September 17, 2025: first admission 11:00 | second admission 12:00
September 18, 2025: first admission 11:00 | second admission 12:00
September 19, 2025: first admission 17:00 | second admission 18:00
September 20, 2025: first admission 17:00 | second admission 18:00

A project by Fabbrica Europa
as part of Musica e danza nei Cenacoli fiorentini
carried out with Direzione regionale Musei nazionali Toscana – Ministero della Cultura
and SHIFT Shaping Harmony, Innovating Forms & Thought, funded by the Creative Europe programme of the European Commission

Tuesday, September 9, 6:00 p.m. at the Museo Novecento (Piazza Santa Maria Novella 10, Florence)
Talk with Damiano Ottavio Bigi and Alessandra Paoletti, in which the two artists will discuss their experiences and how their research  has developed.

LA PRIMA DANZA (The first dance) is a site-specific contemporary dance project conceived to explore new performative languages for spaces of cultural heritage, redefining them as living, dynamic places open to contemporary visions.

The first research phase – LA PRIMA DANZA à coups de marteau – 1st step. Open doors / A Look into the creative process – takes place in September 2025 in Florence, within the Chiostro and the Cenacolo di Ognissanti. Here, choreographer and dancer Damiano Ottavio Bigi and playwright and director Alessandra Paoletti will work with dancers Vincenzo Criniti, Cristian Magurano from Compagnia EgriBiancoDanza, with Chinese performer Yingyu Lyu, the performers Lu Ying-Chieh, Lee Kuan-Lin, and the choreographer Lai Hung-Chung from Hung Dance (Taiwan), and the musicians Milena Punzi and Andrea Geremia from Centro di ricerca, produzione e didattica musicale Tempo Reale.

In this creative process, the relationship between body and space becomes central: the dancers do not merely inhabit the environment, but establish a physical and perceptual dialogue with it.
Their bodies either merge with the architecture or stand in contrast to it, activating the space as a living, participating element.
The physical space is thus transformed into a sensitive landscape, resonating with emotional and perceptive vibrations that arise not only from the grammar of movement but also from the live music that accompanies and integrates the choreography.

Damiano Ottavio Bigi, dancer and choreographer, and Alessandra Paoletti, actress and director, began their collaboration in 2013 with the project Yuvaya Dönmek, Babam için – Back Home, to my father, conceived for the Istanbul Municipal Theatre. Since then, they have pursued both a pedagogical and creative path, collaborating with artists from diverse backgrounds and cultural contexts. In 2020, they founded their own company, the BIGI PAOLETTI Fritz Company.
Their work is born out of a dialogue among different languages, moving between dance, theatre and visual arts. Their research’s essential elements come from the exploration of compositional, dramaturgical, and kinesthetic patterns, often drawn from scientific disciplines. Through constantly evolving narrative layers, they aim to create worlds imprinted not only on bodies but also extending to the spaces and landscapes they move through, seeking new forms of relationship between body, space, and time.

concept and choreography: Damiano Ottavio Bigi & Alessandra Paoletti
dance: Vincenzo Criniti, Cristian Magurano, Lai Hung-Chung, Lu Ying-chieh, Lee Kuan-ling,Yingyu Lyu
live music: Milena Punzi, Andrea Geremia
in collaboration with Tempo Reale, Fondazione Egri Centro di Rilevante Interesse per la danza e Hung Dance (Taiwan)
and with Florence Dance Center and PARC Performing Arts Research Centre
residency in collaboration with Museo Novecento Florence

A project by Fabbrica Europa as part of the Musica e danza nei Cenacoli fiorentini project, funded by the Ministry of Culture (MiC), Dipartimento per le attività culturali – Direzione Generale Spettacolo, through the public call “Valorizzazione delle attività di spettacolo dal vivo svolte negli istituti e luoghi della cultura statali Anno 2025”, carried out in collaboration with Direzione regionale Musei nazionali Toscana – MiC

photo (detail): Giampaolo Becherini