as part of Fabbrica Europa 2024

BLEAH!!! is a word that “does”. It creates volume between the palate and the lip. It produces a sound with meaning. In Lucia Marcucci’s same-titled visual poem, this gesture-sound removes itself from the pronunciation of the body and spreads onto the page, interrupting the perceptual expectation of its hearing to be said, seen, and read instead. It is a comment that becomes an art piece.

Study it together. This invitation is answered by the collaboration between choreographer and dancer Annamaria Ajmone and musician Laura Agnusdei, who are working together for the first time.

Lucia Marcucci’s imagery acts as an ice-breaking argument, triggering dialogue, initiating an encounter. It’s a point of departure that shapes a process of research, of work that then goes its own way.

BLEAH!!! returns to bodies and their objects. It disarticulates the typical performative roles of dancer and musician and designs a landscape to be created together, with the common channel of breath and objects. Ajmone and Agnusdei plan a script that disregards and redistributes the authorial functions. Dance plays and music dances; sound choreographs space, while movement accompanies it, reshapes it, and multiplies it. Volume and gestures of the saxophone and the body, of breaths and drums create unique acoustic areas of encounter and relationship, that vary in architecture and temperature, evoking poetry and emotion.

One zone alone stands free and still, like a room. In the center, a console lets vinyl spin and bodies sit close together, activating and recombining a set of known sounds and familiar worlds. It is a place apart where one can meet and stay to comment on the rest of the work or the world.

– Giada Cipollone

Annamaria Ajmone is an Italian dancer and choreographer. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Modern Literature and she also studied at the Civica Scuola di Teatro Paolo Grassi, Milan. The focal point of her research is the human body, which is understood as a malleable and changeable matter, capable of transforming spaces into unique places by creating temporal parallels and overlaps. Her works were presented in various dance, theatre and performing arts festivals, museums, art galleries and foundations. She coordinates Nobody’s Business for Italy, an open source platform for the sharing of artistic practices.

Laura Agnusdei is an electroacoustic composer and saxophone player from Bologna. Classically trained, she also holds a Master in electronic music composition by The Institute of Sonology of The Hague (NL). Her compositions feature the saxophone as the main voice within sonic landscapes that shift between melodies and textures, the song form and improvisation, fusing acoustic, digital and analog sound sources. She published “Night/Light” in 2017 with the English label The Tapeworm and the album “Laurisilva” in 2019. Her experience as a composer also extends to soundtracks, short films and performances.

concept, dance, music: Annamaria Ajmone, Laura Agnusdei
costumes: Fabio Quaranta
sguardo esterno: Giada Cipollone
co-producion: L’Altra associazione, We-Start Centro di Produzione Piemonte Orientale, Bolzano Danza | Tanz Bozen, OperaEstate Festival as part of the BoNo! project
with the support of Triennale di Milano and Fondazione Haydn Bolzano e Trento
in collaboration with Ar/Ge Kunst

photo: Emanuele Meschini