
ARCHIVIO
STEFANO MAZZOTTA
// ZEROGRAMMI
ALCESTI
]
UNO SPETTACOLO, UN PROGETTO FOTOGRAFICO, UN PROGETTO DI FORMAZIONE PROFESSIONALE
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*Alcesti* is a choreographic and theatrical research project inspired by Euripides’ myth of sacrificial love and separation. A poetic journey through themes of farewell, loss, and transformation, developed through different autonomous yet deeply interconnected performative chapters.
The project explores the fragile boundary between presence and absence, between what remains and what inevitably dissolves, creating emotional landscapes suspended between intimacy and vision.
“But once again he saw her face, turned back toward him, in a smile bright as hope, a promise: to return to him, grown beyond the dark of death, to him alive… Then he pressed his hands against his forehead, kneeling, so as to see nothing but that smile.”
( Alcestis, Rainer Maria Rilke)The research originates from the myth of Alcestis, the tragic figure who chooses to die in place of her husband Admetus. Rather than a narrative transposition of the classical text, the project uses the myth as a symbolic field through which to investigate universal themes connected to love, sacrifice, memory, and separation.
The imagery of Alcesti moves between body and word, silence and inner noise, constructing a dramaturgy made of emotional tensions, sonic landscapes, and essential images. The stage becomes a space of passage and transformation, where choreographic gesture enters into dialogue with human fragility and with the difficulty of letting go.
The project unfolds through different chapters that share the same poetic matrix while taking on autonomous configurations, capable of inhabiting different contexts and performative devices.
Alcesti is conceived as a modular and layered project, developed through artistic residencies, dramaturgical research, and choreographic practices intertwining dance, theatrical presence, and sound composition. Each chapter investigates a specific emotional and perceptual tension within the project, generating different modes of relationship with space and audience. The research process privileges essentiality, subtraction, and proximity, creating scenic devices capable of amplifying the intimate dimension of the experience.
From its earliest stages, Alcesti has taken shape as a deeply collective work. During its Italian debut phase, the project involved — alongside Zerogrammi’s seven performers — an ensemble of fifteen young dancers engaged in the construction of the corps de ballet, transforming the creative process into a space of transmission, generational exchange, and shared practice. This experience became the foundation for a replicable production device, capable of being reactivated over time through the involvement of new ensembles and different communities of performers.
The project developed through a path of residencies and artistic crossings between Italy and Germany, in dialogue with Theater Osnabrück and Fondazione Nazionale della Danza / Aterballetto – Centro Coreografico Nazionale. The different creation phases allowed the work to engage with heterogeneous production contexts and artistic sensibilities, deeply influencing the construction of its scenic language and the relationship between body, space, and dramaturgical material.
Over time, the project has generated new artistic and production trajectories, consolidating international collaborations and opportunities for dialogue between different artistic languages.
Zerogrammi
FONDERIA39 (It)
Fondazione Nazionale della Danza (It)
Theater Osnabrueck (D)
Agorà Coaching Project (It)
Teatro Nuovo Torino (It)
CASA LUFT
Regione Piemonte
Ministero della Cultura
STATUS: archive
FIELDS: contemporary dance / physical theatre / dramaturgical research / myth / emotional memory
ACTIVATABLE FORMATS: performance / theatrical creation / workshop practice / public encounter
ACTIVATION CONTEXTS: theatres / festivals / unconventional spaces / contemporary performance series / artistic research contexts
AUDIENCES: general audiences / contemporary audiences / students / artistic communities
MODES: indoor / site-sensitive / adaptable
DURATION: variable depending on the chapter and configuration
LANGUAGES: Italian / non-verbal
PARTNERS: festivals / cultural institutions / co-producers / artistic networks
AVAILABLE MATERIALS: dossier / teaser / gallery / press materials














