The reflex of scenography: XIX century heritage and contemporary perspectives) focuses on scenogr... more The reflex of scenography: XIX century heritage and contemporary perspectives) focuses on scenography since the 1980s, with a special interest in Italian theatre. It articulates an opening of the theoretical framework of scenography accounting for the transformation theatre has undergone since the second half of the Twentieth Century. In so doing, it shows some continuity with the past while also accounting for new tendencies in the construction of the performative space, which appear to be informed by a dialectics between the scene as sensorial stimulus and the scene as sign. This tension is engaged according to its present forms as a reflection of the artists' contemporary sensibility towards life and society.
This essay investigates the meaning of contemporary dance transmission through an analysis of th... more This essay investigates the meaning of contemporary dance transmission through an analysis of the creative and pedagogical work lead by the Tuscan artist Virgilio Sieni. Adopting the concept of orality, the author goes through his career, from the early stages of his education to his present activity both with his dance company and with the Accademia il gesto, particularly focusing on recent accomplishments and projects. On the one hand, she articulates on the process of dissolution of the dance tradition that his work witnesses, by extending references and motivations to a vaster context concerning the art and the human cultural heritage (with particular emphasis on the Italian one). On the other, she shows the consequent redefinition of the meaning, methods and targets of transmission in a dialectical confrontation with contemporaneity, intended as an attitude towards one's own present and not only as a chronological phase of history. Readapting Didi-Huberamn's politics o...
This paper deals with the project Bambino Manifesto, concerning Virgilio Sieni's creation and... more This paper deals with the project Bambino Manifesto, concerning Virgilio Sieni's creation and exhibition of 5 manifestos based on photographs of a group of children depicting gestures from Masaccio and Masolino's Storie di San Pietro, frescoed at the Cappella Brancacci in Florence. The pictures are explained both as deriving from a balance between form and dynamics, that is put in motion by a detailed work on the dancing body, and as events in themselves being 'enacted' by the spectators encountering them, whether casually or purposefully, while walking in the city streets. In fact, the process anticipating and following the elaboration of the pictures comes to affect and determine the photographs performative and aesthetic value. Movement analysis, historical contextualization, as well as the ideas of punctum (Barthes), of building duration (DidiHuberman) and of the theatricality of photographs (Maria Ines Aliverti) serve as a methodological interdisciplinary basis ...
<p>In May 2007, the theatre company Tiezzi-Lombardi enacted d'Annunzio's <em>... more <p>In May 2007, the theatre company Tiezzi-Lombardi enacted d'Annunzio's <em>Sogno di un mattino di primavera</em>, originally written for Eleonora Duse in 1897. Though respectful of his language, the company created a new dream-like version. The stage design by Fabrizia Scasellati Sforzolini and the particular setting in the court of the Bargello Museum in Florence make for an essential geometric stage writing, in which the actors play with exact anti-naturalistic voice and physical action, countered by Sandro Lombardi's frail transfiguration into the main female role of the Demente. In his interpretation, built over a detailed phonetic study and on both estrangement and embodiment actor's techniques, lays the secret of the re-creation of d'Annunzio's work. At the same time, the overall interpretation conveys the impossibility of reason to grasp the mystery of life, already inscribed in the text, while showing the means towards a contemporary sense of the tragic.</p>
Intrecciando biografia artistica e personale, nella conversazione con Rossella Mazzaglia qui pubb... more Intrecciando biografia artistica e personale, nella conversazione con Rossella Mazzaglia qui pubblicata per la prima volta, Simone Forti ripercorre l’esperienza formativa con Anna Halprin, precisa le motivazioni che la spingono a trasferirsi a New York nel 1959 e illustra le frequentazioni ed esperienze creative dei primi anni Sessanta a confronto con il nuovo teatro, la musica e l’arte visiva. Mostra il passaggio a una concezione strutturata dell’improvvisazione, impiegata dall’artista nel corso degli anni e, contemporaneamente, da altri esponenti della danza postmoderna americana. L’intervista costituisce una fonte storiografica su Forti e sulla sperimentazione newyorchese dei primi anni Sessanta, ma anche uno spunto di riflessione inedito sulle affinita cinestesiche tra opere di diverso genere e disciplina. L’intervista e pubblicata in inglese e seguita da un commento di Rossella Mazzaglia in italiano.
Frutto di una ricerca antropologica nelle Indie Occidentali, il saggio The Negro Dance (1941) di ... more Frutto di una ricerca antropologica nelle Indie Occidentali, il saggio The Negro Dance (1941) di Katherine Dunham identifica danze sacre e secolari specifiche e individua gli effetti dei processi di urbanizzazione, che adotta anche come strumento di osservazione e riconoscimento della genealogia africanistica dei balli dell’America del Nord. Lo scritto riflette il background della New Negro Renaissance, ma si distingue dalla produzione culturale coeva, che rinnegava il corpo nel tentativo di elevare l'immagine dell'artista e intellettuale afroamericano. Sincretismo della tecnica e modalita compositive della Dunham non segnano, quindi, solo gli esordi della black dance, ma mostrano una consapevolezza teorica che precorre gli sviluppi dei dance e cultural studies. Unendo approccio teorico e competenza performativa, Dunham anticipa anche di vari decenni le scelte metodologiche che hanno contraddistinto il settore disciplinare dell’antropologia della danza. Inoltre, poiche con m...
The Moving Body. Teaching Creative Theatre is the third English edition of Le Corps Poetique: un ... more The Moving Body. Teaching Creative Theatre is the third English edition of Le Corps Poetique: un enseignement de la creation theâtrale by Jacques Lecoq, originally released in France in 1997. This edition includes a foreward by Simon McBurney, an introduction by Mark Evans and an afterword by Fay Lecoq. It presents Lecoq’s philosophy and pedagogical ideas on dramatic mime, through the account of his personal aesthetic journey and of his teaching methods. The book’s structure parallels the students’ program at Lecoq’s Parisian school and is divided into four parts, describing the progression from the exploration of movement to its application to different dramatic territories to creation. In a very accessible language and with clear exemplifications and illustrative drawings, Lecoq shades light on a vision of mime considered as training for theatre and for life. Though its real substance is beyond words, its documentation finds in this book a reference point for theatre students and...
Messina è, per molti, una città di transito. È, notoriamente, la prima città italiana a essere st... more Messina è, per molti, una città di transito. È, notoriamente, la prima città italiana a essere stata distrutta da un evento naturale a inizio Novecento. Per alcuni, se non per tutti, questo trauma è anche all’origine di una perdita di memoria e d’identità. Messina è, perciò, apparsa subito prestarsi a un esperimento didattico e progettuale che affrontasse le domande di Crescere nell’assurdo, quasi esse nascessero da questo luogo ed esprimessero un’urgenza che qui attendeva di formularsi in un..
Il saggio evidenzia il riadattamento in chiave postmoderna di temi tradizionali della cultura afr... more Il saggio evidenzia il riadattamento in chiave postmoderna di temi tradizionali della cultura afro-americana all’interno dell’opera di Bill T. Jones. Integrando storia culturale e analisi drammaturgica di The Last Supper at Uncle Tom’s Cabin/The Promised Land , l’autrice sottolinea la rappresentativita della coreografia rispetto al suo tempo, nonche la sua originale trasposizione dei processi con cui la comunita afro-americana ha storicamente costruito la propria soggettivita politica e identita culturale.
This essay investigates the meaning of contemporary dance transmission through an analysis of th... more This essay investigates the meaning of contemporary dance transmission through an analysis of the creative and pedagogical work lead by the Tuscan artist Virgilio Sieni. Adopting the concept of orality, the author goes through his career, from the early stages of his education to his present activity both with his dance company and with the Accademia il gesto, particularly focusing on recent accomplishments and projects. On the one hand, she articulates on the process of dissolution of the dance tradition that his work witnesses, by extending references and motivations to a vaster context concerning the art and the human cultural heritage (with particular emphasis on the Italian one). On the other, she shows the consequent redefinition of the meaning, methods and targets of transmission in a dialectical confrontation with contemporaneity, intended as an attitude towards one’s own present and not only as a chronological phase of history. Readapting Didi-Huberamn’s politics of surviv...
In che modo può l'arte affiancarsi alla crescita e stimolare l'immaginario mantenendo una... more In che modo può l'arte affiancarsi alla crescita e stimolare l'immaginario mantenendo una funzione critica? "Crescere nell'Assurdo. Uno sguardo dello Stretto" indaga queste domande, formulate da Altre Velocità all'interno del progetto "Crescere spettatori", e le relaziona allo Stretto di Messina, dove processi contraddittori di simbolizzazione e di erosione dell'identità storica convivono con strascichi di un patrimonio popolare ancora vitale e con forme di resistenza culturale. Coniugando un ricco apparato iconografico con le parole di studiosi, critici e prestigiosi artisti del panorama messinese, il volume ripercorre le tracce di un tempo perduto di cui pensiero e arte rinnovano la memoria e la capacità di azione, andando incontro al territorio. Propone, così, un cammino che ci interroga sulle forme, oltre che sui contenuti, di un'educazione al pensiero critico dentro e fuori dalle istituzioni scolastiche e universitarie
La suggestione di Jean Genet di creare uno spettacolo di estrema intensità all’interno di un cimi... more La suggestione di Jean Genet di creare uno spettacolo di estrema intensità all’interno di un cimitero, che si legge in Cet étrange mot d’urbanisme… del 1967, ha ispirato la composizione della seconda passeggiata urbana, Lungo i passi della bellezza in riposo, e stimolato il desiderio di suscitare, durante il percorso, sensazioni tali da ingenerare una comprensione empatica dell’opera teatrale, confrontata con le domande esistenziali addensate anche ne Il miracolo della rosa dell’autore france..
with North American dance forms rooted in African culture. Though backed up by the New Negro argu... more with North American dance forms rooted in African culture. Though backed up by the New Negro arguments of the time, it shows Dunham’s prominent elaboration of a dignified African-American art based on sincretic bodily practices, which anticipated theorizations in dance and cultural studies. By uniting a theoretical approach and performance ability, she also made methodological choices which, decades later, became standard practices in the field of dance anthropology. Moreover, she is now considered an ante litteram exponent of public or applied anthropology due to the fact that, by using various strategies, she managed to take anthropological knowledge out of the academic world and use it as an instrument for social transformation. The Negro Dance is introduced by Rossella Mazzaglia and followed by an afterword by Cristiana Natali and a biographical note by Marie-Christine Dunham Pratt. By uniting a theoretical approach and performance ability, Katherine Dunham made methodological choices which, decades later, became standard practices in the field of dance anthropology. Moreover, she is now considered an ante litteram exponent of public or applied anthropology due to the fact that, by using various strategies, she managed to take anthropological knowledge out of the academic world and use it as an instrument for social transformation.
The reflex of scenography: XIX century heritage and contemporary perspectives) focuses on scenogr... more The reflex of scenography: XIX century heritage and contemporary perspectives) focuses on scenography since the 1980s, with a special interest in Italian theatre. It articulates an opening of the theoretical framework of scenography accounting for the transformation theatre has undergone since the second half of the Twentieth Century. In so doing, it shows some continuity with the past while also accounting for new tendencies in the construction of the performative space, which appear to be informed by a dialectics between the scene as sensorial stimulus and the scene as sign. This tension is engaged according to its present forms as a reflection of the artists' contemporary sensibility towards life and society.
This essay investigates the meaning of contemporary dance transmission through an analysis of th... more This essay investigates the meaning of contemporary dance transmission through an analysis of the creative and pedagogical work lead by the Tuscan artist Virgilio Sieni. Adopting the concept of orality, the author goes through his career, from the early stages of his education to his present activity both with his dance company and with the Accademia il gesto, particularly focusing on recent accomplishments and projects. On the one hand, she articulates on the process of dissolution of the dance tradition that his work witnesses, by extending references and motivations to a vaster context concerning the art and the human cultural heritage (with particular emphasis on the Italian one). On the other, she shows the consequent redefinition of the meaning, methods and targets of transmission in a dialectical confrontation with contemporaneity, intended as an attitude towards one's own present and not only as a chronological phase of history. Readapting Didi-Huberamn's politics o...
This paper deals with the project Bambino Manifesto, concerning Virgilio Sieni's creation and... more This paper deals with the project Bambino Manifesto, concerning Virgilio Sieni's creation and exhibition of 5 manifestos based on photographs of a group of children depicting gestures from Masaccio and Masolino's Storie di San Pietro, frescoed at the Cappella Brancacci in Florence. The pictures are explained both as deriving from a balance between form and dynamics, that is put in motion by a detailed work on the dancing body, and as events in themselves being 'enacted' by the spectators encountering them, whether casually or purposefully, while walking in the city streets. In fact, the process anticipating and following the elaboration of the pictures comes to affect and determine the photographs performative and aesthetic value. Movement analysis, historical contextualization, as well as the ideas of punctum (Barthes), of building duration (DidiHuberman) and of the theatricality of photographs (Maria Ines Aliverti) serve as a methodological interdisciplinary basis ...
<p>In May 2007, the theatre company Tiezzi-Lombardi enacted d'Annunzio's <em>... more <p>In May 2007, the theatre company Tiezzi-Lombardi enacted d'Annunzio's <em>Sogno di un mattino di primavera</em>, originally written for Eleonora Duse in 1897. Though respectful of his language, the company created a new dream-like version. The stage design by Fabrizia Scasellati Sforzolini and the particular setting in the court of the Bargello Museum in Florence make for an essential geometric stage writing, in which the actors play with exact anti-naturalistic voice and physical action, countered by Sandro Lombardi's frail transfiguration into the main female role of the Demente. In his interpretation, built over a detailed phonetic study and on both estrangement and embodiment actor's techniques, lays the secret of the re-creation of d'Annunzio's work. At the same time, the overall interpretation conveys the impossibility of reason to grasp the mystery of life, already inscribed in the text, while showing the means towards a contemporary sense of the tragic.</p>
Intrecciando biografia artistica e personale, nella conversazione con Rossella Mazzaglia qui pubb... more Intrecciando biografia artistica e personale, nella conversazione con Rossella Mazzaglia qui pubblicata per la prima volta, Simone Forti ripercorre l’esperienza formativa con Anna Halprin, precisa le motivazioni che la spingono a trasferirsi a New York nel 1959 e illustra le frequentazioni ed esperienze creative dei primi anni Sessanta a confronto con il nuovo teatro, la musica e l’arte visiva. Mostra il passaggio a una concezione strutturata dell’improvvisazione, impiegata dall’artista nel corso degli anni e, contemporaneamente, da altri esponenti della danza postmoderna americana. L’intervista costituisce una fonte storiografica su Forti e sulla sperimentazione newyorchese dei primi anni Sessanta, ma anche uno spunto di riflessione inedito sulle affinita cinestesiche tra opere di diverso genere e disciplina. L’intervista e pubblicata in inglese e seguita da un commento di Rossella Mazzaglia in italiano.
Frutto di una ricerca antropologica nelle Indie Occidentali, il saggio The Negro Dance (1941) di ... more Frutto di una ricerca antropologica nelle Indie Occidentali, il saggio The Negro Dance (1941) di Katherine Dunham identifica danze sacre e secolari specifiche e individua gli effetti dei processi di urbanizzazione, che adotta anche come strumento di osservazione e riconoscimento della genealogia africanistica dei balli dell’America del Nord. Lo scritto riflette il background della New Negro Renaissance, ma si distingue dalla produzione culturale coeva, che rinnegava il corpo nel tentativo di elevare l'immagine dell'artista e intellettuale afroamericano. Sincretismo della tecnica e modalita compositive della Dunham non segnano, quindi, solo gli esordi della black dance, ma mostrano una consapevolezza teorica che precorre gli sviluppi dei dance e cultural studies. Unendo approccio teorico e competenza performativa, Dunham anticipa anche di vari decenni le scelte metodologiche che hanno contraddistinto il settore disciplinare dell’antropologia della danza. Inoltre, poiche con m...
The Moving Body. Teaching Creative Theatre is the third English edition of Le Corps Poetique: un ... more The Moving Body. Teaching Creative Theatre is the third English edition of Le Corps Poetique: un enseignement de la creation theâtrale by Jacques Lecoq, originally released in France in 1997. This edition includes a foreward by Simon McBurney, an introduction by Mark Evans and an afterword by Fay Lecoq. It presents Lecoq’s philosophy and pedagogical ideas on dramatic mime, through the account of his personal aesthetic journey and of his teaching methods. The book’s structure parallels the students’ program at Lecoq’s Parisian school and is divided into four parts, describing the progression from the exploration of movement to its application to different dramatic territories to creation. In a very accessible language and with clear exemplifications and illustrative drawings, Lecoq shades light on a vision of mime considered as training for theatre and for life. Though its real substance is beyond words, its documentation finds in this book a reference point for theatre students and...
Messina è, per molti, una città di transito. È, notoriamente, la prima città italiana a essere st... more Messina è, per molti, una città di transito. È, notoriamente, la prima città italiana a essere stata distrutta da un evento naturale a inizio Novecento. Per alcuni, se non per tutti, questo trauma è anche all’origine di una perdita di memoria e d’identità. Messina è, perciò, apparsa subito prestarsi a un esperimento didattico e progettuale che affrontasse le domande di Crescere nell’assurdo, quasi esse nascessero da questo luogo ed esprimessero un’urgenza che qui attendeva di formularsi in un..
Il saggio evidenzia il riadattamento in chiave postmoderna di temi tradizionali della cultura afr... more Il saggio evidenzia il riadattamento in chiave postmoderna di temi tradizionali della cultura afro-americana all’interno dell’opera di Bill T. Jones. Integrando storia culturale e analisi drammaturgica di The Last Supper at Uncle Tom’s Cabin/The Promised Land , l’autrice sottolinea la rappresentativita della coreografia rispetto al suo tempo, nonche la sua originale trasposizione dei processi con cui la comunita afro-americana ha storicamente costruito la propria soggettivita politica e identita culturale.
This essay investigates the meaning of contemporary dance transmission through an analysis of th... more This essay investigates the meaning of contemporary dance transmission through an analysis of the creative and pedagogical work lead by the Tuscan artist Virgilio Sieni. Adopting the concept of orality, the author goes through his career, from the early stages of his education to his present activity both with his dance company and with the Accademia il gesto, particularly focusing on recent accomplishments and projects. On the one hand, she articulates on the process of dissolution of the dance tradition that his work witnesses, by extending references and motivations to a vaster context concerning the art and the human cultural heritage (with particular emphasis on the Italian one). On the other, she shows the consequent redefinition of the meaning, methods and targets of transmission in a dialectical confrontation with contemporaneity, intended as an attitude towards one’s own present and not only as a chronological phase of history. Readapting Didi-Huberamn’s politics of surviv...
In che modo può l'arte affiancarsi alla crescita e stimolare l'immaginario mantenendo una... more In che modo può l'arte affiancarsi alla crescita e stimolare l'immaginario mantenendo una funzione critica? "Crescere nell'Assurdo. Uno sguardo dello Stretto" indaga queste domande, formulate da Altre Velocità all'interno del progetto "Crescere spettatori", e le relaziona allo Stretto di Messina, dove processi contraddittori di simbolizzazione e di erosione dell'identità storica convivono con strascichi di un patrimonio popolare ancora vitale e con forme di resistenza culturale. Coniugando un ricco apparato iconografico con le parole di studiosi, critici e prestigiosi artisti del panorama messinese, il volume ripercorre le tracce di un tempo perduto di cui pensiero e arte rinnovano la memoria e la capacità di azione, andando incontro al territorio. Propone, così, un cammino che ci interroga sulle forme, oltre che sui contenuti, di un'educazione al pensiero critico dentro e fuori dalle istituzioni scolastiche e universitarie
La suggestione di Jean Genet di creare uno spettacolo di estrema intensità all’interno di un cimi... more La suggestione di Jean Genet di creare uno spettacolo di estrema intensità all’interno di un cimitero, che si legge in Cet étrange mot d’urbanisme… del 1967, ha ispirato la composizione della seconda passeggiata urbana, Lungo i passi della bellezza in riposo, e stimolato il desiderio di suscitare, durante il percorso, sensazioni tali da ingenerare una comprensione empatica dell’opera teatrale, confrontata con le domande esistenziali addensate anche ne Il miracolo della rosa dell’autore france..
with North American dance forms rooted in African culture. Though backed up by the New Negro argu... more with North American dance forms rooted in African culture. Though backed up by the New Negro arguments of the time, it shows Dunham’s prominent elaboration of a dignified African-American art based on sincretic bodily practices, which anticipated theorizations in dance and cultural studies. By uniting a theoretical approach and performance ability, she also made methodological choices which, decades later, became standard practices in the field of dance anthropology. Moreover, she is now considered an ante litteram exponent of public or applied anthropology due to the fact that, by using various strategies, she managed to take anthropological knowledge out of the academic world and use it as an instrument for social transformation. The Negro Dance is introduced by Rossella Mazzaglia and followed by an afterword by Cristiana Natali and a biographical note by Marie-Christine Dunham Pratt. By uniting a theoretical approach and performance ability, Katherine Dunham made methodological choices which, decades later, became standard practices in the field of dance anthropology. Moreover, she is now considered an ante litteram exponent of public or applied anthropology due to the fact that, by using various strategies, she managed to take anthropological knowledge out of the academic world and use it as an instrument for social transformation.
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By uniting a theoretical approach and performance ability, Katherine Dunham made methodological choices which, decades later, became standard practices in the field of dance anthropology. Moreover, she is now considered an ante litteram exponent of public or applied anthropology due to the fact that, by using various strategies, she managed to take anthropological knowledge out of the academic world and use it as an instrument for social transformation.
By uniting a theoretical approach and performance ability, Katherine Dunham made methodological choices which, decades later, became standard practices in the field of dance anthropology. Moreover, she is now considered an ante litteram exponent of public or applied anthropology due to the fact that, by using various strategies, she managed to take anthropological knowledge out of the academic world and use it as an instrument for social transformation.