Marta Bevilacqua and Stefano Mazzotta give life and form on stage to this laceration and this unceasing desire for reunion through a dance of curved lines, yearning for the denied embrace: brushing against it, losing it, dreaming of it, demanding it. In Marta-as-Maria’s face, pain gradually takes root and becomes a boulder, yet it does not stiffen or yield to resignation. Stefano Mazzotta’s dance is moving and, if possible, even more intimate: his desire for reunion seems to arise little by little, fragile at first, before becoming a vital urgency. The action moves towards its conclusion through words whispered—though perhaps inwardly cried—by the two performers, in a rarefied atmosphere of suspension. Francesca Maria Rizzotti | KLP

ON THE PROJECT

Every archival operation concerns a chronological range that can be defined through an earliest date or a most recent date. Borrowing this definition for its title, Estremo Remoto offers the audience an emotional exploration of memory and of the relationships which, over time, bind us to places, moments and people, rooting us in them like way stations along the complex journey of a life marked by departures and returns.

The research unfolds through a particular focus on registers recording the admission of foundlings and orphans between 1770 and 1909 in the Austro-Hungarian area of Italy. The series studied consists of 82 registers documenting the reception of abandoned children placed in the foundling wheel.

The foundling wheel was a rotating, cylindrical wooden device divided into two sections: one facing outwards, the other inwards. Through a hatch, abandoned newborns—known as foundlings—could be placed inside without being seen from within the institution. By turning the wheel, it aligned with an opening on the inside, where the hatch could be opened and the child given the necessary care.

A small bell was often placed near the wheel to alert those responsible for receiving the child. There was also an opening in the wall, like a letterbox, into which donations could be placed to support those caring for the foundlings. In case the person who had abandoned the child might later seek to recognise them, and in order to verify their legitimacy, jewellery, documents or other identifying marks were placed in the wheel with the newborn. These were often facial images split into two halves—one accompanying the child, the other remaining with the mother—and were known as tokens of exposure. The receiving institutions catalogued them as formal attachments to the registers.

ON THE CREATION OF A FIRST DANCE OF THE ARCHIVE

Starting from these tokens of exposure, Marta Bevilacqua (Compagnia Arearea, Udine) and Stefano Mazzotta (Compagnia Zerogrammi, Turin) developed choreographic research structured around the concepts of body / memory / archive / boundary. They find, in smallness, the meaning of their dance, the space of action and a direct relationship with the audience.

The project took its first steps in the corridors and study rooms of the State Archive of Trieste as a site-specific work, before finding further settings in museums, foyers and theatre spaces.

The dance unfolds through a sequence of minute and delicate actions, directed towards preparing for a great journey and carrying out a great farewell. As the narrative develops, within a meticulous choreography for two performers, space contracts, revealing the meaning and evocative power of small things.

Estremo Remoto is a space of care and also a time for social reflection. Just as dance results from movements and gestures that precede us and belong to collective memory, so history is the result of many seemingly insignificant lives which, interwoven, live through events. The archival approach gathers their objects and geographies, turning the person into a memory that dances.