DAMIANO OTTAVIO BIGI & ALESSANDRA PAOLETTI | AHN AESOON

Dates in Italy in June 2026

After its debut in Korea in October 2025 at the Nakseonjae Hall of Changdeokgung Palace in Seoul, LA PRIMA DANZA / The Butterfly Dream will be presented in Italy nel giugno 2026, as part of The First Dance / La Prima Danza, a project funded by the 2025 Kore.A.Round Culture – Bilateral International Collaboration Program for Arts & Culture.

The project, resulting from the collaboration between Fondazione Fabbrica Europa, Bigi Paoletti/Fritz Company by Damiano Ottavio Bigi and Alessandra Paolettiand the Ahn Aesoon Company, aims to transform spaces of historical and artistic heritage into devices for performative experiences, fostering a deep connection between territory, place, artwork, and audience through dance.

In Italy, LA PRIMA DANZA / The Butterfly Dream will be staged in Verbania (Teatro il Maggiore, 19 June 2026) as part of CROSS Festival, and in Florence at Chiostro Grande di Santa Maria Novella (23-24 June 2026): two spaces whose differing historical and architectural features will offer new resonances and further possibilities for relationships between body, memory, and landscape.

LA PRIMA DANZA / The Butterfly Dream draws inspiration from the complex history of Changdeokgung Palace, understood not merely as architecture, but as a site shaped by political transformations, destructions, reconstructions, and rewritings of memory that remain unresolved to this day.
A dynastic residence and ritual space, later a place scarred by war and colonial occupation, and today a museum and heritage site, the palace is conceived as a spatial and symbolic device, embodying a trajectory shared by many other sites where architectures from different historical periods accumulate, leaving both material and immaterial traces.

Starting from the Korean context, the work opens onto a broader, more universal perspective, placing Changdeokgung in resonance with other places that have undergone similar processes of transformation and re-signification.

choreography and direction: Damiano Ottavio Bigi & Alessandra Paoletti, Ahn Aesoon
performers: Na-eui Kim, Ji-hyung Kim, Seong-hyeon Park, Hyeon-seok Lee and You-joung Lim
sound design: Jung-hoon Pi
costumes: Seonoc Im
sound engineer: Ju-won Jeon

concept and project direction: Maurizia Settembri
production: On Sim, Elisa Godani with Greta Poli
associated producer: Hye-yeon Ki
consultant for international collaboration: Andrea Paciotto

carried out with the support of Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism (Korea)
KOFICE (Korean Foundation for International Cultural Exchange)
2025 Kore.A.Round Culture – Bilateral International Collaboration Program for Arts & Culture (Korea)
Ministero della Cultura, Dipartimento per le attività culturali – Italy
Direzione regionale Musei nazionali Toscana (Florence)

partners: Fabbrica Europa | Secret Florence | Florence Dance Festival | City of Florence
CROSS Festival | Fondazione Egri Danza CRID | City of Verbania
Associazione Tersicorea – Cortoindanza | cedac Cagliari