WORLD BREAKERS | DRODESERA XXXVI

About

WORLD 1

Art director Barbara Boninsegna - co.curator Filippo Andreatta

Artists Alessandro Sciarroni (IT) Anagoor (IT) Andreco (IT) Berlin (BE) CollettivO CineticO (IT) Giacomo Raffaelli (IT) Luigi Presicce (IT) Mara Cassiani (IT) Mohamed El Khatib (FR) Philippe Quesne (FR) Rabih Mroué (LB) Simon Mayer/Kopf Hoch (AT) Sotterraneo (IT) Vanja Smiljanic (RS)

WORLD 2

LIVE WORKS_Performance Act Award

curators Barbara Boninsegna, Denis Isaia, Daniel Blanga Gubbay, Simone Frangi

guest performer Guido van der Werve (NL) Nástio Mosquito (AO) Pauline Curnier Jardin (FR)

and guest performer 2017 Marzia Migliora (IT)

artists Quenton Miller (AU/GB/NL) Brud (IND/PL) Rosa Sijben (NL) Teresa Cos (IT/EU) Jacopo Jenna (IT) Marion Menan (FR/BE) Sven Sachsalber (IT/US) Evelin Brosi Doyle (BE) Maxime Bichon (FR) phd Andrea Liu (US/D)

jury Aaron Cezar, Beatrice Merz, Charles Aubin, Lorenzo Benedetti, Marwa Ansianos

WORLD 3

URBAN HEAT international lab Art, data and activism

curators Mali Weil (IT/DE) Annika Uprus (EE) Urban Heat labs facilitator Sodja Lotker (CZ)

artists Sonya Lindfors (FI) Maryan Abdulkarim (FI) Marko Bulc (SI) Flora Detraz (FR) The Inner Ear/Thorgerdur E. Sigurdardottir (IS) Kathryn Hamilton (UK) Krista Burane (LV) Francesca Marconi (IT) Edit Kaldor (NL) Wael Kadour (JO) Maria Gil/Teatro do Silêncio (PT) Aet Ader (EE) speaker Ursula Biemann (CH)

WORLD 4

HELICOTREMA recorded audio festival

curators Blauer Hase + Giulia Morucchio (IT)

There is no such thing as an unchanged, unchangeable place, because inevitably, sooner or later, something happens: reality breaks the confines of the microcosm that you have fenced in and everything takes on another form. In the 36th edition of the DRODESERA festival of performing arts, the fil rouge is as powerful as it is complex and multi-faceted: “ideal” worlds or simply similar or necessary for those who created them, and the inevitable mutation of the original state that can come about even from the most delicate wingbeat. From 22nd to 30th July, the long-awaited appointment at Centrale FIES at Dro returns, with international performances, dance, theatre and visual arts, together creating this year’s theme WORLD BREAKERS.

The creation of worlds/microcosms, made-to-measure fallible ecosystems, often experiences a mutation due to the act itself of documenting them, as in the work of Berlin (“Zvizdal”/ Italian debut) in which a pair of lovers refuse to let the nuclear incident that happened in their city in ’86, the Chernobyl disaster, change their lives. They find themselves 20 years later as the protagonists in a documentary, which inevitably reignites the consequences of the past they have avoided. Since every physical thing can be modified by time, the variation could be identified by the act itself of measurement, as in the investigation in the lecture of Giacomo Raffaelli (“Under Specific Conditions”/Italian debut) which explores the concept of calibration in those prototypes of measurement that are becoming obsolete.

What if today the message is in a snowball right before our eyes, rather than in a bottle left at sea? If it is in the folds of the worlds we construct, rather than written on the walls? In this case, the message is no longer the means, but the place, with its rules, history, narration and equilibrium.

The works in WORLD BREAKERS present the moment in which something infringes: A woman on a bicycle breaks into the artificial and random paradise of a Metal band (Philippe Quesne* “La Mèlancolie des Dragons”/Italian debut); savage horror and violence enter a classroom during final exams (Anagoor “Socrate il sopravvissuto”); the family bubble of home, familiar places, mother tongue and culture bursts in the face of an illness that forces a confrontation with another world, ruled by the language of medicine (Mohamed El Khatib* “A beautiful ending”/Italian debut).

And still more: the universe of Alpine music is revolutionized by a group of dancers (Simon Mayer/Kopf Hoch “Sons of Sissy”/Italian debut); the biotope of the Marocche is travelled by an audience guided by an artist who changes the points of references, the map and the transit (Andreco “The Rock Slide and the Woods”/Italian debut).

So “World Breakers” is not always a noun; often it is an action, not always violent and not always intended. “World” can have a positive or negative meaning, simply by changing the point of view, plane or paradigm: Sotterraneo brings us a cynical and intelligent reflection on the post-human (“Postcards from the future”/Italian debut) and Vanja Smiljanić  presents the second study on the religious sect of Cosmic People and the Cybernetic War (“Waves of Worship (wow)”/Italian debut). Meanwhile Francesca Pennini/CollettivO CineticO presents to the public a small and very delicate manual of movements, borrowed from a childhood notebook, poetically superimposing temporal spaces and senses (“10 Miniballetti”) to rediscover the human form as a fabric of nerve endings, a collector of ancient cosmic dimensions and, at the same time, only just invented (“La Casa di Pietra del Fratello Maggiore”/Italian debut).

This continual creation, recreation and protection of autonomous worlds of reference, real and proper phenomena of signification, is the key to interpreting an increasingly heterogeneous program: Goalball, the team sport for visually impaired athletes, is a world of rules adapted to the characteristics of its players. But what happens when it is unveiled in all its rituals in a non-sporting setting, in a different context/place than its natural habitat? (Alessandro Sciarroni “Aurora”). How is it possible to create our own biographies when memories are like fixed images, without sending ourselves back to the past? (Rabih Mroué “Riding on a cloud”/Italian debut). And what does the spectator feel, who enters in a parallel and dystopic universe, designed to enhance the mechanisms of desire through its trademarked relaxation, when they realize that they have broken the artificial bubble of perfection simply with their own, imperfect presence? (Mara Cassiani “ED3N TEMPLE”/ Italian debut).

It is in this context that the festival decided to create and explore different worlds from more classical programs: from Monday 25th to Wednesday 27th July there is the 4th edition of the LIVE WORKS Performance Act Award. The platform is dedicated solely to Performance Art – made up by The Free School of Performance, residencies and final prize – which from the first, has reflected on the concept of “World Breakers”. Live Works describes the practice of performance art as a “real action that modifies reality”. The format rests on its institutional role as one of Italy’s longest-lived festivals of performative art, dedicated to the production and promotion of projects that don’t have a predefined professional circuit. The nine final artists – Quenton Miller, Brud, Rosa Sijben, Teresa Cos, Jacopo Jenna, Marion Menan, Sven Sachsalber, Evelin Brosi Doyle, Maxime Bichon – entered the contest after a summer free school, presenting to the public never-before-seen works, accompanied by the works of guest performers of the caliber of Nástio Mosquito, Pauline Curnier Jardin and Guido Van Der Werve. In addition, there is a lecture performance by artist Marzia Migliora, guest performer for Live Works 2017, who together with the playwright Elena Pugliese, inaugurates a one-year residency aimed at research on the laborer history of Centrale Fies.

From the 28th to 30th July the HELICOTREMA Recorded Audio Festival and the Lab ART DATA AND ACTIVISM will arrive at Drodesera. The festival of recorded sound – curated by Blauer Hase and Giulia Morucchio – presents several dedicated listeners with the auditory level of a performative piece. Meanwhile the laboratory – the 3rd appointment of the European project Urban Heat – asks 15 international artists to try and respond to the question: “How can we think about the relationship with mountains, rivers and biodiversity from a non-anthropocentric point of view?”  This is three days of participative and collaborative research, developed by experiences and practices that include art, cultural geography and activism, with the aid of diverse international guests specifically invited to take part, including Ursula Biemann, Daniel Vaarik and Brave New Alps. The approach to this type of relationship between humans and the environment is constantly articulated in the projects and practices that involve diverse fields of human and social studies, culture, conflict theory and scientific disciplines.

The image created by Centrale Fies with DEAD MEAT – the modern fashion design collective, which bases its creations on philosophy, semiotics, web and contemporaneity – creates a choral manifesto, split into three images in which worlds are designed in expectation of something or something that can change their equilibrium. The collaboration of DEAD MEAT, begun in 2010, continues to transform the creations developed for the festival into images that bridge disciplines and environments, like the manifesto of 2013, converted into a collection of fabric, clothes and viral images for the web.

 “World Breakers” are not “Eldrazi” the “Demolishers of Worlds” from Magic: The Gathering, the first collectible cards for lovers of role-play games. They are that multiverse, called “Dominia”, composed of infinite superimposed planes of existence, each of which constitute a universe of its own in which the game takes place. The multiverse seems to sketch the same semiotics of micro-worlds almost devoid of communication between them, so that the inhabitants of each universe believe that theirs is the only world until something disturbs the equilibrium. That is, WORLD BREAKERS is our propensity for risk, natural or technological selection of the species, resilience training. 

Opening this new world, on the 22nd July, is artist Luigi Presicce, with “Ascesa alla vetta della Santa e del mago dell’alba dorata”, a performance the follows the cycle of The story of the True Cross, begun in 2012, inspired by the events of the Sacred Wood told in The Golden Legend and the Bible. In this episode, the attention focuses on Saint Elena. Through a metaphysical construction, the performance aims to create a double allegory: that of spiritual ascension towards sainthood on Golgotha and on the earth as Alester Crowley ascended K2 (1902).

* The works of Philippe Quesne and Mohand El Khatib are presented at Drodesera XXXVI as part of La Francia in scena, the artistic season of the Institut francais Italia and the French Embassy in Italy.