ABOUT THE PROJECT

Every archival act concerns a chronological span that may be described as either extreme remote or extreme recent.

Borrowing this definition for its title, Estremo Remoto invites the audience into an emotional immersion into the themes of memory and of the relationships that, over time, bind us to places, moments and people, rooting us to them like staging posts along a complex journey of life marked by departures and returns.

The research develops through a particular observation of the registers documenting foundlings and abandoned children between 1770 and 1909 within the Austro-Hungarian territories of Italy.

The archival series on which the research was conducted consists of eighty-two registers tracing the reception of children abandoned and entrusted to the foundling wheel.

The foundling wheel was a rotating cylindrical wooden structure divided into two sections: one facing outward and one inward. Through a small opening, abandoned infants could be placed inside without being seen from within the institution. By turning the wheel, the infant would be brought into alignment with an internal opening through which attendants could retrieve the child and provide the necessary care.

Often, beside the wheel, there was a small bell used to alert caregivers, as well as a slot in the wall — resembling a letterbox — where donations could be left to support the care of the abandoned children.

For possible future recognition by the person who had abandoned the child, and in order to verify legitimacy, jewels, documents or other identifying marks were often placed beside the infant. Frequently these consisted of objects split into two matching halves — one accompanying the child and the other remaining with the mother — known as signals of exposure, catalogued by the institutions as actual attachments to the registers.

ON THE CREATION OF A FIRST “ARCHIVAL DANCE”

Beginning from these signals of exposure, Marta Bevilacqua (Compagnia Arearea – Udine) and Stefano Mazzotta (Zerogrammi – Turin) initiated a choreographic research process centred around concepts such as body / memory / archive / border, locating within smallness the meaning of their dance, the space of action and the direct relationship with the audience.

The project took its first steps among the corridors and study rooms of the Archivio di Stato di Trieste in a site-specific form before subsequently finding space within museums, foyers and theatre halls.

The dance unfolds through a succession of minute and delicate actions aimed at preparing for a great journey, at accomplishing a great farewell.

As the narrative develops, within a meticulous choreography for two performers, the space gradually narrows, revealing the meaning and evocative power of small things.

Estremo Remoto is both a space of care and a time for social reflection: just as dance is the result of movements and gestures that precede us and belong to collective memory, history too is the result of many seemingly insignificant lives that, intertwined, live through events together.

The archival approach compacts objects and geographies, transforming the human being into a memory that dances.

A first research chapter of the project ESTREMO REMOTO was produced and presented in collaboration with the Archivio di Stato di Trieste and the DanceProject Festival in November 2024.