Representing great stories through small bodies is what has been driving the tradition of I Pupi (typical Sicilian puppets) for centuries, incorporating the adventures, defeats, vicissitudes or perhaps more simply the people and characters lifes on a small scale. With their bodies, supported by wires and crossed from the skull to the pelvis by an iron rod, I Pupi try to mirror the human being both structurally and metaphorically.

What happens in the choreographic process is an inverse transformation, the visualization of a thin line that questions the action instantaneousness, in which to trace the possible variations of movement in the posture of Il Pupo. Starting from this background image, the dancer enters the shape of Il Pupo, makes its posture his own, moves independently while remaining moved by something else: he is therefore both a puppeteer and a Pupo himself.

Dipped into a narrative dimension, the gesture characterization merges with the search for the character that follows the ideal thread of a story, that one of Orlando Furioso. A camouflaged tale, made up of comic and dramatic substrates, of landscapes that appear and disappear instantly, becomes an opportunity to deepen and detail the spatial and temporal dynamics useful for bringing out a movement quality that can recall Il Pupo.
Working on the suspensions, on the idea of ​​being moved from the outside, on the reduction of muscular effort in favor of the joints, on the contrast of the force of gravity, the scene inhabited by I Pupi moves between tension and lightness, a place where you can explore the stories that each person carries within himself.

Giuseppe Muscarello, choreographer, dancer, performer, has been collaborating for over twenty years with several Italian dance companies as well as with film and theatre directors. For years he has been training dance and stage movement for professional dancers and actors throughout Italy. In the last few years he has paid particular attention to theatre, creating the stage movements for numerous plays. In 2012 he collaborated with director Roberta Torre on the show Insanamente Riccardo III, staged in 2013 at the Piccolo Teatro in Milan. In 1999, he founded Muxarte, a dance company, immediately directing his work towards research. The influence of different training paths first and artistic experiences later, led him to create a group of young artists coming from different training realities. Working on various contemporary dance techniques, he thus obtains creations arising from the personality of each individual element that, to date, are programmed in numerous theatres and national and international festivals.
He is the artistic director of ConFormazioni, a festival of dance and contemporary languages founded in 2017 to foster cultural dissemination and professional training.

concept, direction and choreography: Giuseppe Muscarello
with Marina Bertoni, Daniele Bianco, Mara Capirci, Michael Incarbone
original music: Pino Basile, Prodigy
lighting design: Danila Blasi
costumes: Dora Argento
drama consulting: Valeria Vannucci
production: Pindoc production
co-production: Muxarte, Rosa Shocking/Festival Tendance | Antonio Pasqualino International Puppet Museum
with the support of the MIC Ministry of Culture | Sicily Region
in collaboration with Piemonte Dal Vivo/Lavanderia a Vapore, Festival Fabbrica Europa, Teatri di Vetro