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JENTU

ARCHIVIO

STEFANO MAZZOTTA

// ZEROGRAMMI

JENTU

]

UNO SPETTACOLO, UN PROGETTO DI RICERCA COREOGRAFICA, UN PROGETTO FOTOGRAFICO

[

A project freely inspired by Don Quixote: a choreographic research on desire, persistence, and the constant tension between reality and imagination.

Through body and movement, the project traverses the fragile boundary between madness and vision, questioning the deeply human need to continue searching for meaning, beauty, and possibility even within a disillusioned world.

  • “Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.”
    — Samuel Beckett

    JENTU originates from an encounter with the poetic universe of Don Quixote, approached not merely as a literary reference but as a symbolic device capable of questioning the present.

    The figure of the wandering knight becomes an image of fragility and resistance, of the stubborn desire to transform reality through imagination. JENTU looks at Don Quixote as a body out of alignment with the world, constantly suspended between vision and collapse, momentum and defeat.

    The project’s imagery is nourished by wind-swept landscapes, open territories, wandering, mirages, and continuous perceptual transformations. The wind — jentu — becomes an invisible presence (much like Don Quixote’s giants/windmills), accompanying the journey and serving as a metaphor for what drives human desire beyond the limits of reality.

    The research engages with themes of utopia, disillusionment, and the ability to continue imagining possible worlds even within the precariousness of existence.

  • Jentu develops through a physical and dramaturgical research process built around themes of crossing, imbalance, and the tension toward elsewhere.

    The creative process intertwines dance, relationship with space, and the construction of poetic images capable of evoking the wandering dimension of the Quixotic journey. The body is pushed toward states of instability and transformation, allowing fragility, momentum, and possibilities of resistance to emerge.

    Over time, the project has taken on different performative and site-specific configurations, adapting to the hosting contexts while maintaining a strong relationship with the landscape and with the proximity of the audience.

    The research continues to engage with the theme of dreaming as a form of poetic and political resistance, questioning the contemporary necessity of imagining new possibilities for shared existence.

  • JENTU
    2016
    SPETTACOLO // TEATRO E SITE SPECIFIC
    ARCHIVIO
    STEFANO MAZZOTTA
    JENTU
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  • Zerogrammi

    Pim Off

    CASA LUFT

    Villa Cultura

    Tersicorea T.Off

    Regione Piemonte

    Ministero della Cultura

  • JENTU // teaser

    VIDEO

    JENTU // teaser
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    JENTU // teaser#4

    VIDEO

    JENTU // teaser#4
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    JENTU // IN SCENA

    FOTO

    JENTU // IN SCENA
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  • STATUS: archive
    FIELDS: contemporary dance / literature / poetic research / landscape / imagination
    ACTIVATABLE FORMATS:
    ACTIVATION CONTEXTS: theatres / festivals / outdoor settings / contemporary research contexts
    AUDIENCES: general audiences / young audiences / students / cultural communities
    MODES: indoor / outdoor / adaptable / site-sensitive
    DURATION: variable depending on the format
    LANGUAGES: Italian / non-verbal
    PARTNERS: festivals / cultural institutions / territorial networks
    AVAILABLE MATERIALS: dossier / gallery / teaser / video / press kit

“(...) Quite simply, it is the journey toward one’s aspirations, passions, and beauty. Thus the two protagonists of Jentu try, fail, and begin again, never losing heart. Modern-day Don Quixotes, contemporary anti-heroes pursuing their ideals, travelling together, side by side, encouraging one another. It is within this poetic metaphor of the journey and of refusing to surrender to the world that the success of Jentu resides (...)”— Maria Luisa Buzzi, DANZA&DANZA


“(...) a story unfolding in stages, composed of powerful gestures and broad dancing steps, almost stretched and pulled like elastic from a window — a place of encounters and departures. The hidalgo is an anti-hero, battling illusions, glory, and worldly power. In its rounded and accomplished form, Jentu succeeds in narrating all of this with poetry. (...)”— Marinella Guatterini, Il Sole 24 Ore


“(...) The choreographies conceived by Stefano Mazzotta evoke different emotional states, offering themselves to both the eyes and the hearts of those who watch.”— Miriam Arensi, La Voce


“(...) The fluid score of contacts and lifts, of complicity and brotherhood (how rare it is to see a duo that does not evoke love between man and woman!) alternates with melancholic moments of suspension at the window: as though reality, impossible to ignore, always ended up calling the two heroes back to itself. And even if Chiara/Sancho never stops urging on her knight (‘get up! run! fight!’), Stefano/Don Quixote, after hanging his coat on the hook, walks away. Outside the stage, after all, it is far more difficult to give shape to dreams.”— Maddalena Giovannelli, Stratagemmi


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