Sofia Nappi / Komoco
THE FRIDAS
September 18, 2025 19:00
Palazzina Reale di Firenze | IT
also scheduled on
September 19, 2025 19:00
as part of the Fabbrica Europa 2025 festival
The Fridas is a duet inspired by the painting “The Two Fridas” by Frida Kahlo. It explores the complex theme of human identity through a relationship of complicity and contrast between two dancers. Specular and divergent movements embody internal conflicts and harmony. At the same time physical expressiveness and the use of space (in the Komoco language considered as a living element capable of uniting and dividing), represent two complementary and essential elements in the research.
The relationship between the two characters on stage, however, goes beyond simple dualism. Through gestures that reveal intimacy and vulnerability, challenging conventions on masculinity, the dancers go through emotional states and become an expressive vehicle for the thousands of facets contained in every single individual. The painting “explodes”, and the duet thus reflects the ambiguity and multiple personalities that also distinguish Kahlo in her own person: “More identities are hidden inside me, I am a mélange. A mix between a Mexican and an indigenous woman, but also a Mexican and a European. I am a painter and a wife. I love women and men […]. In my painting I want to precisely represent this: all my ambiguity, no, not the ambiguity, my many personalities, my complexity”. (From “Frida Kahlo’s Secret Lover” by Caroline Bernard).
Designed for theatrical but also unconventional and museum spaces, The Fridas lends itself to being observed from different perspectives, thus adding nuances to the research into the human essence and celebrating its complexity. The ending, however, suggests an ironic acceptance of the chaos of life: through parodic movements the dancers find in humor the balm to continue facing the challenges of existence.
