In collaboration with Fondazione Piemonte dal Vivo
Representing big stories through small bodies is what has driven the tradition of puppets for centuries, incorporating the adventures, defeats, vicissitudes or perhaps more simply the lives of people and characters on a small scale. With their bodies, held together by wires and crossed by an iron rod from the skull to the pelvis, the puppets attempt to mirror the human being both structurally and metaphorically. What happens in the choreographic process is a transformation in reverse, the visualization of a thin line that questions the instantaneousness of action, in which the possible declinations of movement in the posture of the puppet can be traced. Starting from this basic image, the dancer enters into the form of the puppet, makes its posture his own, moves independently while remaining moved by something else: he is therefore both puppeteer and puppet of himself. Placed in a narrative dimension, the characterization of the gesture merges with the research of the character that follows the ideal thread of a story, that of Orlando Furioso. A camouflaged story, made of comic and dramatic substrates, of landscapes that appear and disappear at a moment’s notice, becomes the occasion to deepen and detail the spatial and temporal dynamics useful to bring out a quality of movement that can recall the puppet. Working on suspensions, on the idea of being moved from the outside, on the reduction of muscular effort in favor of the joints, on the contrast of the force of gravity, the scene inhabited by the puppets moves between tension and lightness, a place where one can explore the stories that each individual brings with him.
Concept, direction and choreography: Giuseppe Muscarello
Performers: Marina Bertoni, Daniele Bianco, Mara Capirci, Michael Incarbone
Original music: Pino Basile
Lighting design: Danila Blasi
Costumes: Dora Argento
Dramaturgical Consultancy: Valeria Vannucci
Production: Pindoc
Co-production: Muxarte | Rosa Shocking/Festival Tendance | Museo Internazionale Delle Marionette Antonio Pasqualino
With the support of MIC Ministero Della Cultura | Regione Sicilia | In collaboration with Piemonte
Dal Vivo/Lavanderia a Vapore, Festival Fabbrica Europa, Teatri di Vetro, Cross Festival, Festival Le Danzatrici En Plein Air, Festival Di Morgana
Giuseppe Muscarello, choreographer, dancer, performer, has been collaborating for over twenty years with several Italian dance companies as well as with film and theatre directors. His career as a solo dancer began in the early 1990s and developed in many different forms: from 1995 to 1999 he specialised in aerial and acrobatic dances, dancing in numerous European venues. For years he has been training dance and stage movement for professional dancers and actors throughout Italy. In the last few years he has paid particular attention to theatre, creating the stage movements for numerous plays. In 2012 he collaborated with director Roberta Torre on the show Insanamente Riccardo III, staged in 2013 at the Piccolo Teatro in Milan. In 1999, he founded and directed Muxarte, a dance company, immediately directing his work towards research. The influence of different training paths first and artistic experiences later, led him to create a group of young artists coming from different training realities. Working on various contemporary dance techniques, he thus obtains creations arising from the personality of each individual element that, to date, are programmed in numerous theatres and national and international festivals. Since 2017 Muscarello has been the artistic director and founder of ConFormazioni, a festival of dance and contemporary languages in the name of cultural dissemination and professional training, which takes place in April in Palermo.
