Body To Be 2024
Body To Be 2024
project Kinkaleri | part of e se ci entrassi dentro?_ Pecci Night | in collaboration with NUB Project Space, OOH-sounds and Centro per l’Arte Contemporanea Luigi Pecci
The new edition of Body To Be explores the performative dimension with three appointments by internationally renowned artists Eszter Salamon, Lenio Kaklea, Maria Hassabi and a young Italian performer Valerie Tameu. Four choreographic creations, four solos that testify the quality of the research on the female body, comparing different generations and backgrounds. Innervated by a continuous dialogue between the arts (dance, musical experimentation, visual art, etc.), the performances explore autobiographical and queer references, as well as the history of minorities, transmission, time and emptiness.
The appointments are within the program e se ci entrassi dentro? a format dedicated to experimentation in the relationship between body, sound, space created in collaboration with other Tuscan realities interested in contemporary languages, NUB Project Space, OOH-sounds and Centro Pecci.
Valerie Tameu, Dove hanno tremato le placche
idea and performance Valerie Tameu | curated by Johanne Affricot with Spazio Griot | music Afrorack, Authentically Plastic, Sun Ra | dramaturgy consultant Ilenia Caleo | in conversation with Cherish Menzo for workshops| co-production Polo del 900 and Spazio Griot | production Codeduomo
Dove hanno tremato le placche presents itself as a nuanced omen that arises from the relationship between the body and the archive. The pieces of an imperfect archive float on the surface of memory and the images are granted to the gaze of the body that contemplates them. What is acted out is the testimony of an encounter, a succession of attempts to understand, elaborate and reshuffle the traces of the past. Dove hanno tremato le placche is also a childhood game in which one tunes into a cyclical time, where memory and omen merge in the imagination; an ironic limbo inhabited by bizarre presences, objects from history, actions and words in search of wonder.
February 23, 2024 – Centro per l’Arte Contemporanea Luigi Pecci, Prato
Maria Hassabi, White Out (Italian premiere) performance Maria Hassabi | sound Stavros Gasparatos and Maria Hassabi | costumes Venia Polychronaki with the support of Regione Toscana and Giovanisì within Toscanaincontemporanea2024
Like many of Maria Hassabi’s works, White Out focuses on stillness, deceleration and aesthetic precision, to reflect on the concept of time, the present moment and the human figure as a physical entity. In the spaces of the Centro Pecci and in the national premiere, the artist presents a performance consisting of a solo dancer and a white museum-style bench. The dancer takes a seat and gazes at her audience. A routine begins; shuffling herself from one place of pause to the next, materializing uncomfortable and even contorted positions. Twists and turns occur on top, underneath and around the bench, finding an entangled body on a seemingly endless loop. A quest for rest, for a place to be, to become, to breathe.
April 12, 2024 – Centro per l’Arte Contemporanea Luigi Pecci, Prato
Lenio Kaklea, Untitled (Figures) (Italian premiere)
Choreography and performance Lenio Kaklea | sound, light et technical direction Éric Yvelin | costumes Olivier Mullin | dramaturgy Lou Forster | voice Jill Johnston | music Hornpipe en do mineur by Henry Percel, interpreted by Martin Fröst, Express Yourself by Madonna | administration and production Olivier Poujol | production abd | coproduction Peniche La Pop for the festival (Re)Mix 2023, WEILS Centre d’art de Bruxelles, Festival + Genres/KLAP Maison de la Danse de Marseille | presented with the support of Regione Toscana and Giovanisì within Toscanaincontemporanea2024 Untitled (Figures) is the new Lenio Kaklea’s performance, adapted for Centro Pecci and presented for the first time in Italy. The creation is based on the legendary song I’m Coming Out, written and composed by Bernard Edwards and Nile Rodgers and performed by Diana Ross, and on the dance critic Jill Johnston we she declared: “All women are lesbians, even those who don’t know it yet”. The artist developed the concept “coming out” as a dialogue with the wide universe of queer figures who have influenced her, recalling them through a catalog of iconic figures that pay homage to the ability of queer cultures to teach us to love the female body.
17 maggio 2024 – Centro per l’Arte Contemporanea Luigi Pecci, Prato
Eszter Salamon, Dance for Nothing (revisited) (Italian premiere)
Concept and performance Eszter Salamon | music John Cage | production Botschaft GbR/ Alexandra
Wellensiek, Studio ES/ Elodie Perrin, Institute of Speculative Narration and Embodiment |thanks to Grazer Kunstverein (AT), Tom Engels, Lilou Vidal | presented with the support of Regione Toscana and Giovanisì within Toscanaincontemporanea2024
Choreographer and filmmaker Eszter Salamon revisits John Cage’s Lecture on Nothing (1949), a piece she initially engaged with in 2010 through her solo performance Dance for Nothing, which paired Cage’s words with her movement. This time, for the first time in Italy, Salamon experiments with the modulation of physical movements, focusing on the sonic aspect of this seminal lecture on nothingness, void, and composition. She adds depth by listening to one of her past performances listening and repeating the text, creating an auditory exploration of transmission and transformation. Salamon’s fusion of body, voice, and score sets the framework for a meditation on the simultaneity of movement and sound, and on interpretation
November 29, 2024 – Centro per l’Arte Contemporanea Luigi Pecci, Prato
