Productions

This project comes from the willingness to show a "stripping" of the performer who, through this metaphor, aims to reveal the most intimate facets of his being and becomes a testing zone where the spectator can observe that, wherever there is a situation where it is not possible to forget or accept one's invisible chains, the brilliant spirit of the "infinitely small" dies and the effectiveness comes from the effort to gain distance from a situation of powerless silence.

"Infinitely small" is therefore a reflection on life, an immersion on the mystery and the reason why some historic events happen and leave us dismayed at the sight of certain actions performed by human beings. It is also a homage to Primo Levi and a dialogue on the importance of not forgetting those "infinitely small" who, despite the horrors of war, poverty, disease and marginalization, have been able to keep their hopes alive despite a deep and painful discovery, i.e that human beings can be really mean and that by abusing their powers can deprive a man of his own dignity.

The idea behind this performance is that time never ends and it represents the chance for each of us to reflect on our short existence, on the reason why we come to the world and on the possibility of being witnesses to an active awareness which can transform our conscience into a sensitive tool, thereby appreciating the value of each "infinitely small" essence which, in turn, creates love.

Coreography and direction by Laura Odierna and Salvatore Romania

Music by Salvatore Amore

[Open Video]

"Ma-shalai" is an important concept to consider because choregraphic work is just the second stage of a bigger and complex project, in which we have been involved since 2008; this project started with "L'albero di limoni", based on the research about gesture that is an old trait of Sicilian folk. G. Pitrè wrote a vocabulary about the language linked to gestures, through his work we have discovered the charm of non-verbal communication. The first act of the project: "L'albero di limoni" ( nei frammenti l'intero) coproduced with Scenario Pubblico starts from the study of gestural language. The title "Ma-shalai" was found searching in a complex group of words of the sicilian dialect; "Ma-shalai" means "a moment of deep pleasure, sometimes a kind of ephemeral pleasure". We used a scientific severity to extract this concept, then we mixed it with other languages: this is the born of our new choregraphic work. Ma-shalai's structure is made by disarticulated gestures and movements that after a technological disaster restarts with a recursive behaviour arriving to a new kinesthesia; this process brings to the discover of the future that contains the initial root. Ma-shalai underlines the wild poetics of our land, even if many contradictions penalize it with violence and stasis; our goal is giving a voice to this poetics.

[Open Video]

Once upon a time in Sicily there was a king. One day he came to Palermo and heard that sicilian people had virtues that nobody had, making a speech without actually speaking. He did not believe in this and asked to his minister to bring him two sicilian men. They arrived in front of the king and in a few minutes they were sent out. The kind did not see anything special but the minster paying more attention could notice that the two, called in front the king, were speaking, making questions and answers but without spending a single word. The minster, that knew much more than the king, said to him that the men were asking themselves the reason of their being there. They were using signs and little movements through which they were able to understand eachother. The king, stunned, asked the minster to call again the two villagers and after having confirmed what he did not believe and see , amazed and surprised about this “ ability”, sent out those men without any gratitude. 

The places of the imagination creates fears when they reach the reality, fear of not being understood, fear of not be able to bring to the end something assigned and so paralyzing the natural way of the expression. Poetry, mediator between dream and reality, assumes in this context a determinated aspect: a caress, a whispered word can realize the extraordinary diversity of similar things that make us unique. The development of the performance does not follow a cronological line. We imagined to watch a life through a camera framing the wholeness in order to focus on the single fragments and we asked ourself: Is a fragment or a little sign a small part of the wholeness? Can a word, a fragmented thought or sign or action or memory lead and be collected to the wholeness? In the same way the typical gestures of sicilian people is a fragment, a form of comunication and characteristic of their culture, typical characteristic of people who do not waste words, aspect in which we can deeply see the roots of the “Lemon Tree”.

"INSTALLAZIONI" Thought and realized by Salvatore Romania and Laura Odierna in cooperation with CZD. It comes out from a reflection on concepts about “oneself, the other and us” as places of life, comparison and gratitude where the body creates emotions and resumes pictures where each one of us can recognize himself. With the darkness of the unconsciousness I am. Sharing with others. Differences of identity Unability of comunication. Intolerance, Humorism, Acceptation. Loneliness. Shareness of meanings.

Each subject can identify itself, in a metaphoric way, to a block of flats. We all have different roles and as a matter of fact we always change. This is why we name it “ Work in Progress” exactly to point out that something is changing. Besides the empire of comunication lead us, without being aware, to spread out this block of flats creating new identities. In fact almost always we watch ourself mocking about different characters, often built up to increase curiosity and audience, causing at the end mess and caos among the owners of the flats.

In our childhood we live all the meetings in a easy way, these meetings become easier with the game. So it becomes the place where we can learn how to live with other subjetcs that are not in our family habit, we learn how to be generous and how to forgive a fault. We become adults and we leave this so important experience in order to give place to egoism, distrust that lead us to an unconscious closing of one of the most beautiful experiences. In this case dance is the right place where to find again this "game experience" without the fear of being adult.

It's a work that highlights some of the obsessive and paranoic aspects of a contemporary man. Slave of technology he lives a love-hate conflict with it. If from one side he tries to come back to the essentiality of life, from the other he need to have it. This conflict creates feelings of escape from overcrowded places like the metropolies or simply from the mind; this makes a man go away from these places. For this reason Human mind, with the “help” of technology, tries to calm down the conflict creating a Plastic Nature, and making a man less human; at this point Virtual reality comes in the knowledge of the subject and it mix up with the real life. So Reality becomes Unreal and the Unreality, strange to say, becomes Real.