as part of Fabbrica Europa 2024
POEMS by Aurelio Di Virgilio is a performance designed to bring together human and non-human bodies — in the form of clay casts and scenic elements — with the aim of rethinking the ecologies of relationships and addressing issues related to subjectivity and vocality.
The core of the investigation is the dedication: a profound and hallucinatory language capable of evoking loves, disappointments, and illusions that aspire to persistence.
Oscillating between invisible verses, the bodies open up to a vision stretched over alternating metrics. The time of poetry becomes the time of action, shattering the fragment and resisting the flow of movements, following the poetic composition written for the occasion by Allison Grimaldi Donahue (poet and translator).
Like a dedication that survives, the body traverses a path to listen, look, speak, and lie.
Aurelio Di Virgilio is an artist active in the field of performing arts. In 2017, he graduated from the Luca Ronconi School at the Piccolo Teatro, Milan. He continued his training following Italian and international choreographers and artists. Since 2022 he has been collaboraing with Masako Matsushita (IT/JP) as performer and assistant. Since 2020, he has presented his work in festivals, theaters, museums, and art foundations, including MAXXI L’Aquila; Cango, Firenze; Bmotion Festival – Operaestate; Mattatoio, Roma; La Fondazione – Fondazione Nicola del Roscio, Racconti di altre danze Festival; Nuovo Teatro delle Commedie; Fondazione smART; Museo della Città, Livorno; Sala Santa Rita/Palaexpo, Roma.
His choreographic and performative research unfolds through scenarios that evoke intimate, abstract, and unsettling environments, placing audience and performers within a shared space. The idea of “intimacy” goes beyond the sphere of the private, transforming into a shared place of cooperation capable of sparking reflections on the present.
performers: Lucrezia Palandri, Aurelio Di Virgilio
dramaturgical support: Elena Giannotti
drammaturgical consultancy: Massimiliano Barachini
music: Ivano Pecorini
light design: Massimiliano Calvetti
styling and costumes: Giulia Geromel
artistic support and texts: Paola Granato
poem: Allison Grimaldi Donahue
critical text: Marta Federici
executive production: Atelier delle arti – Livorno
co-production: Pilar Ternera
research process: Più Erbacce / CIMD – Milano, Ricercax – Lavanderia a Vapore
with the support of Centro di Residenza della Toscana (Fondazione Armunia Castiglioncello – CapoTrave/Kilowatt Sansepolcro); SpazioK.Kinkaleri – Centro di Residenza Regionale; Ariella Vidach AiEP – Residenza NAOcrea24; DiDstudio – Programma NAO24; Cango – Compagnia Virgilio Sieni
photo: Alessandro Bartoletti, detail
