Dream is the gateway to a fairytale world of amorous anthropomorphic clouds, ogres and giantesses, fantastical animals, black rabbits and birds of prey. Lorenzo Mattotti

In the complex journey that carries us from childhood into adulthood, adolescence is the transitional realm of restlessness and transformation: the place where dreams and desires—emerging from the carefree enchantment of childhood—are projected towards the future, entering into dialogue with, and often clashing against, reality. Yet, as fairy tales teach us, this is the necessary journey through which we come to understand who we are, above all through a dialogue with our deepest fears.

This is the premise of Symposium of Silence: a work combining dance, clowning and theatre, conceived and created as a fairytale journey into the dark world of the unconscious, whose landscapes are inspired by the illustrated works of Lorenzo Mattotti. At the centre of the story is the restlessness and fragility of a young protagonist, and her awkward, questioning relationship with the large, heavy books that populate the stage. As bearers of possible answers and pathways to follow, these objects—almost endowed with a life of their own—accompany her on a vertical journey in search of herself, recalling the illogical worlds of Carroll’s Alice during her famous fall down the White Rabbit’s hole.

From this backward fall, images and movements unfold in sequence, giving shape to symbols of childhood unease through the murky settings of a narrative devoted to doubt, uncertainty and the precariousness of the self.

As in every coming-of-age fairy tale, the narrative returns to the dynamics generated by questioning and by the desire for balance when faced with an obstacle, a trial to overcome, a safe place and an order to be achieved. Abandoning the presumed certainty of a centre, the story launches itself into the precariousness of movement, in search of a temporary refuge, of a plausible order, ultimately returning us to the only possible certainty: that nothing ever remains the same, and that the condition of questioning is the only path towards growth, change and discovery.

Winner of the Premio CollaborAction Kids XL#1 2018Anticorpi XL Cantieri Danza | Solares | AMAT | Arteven | Fondazione Teatro Comunale Città di Vicenza | La Piccionaia | Fondazione Piemonte dal Vivo | Teatro Pubblico Pugliese | C.L.A.P. Spettacolodalvivo | Armunia | FTS Onlus | ACS | Centro Servizi Culturali Santa Chiara | FIND

(...) Books build contradictory fantasies, like luminous holes in the darkness—yet equally capable of swallowing it up. She fights them by drawing on her generous, athletic body: a vertical wall balanced on her hands; an ellipse of air in forward and backward turns on one arm; an expansive, taut spatiality in the splits. At times, a figure seemingly placid and submissive gives way to a conscious ardour. Maimone recreates a universe of images, emotions and perceptions, immersed in theatre in its purest form. Enrico Rosolino | Verve Magazine