, I start with understanding the functionality of touch. Something very simple sometimes. We start to touch ourselves and then we start to touch the other and then we start to touch the space.
There are so many nuances that you, as a performer, need to be aware of, especially in a world like The Burnt City. How I touch the queen is completely different to how I touch my daughter, and that’s completely different way to how I touch someone else.
I think touch is most dangerous because of the sense of proximity. I think Felix [Barrett – Punchdrunk’s Artistic Director] says something very beautiful. This idea of the name of Punchdrunk, he says, is about needing the audience to leave the show with the sense that someone has punched them in the face. You’re a little bit drunk. You can’t make an immersive experience without that sense of confusion. It takes you out of your world and puts you into someone else’s.
I love the sense of proximity, especially. I do lots of exercises when I’m teaching around that, sometimes just to get very close to someone, to see how comfortable it is. Those little moments – when you don’t know if someone’s going to kiss you or kill you – are fundamental. Part of the making of it is that your sensibility and your senses need to be connected for those things to happen.
voidspace:
Tell me a bit about Immaculate, the new project you’re working on with De Montfort University.
Vinicius Salles:
Basically, it’s about the myth of Echo, but of course there are lots of nuances around that. I started research about Little Red Riding Hood. I’m very interested in the film Innocence, directed by Lucile Hadzihalilovic, so there’s a lot of crossovers with this production. It’s almost like there are layers of information on top of each other. I focused on a version of Little Red Riding Hood, by Angela Carter. The settings have a similar feel to Angela Carter. It’s set in a kind of northern country, very frozen, cold weather, cold beast, all this kind of stuff.
voidspace:
The Bloody Chamber [by Angela Carter] is the best collection of short stories. So how do these different stories go together?
Vinicius Salles:
I am using only the story called Werewolf from that book. But that helped me cross reference with some studies that connect the character of Narcissus with the wolf character. The Echo and Narcissus myth was a natural step. In the myth of Echo, she is cursed by Hera, and she loses her voice. So, this piece investigates this idea that women not having voice in society. In this production I’m getting the story of Echo and chopping it in the middle, and I’m putting the past and the present together at the same time, like they’re echoing each other. It’s a complex idea, because the audience is following one performer, that plays Echo, and follows the narrative of this character, but sometimes this character finds its echo played by another person, in the past and the future. Which loops for 4 hours.
I think the idea of creating two echoes of the same character is very exciting. It’s a four hour show, but audiences only stay in the show for 1 hour and 20 minutes: the show goes in loops. It’s about the repetition, a cycle of oppression of women. The show is a ritual of taking the voice out of Echo, set on this mountain, where there is a kind of hospital, kind of monastery of lots of nuns. And every four years, there is this ritual where women come, if they’re cursed, to the top of this mountain and they will be sacrificed. Echo knows she’s the chosen one, and she goes to the top of the mountain, and the whole city comes to take part on a celebration. And they do this ritual of taking her voice, and she becomes a part of the sisterhood, of women oppressing women to keep their traditions. This is a cycle that repeats every four years in our story, and the audience see one of these years, one of these cycles.
voidspace:
Talk me through how the audience interact with Immaculate.
Vicinius Salles:
The audience comes in, in groups of 15, and they see the show twice. They see the show from one perspective, following the character, and then they see the show from another perspective. It’s almost if I’m trying to incriminate the audience, as they become the villagers and take part in this ritual. But they don’t know exactly what it is, until they watch for the second time and they cannot do anything about it, apart from just witnessing.
voidspace:
So as the audience, you’re seeing it twice, and seeing the consequences of what you’ve done?
Vinicius Salles:
Exactly. That’s where we are heading to. I need to simplify it, to make it simple, simple, and I try to make it as simple as possible. And it’s so complex.
voidspace:
I can imagine. Am I right that the audience don’t get to choose where they go? They have a character they follow and then it repeats?
Vinicius Salles:
Then they have someone else to follow, because it’s about this ritual of the sacrifice of this girl, her journey in the space. It’s almost like if you go to a church, to a mass, to something like that: the interaction of the audience is almost in that kind of sense.
voidspace:
They’re part of the world as the participants or the witnesses to this ritual?
Vinicius Salles
Exactly. It’s almost like going for a church, I would say. There’s a very strong sense of trying to create in the space an altar, a sacred space.
When the audience come, they’ve been given a present. They become citizens of this kind of village, and they are led to understand a little bit of the circumstances, and they are given some presents to offer to this kind of saviour. There’s a moment where they are invited to take part, where we have those sacred spaces, within the action that happens.
voidspace:
So, the audience are invited to directly take part in some of it?
Vinicius Salles:
Yeah. I think this project for me is about experimenting. One of the things is that I am trying to experiment with how to connect to the audience in this mystical world. I opted to work in a large, empty studio on a limited budget. There are lots of challenges, such as how to create distinctive spaces in the studio, so that the audience have a sense of journey with the narrative. The idea is to have a sort of identity and meaning within this kind of space.
voidspace:
The identity of the space is always really important in this kind of work, isn’t it?
Vinicius Salles:
Exactly. And I think that’s the challenge for me, because it’s a big open space. It’s an open studio, like a recording studio or something. So, the challenge is how to actually create those distinctive spaces, to have a sense of, like you said, of identity. I think that’s the big challenge for us all involved, of course, for the university itself, that has never produced something like this before, to make sure we understand the importance of things like space, set, props, etc, how the space is also supporting the narrative of that story completely.
voidspace:
I’d be very interested to hear, in making Immaculate, where Punchdrunk has influenced you, and also where you’ve moved away from it.
Vinicius Salles:
I’m not sure if I have moved away from it. I feel very part of the structure of how the language of Punchdrunk evolved through the years, somehow. I think my goal is very much about narrative. I’m using text. I’m exploring more clearly how the text can be part of it. Some moments, of course, there’s no text, but I’m exploring how the text can actually be part of it in a more structured way than, I think, Punchdrunk does. There is a very clear, distinctive text in that things are said, as part of this narrative of oppression. I’m experimenting a bit with that.
Also, I’m just working with actors, so the movement language is not one of the key parts of it. It’s still physical theatre: there is a moment where I think there’s one thing that is very much from physical theatre. Most of the things are very theatrical, and there are some things that have no text whatsoever. But there is a sense of really digging down into narrative and character that I think you don’t always get with Punchdrunk: sometimes with Punchdrunk you just see the plasticity of movement based scenes like that.
voidspace:
It sounds like something you’re doing with this, is exploring more of an explicit message and more of an explicit theme.
Vinicius Salles:
Yeah, I think I’m very interested in that. I think in my work there is a clear politics, things that I haven’t been doing so far. And I hope it’s clear what I’m trying to touch. Being queer, I’m very interested in the feminist movement, because the queer movement piggybacks a lot on the influence of the feminist movement. Because I was working with ten women, I was very passionate about the idea of how a woman is punished, by taking her voice away, just because she was having fun and having sex, and then this idea of women lying. There’s lots of underlying issues there that I thought were very interesting to touch on, to open up a conversation about those aspects in our society. I think even more so for us, to be there with ten women, to explore how we can generate those conversations, what’s the importance of it.
The most interesting thing for me, and this has been my big debate with the cast, is how we approach the figure of Echo. Because from the very beginning they were saying that she’s just the fragile woman. No, she’s a strong woman, and the whole beginning of the story is her going like Little Red Riding Hood to the forest to have fun. And suddenly there is this relation between Echo and the figure of the wolf being adored, that kind of hazy, mystical, ritualistic part in the middle of the forest.
voidspace:
Very Angela Carter.
Vinicius Salles:
It’s feminist, in that she was in charge of her destiny.
voidspace:
She was choosing to leave the path.
Vinicius Salles:
Right, exactly. She is a deviant. At the same time, the wolf is her mother in the Angela Carter story. We don’t touch on that so much, but what we touch on is the idea of women oppressing women.
voidspace:
We all have internalised prejudice, don’t we? If we’re in an oppressive system, we have internalised bigotry, and in every marginalised community you have the people who are the gatekeepers, who say “don’t make a fuss, don’t step out of line”.
Vinicius Salles:
Absolutely. I think the symbolism in Immaculate of this monastery run by nuns, is about the women who are living there oppressing the newcomer, to make her comply and to normalise that system of that village, the idea that to take her voice would somehow banish the evil spirits that have come to the village.
Coming back to the politics, I’m not sure if this work is political, but we are trying to say something and trying to, if not quite change the world, at least to change us.
I think, hopefully, the idea is for us to use this presence of the other, say, the origins there within us, and to see what those scenes change. We have scenes that involve a woman being tied up and being looked at in their vagina with lights and things. We have very sexual things. So there is a kind of violence and an intimate space. The senior lecturer at the University, she’s also a feminist and all the time I’m asking her “Can you come to watch this? What do you think? Question me.” Because I think we have to be very clear. As a company, what we put on the stage has to have a clear goal, not to offend, but at the same time to make sure we make a point, or to reflect.
voidspace:
Yeah, if you put sexual violence, or scenes of that nature, on stage, then you have to make sure that there’s a reason for it. It’s not gratuitous. That’s something I always felt Punchdrunk did really well.
Vinicius Salles:
Absolutely.
We don’t have nudity in this piece, I’m afraid. I was so concerned about that scene, I wanted some people to come to see it’s all fine. We encourage the students to go to the edge – this is the first time I’ve been involved in work at a university where I actually can touch on these sorts of subject- taboos. Even if we wanted nudity, I think we could have done it, but at the same time I don’t think there is a need.
voidspace:
That’s great. If there isn’t a need, then it would make it gratuitous.
Vinicius Salles:
Yeah, absolutely. But they are very good about that, and I think as long as we are saying something that is poignant, we’ll be okay.
voidspace:
What’s it been like creating this work with students in a university setting? Any particular joys or challenges?
Vinicius Salles:
There’s a lot of challenges. Half of the kids are just up for discovering this language, because none of them have seen Punchdrunk, or any other immersive experience.
I think the challenge for them is to first understand and trust the process and to trust in the language, and to understand those nuances. I think it is normal for everybody, even in the professional setting of Punchdrunk: Some professional performers come, and they don’t understand the language and process.
Some students just get it. They go for it, and it’s amazing to see. This performance is made for young people, so it’s great to have their perspective. But it also takes artistic maturity to take risks in theatre. Even professional actors and performers are still unsure about some things.
My challenge is to help students invest in the process, trust themselves, and take risks. I’m also surprised by their professionalism, not only in performing but also in producing. It’s been fantastic.
For the university itself, it was the first time that I’ve been contracted as an artist, not as a teacher.
And the facilities, because they work with a lot of technology, so there were s loads of tools they put in my hand to be able to use. The first idea is to do kind of metaverse performance, et cetera. But because the project grew a little bit, I realised I wouldn’t be able to do that. If it was very small scale, it’d be amazing. So I said, “No, let’s use that for a different project.” But at the same time, it’s lovely to be able to touch on those medias and try understand possibilities of how we can work with them.
voidspace:
The role of tech in this world is an interesting thing to think about. Because when the immediacy of someone else’s physical presence is so important, how do you use that technology in a way that enhances it rather than distancing you from it?
Vinicius Salles:
My challenge now, this month, is to work on projection mapping and trying to transform the space with images. The figure of Narcissus, he starts to fall in love with his image on TV. And that is our investigation at the moment: how we can use technology within this and make sure it’s a sense of helping you to dig yourself down into this world. I always say when I can see the technique, I hate it. Even when I’m watching Punchdrunk, when I watch a scene and I just see beautiful movements, that totally puts me off, because I want to see something that means I don’t see the technique afterwards.
I think technology for me is a little bit like that: it can really put me off in that sense. But at the same time, I’m very curious to experiment. There’s a moment where we start to wash the character. She has the nurse start to wash her, and she’s a little bit drugged and she’s a mess. They start to wash her, and she starts to have a flashback, and the idea is that the whole space becomes the forest. And then we go to the past with that scene when she finds the figure of Narcissus, and, for us, Narcissus is like a priest and a doctor that is going to examine her at the same time. So, she starts to have a flashback of this moment and the whole has to transform into a forest.
You asked what was different in Immaculate from Punchdrunk, and I think it’s that. We are using technology in a different way that I think I haven’t seen being used by Punchdrunk.
voidspace:
Wonderful. To finish up: What advice do you have for aspiring creatives in your field or interactive fields generally?
Vinicius Salles:
I think it’s always important in art, in immersive or whatever, to have something to say. But at the same time, I would say there is no right or wrong way to do it.
I would also say: Take risks. That’s what I’m doing – I’m taking a risk with this project on so many levels. I’m taking lots of risks, but for me it’s so crucial now after have The Burnt City and wanting to experiment for so long, and trying to have some ideas and things that we love to do in the show that we were not able to explore. Now is my chance to actually try.
So, I think above all: take risks.
Immaculate runs 9-10 November 2023, at PACE 2, Leicester
Buy tickets for Immaculate here.