RICARDO FRAYHA
producer

Super Night Shot is a magical journey through the night time streets of a not too distant city. Full of unexpected surprises, the public become co-stars in a movie that celebrates unplanned meetings with strangers and delights in the randomness of urban existence. Both comical and moving, Super Night Shot attempts to elevate the banality of everyday life into the glamour and glitz of a big screen blockbuster. It’s a completely unpredictable show that elevates the everyday into the epic and plays with your perceptions of the familiar. Anything can happen, and usually does… The film begins exactly one hour before you come to watch it when the four performer/activists meet, arm themselves with their video cameras and start them simultaneously. With their watches synchronised, they state their manifesto with military precision: “Each of us is just one in a million, easy to replace and easy to forget in a city that doesn’t really need us. But don’t worry. We’re going to change all that. We’ve got a plan. This city will need us and this film will be our witness.” Embarking on a War On Anonymity, they set off into the night on an adventure where only one thing is certain: 60 minutes later they will meet again and present what they have filmed to the waiting audience. The city becomes a film set, a place where cigarette butts, graffiti, cars and buildings become props and facades and every passer-by is a potential extra, friend, lover or liberator. Working under the constraints of the time limit (the length of the DV tapes) the group set out to capture a great moment of emotion, passion and liberation on camera and bring it back to the waiting audience who themselves take part in the final scene, a heroes welcome. Once the tapes have rewound, performers and audience watch the results together. The sound is mixed live and scored with elements from film soundtracks. The result is an experience halfway between theatre and film that comments on our relationship to the urban environment. A movie that is both fantastical and documentary, that is at the same time a product and a process, both a “making of” and the thing itself. Super Night Shot is Gob Squad’s most widely toured production, with nearly 200 unique presentations since the project’s inception in 2003, each one shot and screened only once in the host city. The piece has been performed in 4 languages on 6 continents and is still as fresh, dangerous and exciting as the day the 4 performer/activists first stepped onto the icy streets of Berlin in order wage their “War on Anonymity”. Over the years, the film’s hero (a role rotated amongst Gob Squad’s performers) has done his/her best to solve all the problems thrown at them. In Siberia, the hero was asked to bring warmth to the city and melt the snow, in Brazil, the hero bridged the gap between rich and poor and helped raise money for a homeless woman to buy milk for her baby. In Bangalore, the hero provided security for a market trader and during a recent mission in the company’s home town of Berlin the hero helped some confused shoppers assemble their new Ikea shelves. 

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GOB SQUAD

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Gob Squad is a group of artists that works collectively on conception, staging and performance in the borderlands between theater, art and media. Founded in 1994 by students from Nottingham and Gießen, Gob Squad has been settled in Berlin since 1999. They place their works in theaters and galleries but also in the middle of the urban environment. Gob Squad seeks out encounters with spectators that exceed the classical conditions of reception. They are invited to dance or play along. The group alternates between stage performance, video installation, interactive live film, radio play and urban intervention. They use the media to broadcast their works through in order to excavate the longing and desire under the digital surfaces of the 21st century. Even in their early works, Gob Squad found their way to a style that has received international attention since their successful appearance at "theater outlines" at documenta X (1997). Since then their productions have been shown in many parts of the world, where projects such as the recent Before Your Very Eyes (invited to the German Theatertreffen 2012) have become highly desired exports. In November 2014, Gob Squad celebrated its 20 years of existence with the long weekend Be Part of Something Bigger – Celebrating the art of collectives and 20 years of Gob Squad at HAU Hebbel am Ufer. Western Society (2013), Are You With Us? (2010) and Gob Squad's Kitchen (You've never had it so good) (2007) have been presented repeatedly at HAU.

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SUPER NIGHT SHOT

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Concept: Gob Squad (Sean Patten, Berit Stumpf, Sarah Thom, Simon Will, Bastian Trost and Johana Freiburg) and Jeff McGrory (Sound) | Performers in Brazil: Cynthia Margareth, Camila Vinhas, Cristiana Ceschi, Fernanda Felix, Michael Blois, Fernando Lopes and Rodrigo Nogueira | DJs: Eugenio Lima, Daniel Oliva 

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The initial Gob Squad  residency was in partnership with the riocenacontemporânea festival with the support  of the MInistry of Culture under the frame of the  Copa da Cultura brasil+deutschland 2006 and the United Kingdom Trade & Investment (UKTI)​

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Production in Brazil: prod.art.br | Production direction: Matthias Pees, Ricardo Muniz Fernandes | Executive production: Maia Gongora, Ricardo Frayha

 

Realisation: Goethe-Institut, British Council, Sesc São Paulo e Sesc Rio de Janeiro

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Sesc Carmo

São Paulo, SP, Brazil

07/2007
Sesc Avenida Paulista

São Paulo, SP, Brazil

07 and 08/2007
Espaço SESC Rio

Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil

08/2007
Kulturfest Itinerante

São Luis, Belém, Campina Grande, Recife

08/2008