as part of the Fabbrica Europa 2026 festival

Mors and Wolf Spider are the two movements of the Dittico delle Radici [The Roots Diptych], a choreographic creation that explores tarantism as a universal archetype: the transformation of crisis into knowledge, of wounds into energy, of poison into rebirth.

A journey through myth, the body, trance, and contemporary life, expressed through a language that combines dance, live music, soundscapes, and olfactory imagery, evoking ritual as a necessary space for transformation.

In Mors, three dancers embody the One and Threefold Goddess, evoking the archetype of the bite, the symbolic animals of Southern Italy – the spider, the scorpion, and the serpent – and the passage through the threshold. A collective body undergoes a rite of passage, weaving together trance, precision, and poetry.

Wolf Spider, set to music composed by Alejandro da Rocha, explores the deep roots of pizzica and tarantism, transfigured in the present as a state of collective alertness, bodily urgency, and urban and mythological vibration. A choral and contemporary vision, it unfolds as an act of liberation, metamorphosis, and rebirth.

Through mythological echoes and contemporary artistic languages, this diptych emerges as a powerful and universal narrative in which the body becomes an expressive instrument and ritual is transformed into a shared experience. Moving across different emotional landscapes and temporal dimensions, it offers a profound reflection on human nature and the capacity for transformation.

Mors choreography: Elisa Barucchieri and Moreno Guadalupi
Wolf Spider choreography: Mattia Russo and Antonio De Rosa / Kor’sia

ResExtensa Dance Company, founded and directed by Elisa Barucchieri, develops an artistic language that merges movement, space, and visual storytelling. The company’s mission is to create works that engage with landscapes, architecture, and communities, transcending the boundaries of conventional performance spaces to embrace large-scale events and site-specific contexts.
Since 2022, ResExtensa has been recognized as a National Centre for Dance Production. Through its project Porta d’Oriente (“Gateway to the East”), the Centre promotes the creation, production, and dissemination of dance, fostering artistic connections between Italy and the Mediterranean while encouraging dialogue among territories and contemporary choreographic languages.

Antonio de Rosa and Mattia Russo both trained at the National Academy of Dance in Rome and at the Teatro alla Scala Ballet School. De Rosa began his career with the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, the Arena di Verona, and Teatro alla Scala, before joining the Compañía Nacional de Danza de España in 2011. Russo danced with the Ballet de la Generalitat Valenciana and later with Introdans.
In 2015, they founded their own company, Kor’sia, which received the “Young Talent” Award at the Positano International Dance Festival “Leonide Massine” in 2016.

photo: Francesco Vernice