part of MOVING_movimento 2007
a project by Fabbrica Europa; Festival Santarcangelo dei Teatri; Giardino Chiuso / Teatro dei Leggieri, San Gimignano; Officina Giovani - Cantieri Culturali ex Macelli, Prato; Assessorato alla Cultura e alle Politiche Giovanili of the Prato City Council

Giulia Mureddu
Bava
choreography and direction: Giulia Mureddu
in collaboration with Ulrike Quade
dance: Giulia Mureddu
marionette: Ulrike Quade
music: Stravinsky, MatPogo, Bjork, Nohalewis'Mahlon Tails
musical arrangement: Robin Tunca, Giulia Mureddu
lighting: Roland van Ulden
assistance: Robin Tunca
costume: Giulia Mureddu, Ulrike Quade
produced by: Danswerkplaats, Amsterdam

This work by Guilia Mureddu is a duet between a dancer and a marionette. Its starting point is an investigation of the 'monster' hidden in each of us. The piece reflects on the duality of the urge to let the monster emerge and the attempt to halt or inhibit it. The marionette therefore represents a means of disinhibition - the 'monster -trigger' that makes it possible for us to strip ourselves of our normal attire and put on new or remote aspects of our personality without having to assume responsibility for them.
Combining two such different artistic forms- dance and the manipulation of the marionette- encouraged the choreographer to undertake a exploration of movement as a visual and plastic element. The themes that the choreographer has investigated through improvisation and technical exercises include: the body as scenography, the dialogue between performer and manipulator, orientation in relation to an object and the being placed in the service of the object.
The visual and plastic nature of the movement was developed through a detailed analysis of gestual material, responding to the impulse that generates a movement only to then fragment or dismember it, studying and transforming its fabric.

Giulia Mureddu. Born in Rome in 1973, in 1991 she left Italy to pursue her studies at the Theaterschool in Amsterdam, where she graduated in 1995. Since then she has embarked on an intense career as a dancer, working with Dutch companies including Shusaku Takeuchi, Paul Selwin Norton, Rogie & Company, Hans Hof Ensemble, Dylan Newcomb, Leine & Roebana, Anouk van Dijk and Gabriella Maiorino.
In parallel, from 1996, she has also focussed on choreographic work, creating a number of productions. In 1996 she realised And Igor Saw Everything. In 2000 she debuted her first solo work Grief-one and two years later created Learn to Drown. In 2005 she developed the first phase of Plugged, which was completed in 2006. Subsequently she has initiated the research phase of Bava, in collaboration with the marionettist Ulrike Quade. From 2006 she has been part of the ACE (Advanced Choreographic Exploration) programme, run by the Danswerkplaats in Amsterdam. She is also one of the founders of the new dance workshop Danslab dell'Aja.

Gruppo Nanou
Tracce verso il nulla
a project by and with Marco Valerio Amico and Rhuena Bracci
sound: Roberto Rettura
stage-management: Samantha Turci

Two characters, two figures, live in a space without context.
The scene is stark and bare.  The body and the word take a step back to recover an animal quality that is innately human, but is sidelined and hidden.  The characters, hunched over, explore a space that is at once familiar and hostile, perhaps even dangerous. 
Beastly figures, manifestations of a vision, grotesque masks. 
A story in code, expressed in symbols and memories of movements that intersect in complex combinations, capable of multiplying unconnected 'cross-sections'.
The bodies are not mere figments: they materialise in their completeness in different times and places, finding an action in the moment, so as not to remain ensnared in images. The point of view rests always outside the body, opening up additional spaces and times.  Every action seems to begin where the last finishes and vice-versa.
The character-bodies crashing into each other, the de-structuring of language and the implosion of every narrative element, carry us as if by magic to the origins of the vision. They force us to overcome the darkness of the past. They are hallucinations that destroy dramatic form to reassemble it in a new form that is abstract but never unfinished. 
Shreds of events.
All is lost, irremediably, so as (not) to understand that, rather that us watching the bodies, it is they who watch us.

Gruppo Nanou. The group was founded in June 2003. The inclusion of the group's first production, Kostia, in the final of the Premio Scenario (2003), fused the artistic association of the group's founding members: Marco Valerio Amico, Rhuena Bracci and Roberto Rettura. These artists are active in different artistic fields and are involved in productions and collaborations with other important national groups.
In 2005 they created Namoro, coproduced by City Arts in Dublin, which won the special prize in the competition GD'A-Giovani Danz'Autori 2004/2005. The group has participated in a number of contemporary dance showcases with the project, including Danae (Milan), Interplay (Turin) and Santarcangelo dei Teatri (Santarcangelo). The 2006 creation Desert-Inn was shown at the Festival Ammutinamenti in Ravenna and at the Teatro Comunale in Ferrara.