Ginevra Panzetti
/ Enrico Ticconi

Faced with Lucinda Childs’ early works, our attention is captured by the essentiality with which the bodies constitute a three-dimensional and concrete space, which seems to respond to the principles of architecture and solid geometry. Our gaze is enraptured by a brilliant solidity, like the consistency and mineral qualities of marble. A stone that, due to its special composition and brightness, has been considered the sculptural material par excellence, giving shape and colour to that idea of classicism that took shape during the Renaissance. Lucinda Childs’ spatial and rhythmic design recalls the articulated and symbolic space of a marble quarry, a place where the human imprint infuses rigorous and indelible geometries into the spontaneous morphology of the landscape.

In response to the three early works by the American choreographer, Marmo investigates the mine as the place of a community engaged in a measuring project. It is a journey that follows the transformation of the stone from the initial phase of extraction to the sculptor’s workshop where it is carved. An evolutionary line that sees the transformation of the raw material up to the plastic definition of an ideal form. In this path, the figures are the actual workers and absolute architects of the space, deciding its proportions, its size and light. While at the same time they assimilate those rules and conditions, becoming themselves malleable matter, sculpture.

This work is performed in the evening “Dancing Replies” with the three early works by Lucinda Childs, but can be presented singularly.

Silver Veiled is a video work that originates from the research material of the choreographic diptych AeReA | Ara! Ara! Created in dialogue with the architecture, the use of the flag is central to the structure of the work. A series of unveilings unfold, evoking the close and ancient brotherhood between two textile objects; flag and shroud. The drapes are presented in a silvery grey, cleaned of symbols and coats of arms until they expose their plastic, invented essence. A blank canvas without connotations where anything can emerge, begin or disappear.

Freed from the fabric of the flag, the coat of arms transforms into a handle and a brand at the same time, reminiscent of the wax seal in ancient times. Instead of the majestic and fearsome predators often used as heraldic emblems of power, such as the eagle or the lion, the symbol is derived from a parrot's beak - a bird that can imitate and repeat phrases and words, ignoring their contents and effects.

As slipping out of the cloth of constantly fluttering flags, heraldic symbols take form and weight. Chimerical beings and oneiric figures appear, like leafing through an armorial or medieval bestiary. They seem to tell us stories of conflicts which took place in the well delimited perimeter of an emblematic battlefield. In ancient times, graphic marks and color combinations showed up on the armors in response to the military need to identify opposite factions during fights. Thus arose coats of arms, systems of signs, shapes and colors organized in a form, often that of a shield. They were used to reveal, according to a precise sign alphabet, the identity of a person, a family, a whole community. In the form of vivid colors and fantastic beasts, those emblems hint at political tensions, expressions of belonging, dominance and power.

Ara! Ara! is the designation of a symbol. The symbol of a rising power that chooses a bird to represent itself. Not a majestic and fearsome raptor like the eagle, an animal often used as a heraldic symbol of power. On the contrary, a bird that communicates fun and quietness by becoming, according to a popular western look, an exotic icon: the parrot Ara. It was introduced to the circus for its acrobatic abilities which, together with the bright colours of its plumage and the ability to repeat sounds and words by imitation, made it a perfect animal for entertainment in captivity. Ara! Ara! represents a seductive power for its friendly and festive appearance that, like the bird, imitates and repeats, bringing back patterns from the past, ignoring contents and effects.

Second part of a diptych started with AeReA, Ara! Ara! continues to investigate the symbolic power of the flag, drawing on the folkloristic tradition of flag waving. Present in both titles, the word Ara reveals a second meaning that alludes to the ancient place of sacrifice, here meant as a mechanism generating death, inflicted as a gift to those who were recognized the highest power.

Inspired by the couple of lovers Romeo and Juliet, Juliet Juliet Juliet maintains and multiplies only one of the two desiring figures. The exchange is suspended, the lover is immaterial, metaphysical and the desire, not taking place in the other, crystallises into pure representation.

The direction of pathos becomes an abstract unidirectional trajectory, a line in which the figures coexist in individual isolation. The lack becomes an expressive mannerism that adorns and inhabits the dwellings of the narcissus. Juliet collapses into herself, unique and clone. The lyrical gesture that guides the choreographic and musical composition is inspired by the plastic tension of opera singers whose movement is conditioned by the necessity to give space and intensity to their voice.

AeReA is the first part of a diptych that focuses on an object which has always functioned in principle to express ideas of belonging and separation, marking the distinction between a hypothetical us and them: the flag. In constant proximity, as part of a single anatomy, humans and flags emerge from a thick darkness, becoming the only propulsive motor of images. Silvery grey, the flags are cleansed of signs and symbols, brought to their plastic essence. A zero point without connotations in which everything can emerge, begin or disappear. As if belonging to a near or remote past, spectral figures take form through a score of unveilings, evoking a close and ancient brotherhood between two textile objects, flag and shroud.

The title takes two words that can be graphically overlapped and merged into a single term: Ara—AeReA. The first one, Ara, alludes to the place that in ancient times was dedicated to the sacrifice, here understood as a death-generating mechanism, inflicted as a gift on those invested with the highest power. The second term, AeReA (adj. air), indicates the physical quality of the flag, which achieves its greatest expression of power once hoisted, billowing in the air.

Harleking is a demon with multiple identities. His body expression resembles that of Harlequin of the Commedia dell’Arte, a sly servant moved by an insatiable hunger. Harleking's mode of communication has a specific hypnotic quality in which its contents, often extreme and contradictory, merge to create a fluid, metamorphic system wherein anything can happen, yet all is blurred. It is reminiscent of the Grotesques, ancient wall decorations, in which monstrous figures emerge and blend in with elegant ornamental volutes. Figures, which, although can evoke amusement, do not elicit any joy.

The work premiered in July 2018 in the frame of Open Spaces Sommer Tanz at Tanzfabrik Berlin and it has been presented among several European dance festivals and theatres. In 2019 it has been selected by the European dance platform Aerowaves and the New Italian Dance (NID) Platform. In 2020 it is invited by the Tanzplattform Deutschland in Munich.

Gardens have always been considered as ideal places, recalling the symbology of pleasure and the harmonic relationship between humans and nature. While shaping those places, our longing for the beauty and the lush, the delight and the peaceful culminates especially in the nostalgic recall of the mythological Garden of Eden. At the same time gardens are also expressions of an utterly anthropocentric overmolding of nature.

In Le Jardin two figures are wandering inside an imaginary landscape that is constantly transformed by their gestures. They rearrange their surroundings, embarking on a trial of strength with themselves and the space. Le Jardin has been presented also in the form of a shorter version titled Jart and as a site-specific performance for museum and exhibition spaces. In March 2019 the performance site-specific Jardin / Arsenale was awarded the 13th Arte Laguna Prize.

Empatia. Eight emphatic caprices. The video is composed of eight fixed framings of urban landscapes. The study materials from which the work has been developed consists of a collection of events of tragic circumstances and violence found on the web such as videos, photographs and ancient representations of war. The selection of materials hasn’t been determined by the contents, but rather by the compositional clarity and legibility of the act of violence, through a detached observation that facilitates a mimetic reproduction of the violent actions.The psychological and apathetic detachment from the documented event and the intangibility of the content is the main object of analysis.

The title “Empatia” (empathy) refers to the opposite meaning of the term, to the lack of sensibility and capacity to relate to another person’s emotional state, as a result of repeated and passive observation of traumatic events offered through mass media communication. An important reference for the work is Goya’s series of etchings published posthumously under the name "The Disasters of War", but originally titled "Fatal consequences of Spain's bloody war with Bonaparte, and other emphatic caprices” by the artist. ‘Caprice’ (or capriccio) is a specific pictorial genre that reached its greatest development during Romanticism. It features imaginary landscapes with absurd and unreal combinations of figures, buildings and other architectural elements. Being a chronicler of his time, Goya‘s caprices depicts the atrocities caused by the Napoleonic invasion of Spain from 1808 to 1814.

The sound sculptures emit simultaneously two different soundtracks. Each track consists of a short fragment of a person crying, repeated on loop. These objects evoke the early form of communication and present themselves as decorative fetishes. The volume of the sound remains low so as to require a physical closeness to the objects.

One of the oldest techniques for the amplification of sound consists of the use of an object in the shape of a truncated cone: this form allows the physical principle which alters the sound waves, modifying the volume. Originally it seems that pierced shells were used for this purpose and later more elaborated crafts. Regardless of the level of complexity of the technique or material, the principle that motivates the use of these objects is the same: to amplify the voice in order to extend the message to wider areas and larger groups of people. Presently, due to mass media, messages do not have a geographical limit. They go beyond the physicality of the collective experience to reach the intimate space of individuality. The extreme amplification of the message is not based on volume anymore, but rather on its extensive reiteration.

Empatia is a performative investigation into the means, uses and consumption of imagery in contemporary communication media, with a focus on the dissemination of events of tragic and violent circumstances. The study materials from which the work has been developed consists of a collection of events of tragic circumstances and violence found on the web such as videos, photographs and ancient representations of war.

The selection of materials hasn’t been determined by the contents, but rather by the compositional clarity and legibility of the act of violence, through a detached observation that facilitates a mimetic reproduction of the violent actions. The psychological detachment from the documented event and the intangibility of the content is the main object of analysis.

La Sala del Mappamondo (World Map Room) is a feature room found in many aristocratic houses and historic buildings in Italy. Typically, these rooms feature a display of geographic maps and planispheres but are also used as libraries, boardrooms and for the accommodation of council and official meetings. The main reference for this work is the 'Sala del Mappamondo' in the Farnese Palace of Caprarola, north of Rome, in which representations of geography and astronomy are featured in the fresco by Giovanni Antonio da Varese, circa. 1574. The collection of maps depicted in the Farnese Palace represent the 'known world' at the time in Europe and with the magnificence of stucco and grotesque ornamentation is considered to be a celebration of the scientific knowledge that was acquired during the 16th century.
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The Ornament Map
The installation is composed of four different maps. One is made of soil; it extends from the floor to encompass the entirety of the room, two are printed on tracing paper and the third is a video piece of seven hours, in which the creation process is documented.

The matrix of the maps have been extracted from topographical maps of Italian cities, precisely, the parts of the cities in which the urban structure of the Castrum can be found. The 'Castrum', a constitutive element of Rome's territorial occupation and colonisation strategy, lends its name from the Roman military camp. This urban structure, in the Hippodamian Greek model, represents a trace of an effective territorial organization method that was refined within Roman culture, to a rigorous science of occupation and expansion. The matrix of the extracted topographic map is repeated and symmetrically composed according to a scheme that relates to the aesthetics of ornamentation. The ornament-map collection, no longer a contingent of scientific and exact functionality, is rather a representation that describes not the real and existing geographic space, but the propagation of an obsessive urban ideology that literally extends the project of transformation, spatial expansion and standards of conquest into space.

Based on Quintilian’s “Institute of oratory”, book XI, Chapter III “De pronuntiatione”. In “Institute of Oratory” Quintilian defines the training processes for the perfect orator, from infancy to old age. In the third chapter of the eleventh book he lists and summarises the series of gestures that an orator learns in order to effectively execute a delivery. Within the learning of a discourse, the fifth phase of the composition process is defined as the ‘actio’, the oratorical action defined by Aristotle as “a sort of body eloquence”. The actio or declamation, forms part of a larger compositional methodology that is governed by a logic of ‘absolute coherence’ and is the first prerequisite for the virtuosic use of language and implementation of persuasive intention.

Actio takes form in two different media: a series of 10 panels and a video. Both are composed of ten chapters that strictly follow the structure suggested by Quintilian in the list of gestures.

The map is formed by a conglomerate of various maps that share the central feature of being based on Ancient Roman urbanisation principles, such principles were theorised and later systematised by Hippodamus of Miletus. The system that he developed was taken to be the ideal prototype for spatial organisation and the ordering of a society, elements considered crucial for the development of succeeding urban models.

In the map, the urban design is multiplied and composed symmetrically, forming a pattern that transforms the topographical plan into a new ornamental structure. This new design is then used by the two figures as a score for the interpretation of rhetoric gestures previously taken from Quintillian’s “Institutes of Oratory” as well as Mark Antony’s funeral speech played by Marlon Brando in “Julius Caesar”, directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz. The duration of each sequence of gestures is given by the physical resistance to immobility and repetition.

Thirteen photographs representing natural landscapes are projected onto a screen visible from inside and outside the gallery space through a glass . A numbered grid is superimposed on the succession of landscapes. The two figures insert themselves between the projection and the screen by performing a series of gestures freely inspired by an archive of rhetorical gestures. This action provides a settling time that allows to determine the exact coincidence between the shadow and the grid . The task is to move away from the image trying to keep the relationship between shadow and grid unvaried or change the rhetorical gesture according to the structure of the orthogonal grid.

The floor of the space is distributed by rectangular areas of soil arranged in lines running parallel to a major axis, which is non-orthogonal in respect to the architectural plan of the place. The arrangement of the floor limits the possibility of moving, by restricting both the area of the performance and of the audience.

Die Wanderer is a series of videos that were created throughout a ten day journey, from Leipzig to Tivoli. The journey, which was developed through a collection of landscape paintings from the Romantic era, occurs in ten stages. Each part of it visits the most influential and important sites in the development of Romantic iconography. Beginning in the south of Saxony before traversing the Tyrolean Alps, the journey finally reaches the Roman countryside. We passed over a route that is reminiscent of and refers to the 'Grand Tour', a passage traversed by the typical romantic wanderer.

The specific characteristics of how the 'wanderer' inserts themselves into the views that they encounter is at a figurative distance and discrepancy with Romantic Iconography. Detached from notions of 'wonder' and 'spiritual collusion' with which the human body is inscribed in the romantic natural landscape, our 'wanderers' introduce themselves despotically into the frame, in a spirit that is generally at odds to, and peculiar for, the 'tourist'. They collect panoramas, inserting themselves with obtuse certainty into the painting.

The choreographic work was preceded by a collection of visual materials focusing on the figure of the orator. Later the images have been developed through a mimetic system of reproduction and collage. The authoritarian and eloquent gesture of the orator becomes a gestural pattern that compromises its communicative purpose. The two characters, double declaimers of a message that is in general univocal, adopt a communication strategy that, for expressive excess, incongruity and juxtaposition of multiple messages, focuses exclusively on the gestural virtuosity of the utterance to finally destroy the message. Of the communication logic, therefore, persists only an ostentation of forms as persuasive technique objectified in a 'well composed disorder'.
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Based on:
"Institutes of oratory" by Quintilian;
"Mark Antony's speech" played by Marlon Brando in Julius Caesar (Joseph L. Mankiewicz);
"Henkel's oration" played by Charlie Chaplin in The Great Dictator;
Military marches of US Army Drill Team and North Korean Army.

Vienna—Budapest is a series of several performative interventions developed along a bike route that connects the two capitals. Petronell Schloss and Megálló busz are video works that document two of the performative interventions.  

In Petronell Schloss two visitors explore the abandoned castle by following the limits of the rooms determined by the architectonic plant. The step adheres to the ground with rigour. The occupation of the place lasts as long as the length of the building plan needs to be walked, becoming itself a passage instead.

In Megálló busz two bodies are settled inside different bus-stops met on the way between Szolohehgy and A'cs (North Hungary). The occupation of those spaces, that lack just one wall to be closed spaces, privileges the formal composition and eludes a possible functional relation with the place. The bodies arrange themselves like ornaments or furniture.

Area is their first work that came out of their experience in the Stòa, School of rhythmic movement and philosophy led by Claudia Castellucci (Socìetas Raffaello Sanzio). The work is based on a collection of video documentations that describe urban paths and waiting positions of people accidentally met between Rome and Cesena. The mimetic reproduction of the documented gestures and paths is set up according to a performative system generated by the incidence of a grid, which units (7×5) have the length of a step, and the path's track of a man at the telephone in a square of Rome.
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based on:
Old women waiting; guys sitting on a bench; telephone path; teenager with pigeons; energetic woman tourist; woman in St. Peter square; mendicant; walker with stick.