Sacred Shadows was created as a multimedia show to be presented in urban spaces of grand proportions, though also possible to be performed in more contained surroundings. Sacred Shadows continues the method of integrating different artistic languages, which have already been implemented by Andrea Centazzo in his operatic multimedia works, with amazing visual effects, bringing great public acclaim: TINA (dedicated to Tina Modotti), SIMULTAS (an opera which concluded Bologna 2000, European Capitol of Culture), MEMENTO (a multimedia lyric opera), ANMIN (a multimedia performance which toured every major American city) and now his latest creation MANDALA (a solo multimedia project).

The element of originality and innovation, which sets this work apart from other similar works of the past, is the interaction between performance and place. Created specifically for urban spaces, the show would ideally bring together the architecture, colors and the evocative power of the chosen performance space making the venue itself an expressive element of the work.

The inspiration came suddenly in a small remote village on the magic island of Bali, evoked by images of candlelit dancers, accompanied by the hypnotic sweet sounds of the Gamelan. The theater of shadows, ritual masks and dances is woven together in an intricate web of the supernatural and down-to-earth daily routine.

Sacred Shadows recreates the experience, integrating various rare videos and images (gathered by the composer in his numerous travels around the world) with the hypnotisms of American minimalism, the entrancing sounds of the magical Balinese Gamelan and the natural atmosphere of the performance space -- at times delicate and dreamlike, at times haunting.

The show simultaneously functions on four different levels:

1. THE IMAGES: Large projections, depicting faraway cultures, as well as the contemporary urban environment in a continued interplay of the past, present and future.

2. THE MUSIC: The pulsating heart of the show is the Gamelan orchestra. However, keyboards and percussion provides a link with Western tradition, resulting in a unique acoustic experience, like small tributaries flowing into a grand musical river.

3. THE WORDS: Projected on the screen, juxtaposed alongside movements, sounds and images. The selection of literary pieces is extremely diverse, from the works of nineteenth and twentieth century world literature (Poe, Le Fanu, Maeterlinck, Borges, Majakovskij, etc.), chosen according to their musicality and the sonority of the words to the spoken sounds of the ethnological diversity: Chants of Native Americans, Tibetan monks, Australian aborigines, African tribes, etc.