as part of the Fabbrica Europa 2026 festival
Owing to a reflection on vanitas (Latin for vanity) as an art genre, Giovanfrancesco Giannini, Fabio Novembrini, and Roberta Racis interpret the iconography of vanity as a fundamental ingredient of the crisis of our time.
In an imaginary Garden of Eden, archetypal figures lose themselves in the image of their own selves, travelling through gloomy and deviant atmospheres which mark the futility of pleasure and the certainty of death.
Violence, death and the ephemeral nature of life and youth are arranged in vivid compositions that emerge from the darkness in the background.
The recorded live images are dotted with cut flowers and fruit, candles and hourglasses, which allude to human finitude, to a decaying history and reality. The rhythm with which the still lives are arranged to be exhibited, zoomed in, foregrounded and then rearranged marks a katabasis in which the body itself becomes a thing among other things.
Restlessness, crisis of thought, emptiness of meaning: vanity is seen as the law ruling the world. However, in the reminder of death, there is a hymn to life that speaks of an indissoluble duo: there can be no life or possibility of a future without the end of the world as we know it.
Giovanfrancesco Giannini is a choreographer and a dancer. He has presented his works at national and international festivals such as Santarcangelo Festival, FOG Triennale Milano Performing Arts, Fabbrica Europa, CCDC Festival Hong Kong, Secret Florence, Autunno Danza, Teatro Grande di Brescia, Bolzano Danza. In 2019, he was one of the winners of the Crossing the Sea call, and in 2020, he was among the selected Italian artists for CRISOL – creative proceses, Boarding Pass Plus. Giannini’s first work, CLOUD (2022), was selected for NID Platform – Open Studios 2021 and Tanzmesse – Open Studios 2022. In 2023/24, he was one of the artists supported by R.O.M – Residencies On the Move, Creative Europe.
Fabio Novembrini is a choreographer and dancer based in Florence. Among his most important participations: Aerowaves Twenty22 artist with the project Esercizi per un manifesto poetico (2022); selected Italian artist for Duetto a tre voci (2019), a project in partnership between the CSC in Bassano del Grappa and the Circuit-Est centre chorégraphique in Montreal; performer at the exhibition “Marina Abramović. The Cleaner” at Palazzo Strozzi (2018). Since 2017, he has been a teacher for Dance Well, and since 2018, he has been collaborating with Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi for the “Corpo Libero” project. In 2015, he was selected for the European project Dancing Museums and in the same year, he joined the Balletto di Roma.
Roberta Racis is a choreographer and dancer. In her work, she explores the potential interactions between movement, voice and rhythm. She danced for the Companhia Portuguesa de Bailado Contemporaneo and the Balletto di Roma. In 2018, she started developing her choreographic research as an artist, hosted by several European and international projects such as Performing Gender, D&D Dance and Dramaturgy, and CRISOL – creative processes. She was an Aerowaves Twenty22 artist with the project Esercizi per un manifesto poetico and is currently collaborating as a performer with Alessandro Sciarroni, Enzo Cosimi and Francesco Marilungo. Since 2024, she has been a teacher for Dance Well – Movement Research for Parkinson.
a project by Giovanfrancesco Giannini, Fabio Novembrini, Roberta Racis
light design and technical direction: Valeria Foti
sound project: Samuele Cestola
production: Körper – Centro Nazionale di Produzione della Danza
co-production: Santarcangelo Festival and Théâtre L’Aire Libre, St Jacques de Lande, Le Joli Collectif (FR)
with the support of Primavera dei Teatri Castrovillari, Centro di Rilevante Interesse per la Danza Cango Firenze, Fattoria Vittadini, Istituto Italiano di Cultura di Parigi
in the frame of R.O.M. Residencies on the Move Théâtre l’Aire Libre – le Joli collectif in collaboration with La Balsamine (Belgium), Santarcangelo Festival (Italy), Le Grütli (Switzerland), Théâtre Prospero and Teatro Periscopio (Canada), a network funded by the European Union
photo (detail): Luca Del Pia
