© Andrea Macchia
A major thank you to all who attended Orsolina28 Art Foundation’s Focus on Creation summer festival this year. We invite you to return next summer for the upcoming edition of Focus on Creation, as we continue to support young international artists in the field of contemporary dance.
Orsolina28 Art Foundation is committed to developing a new vision of the relationship between creativity, talent support and social regeneration.
All net proceeds from commercial activities are donated to support the projects of Orsolina28 Art Foundation.
Saturday, June 4 – Call for Creation
Corrupt(ed) – Madison Hicks
Ordinary – Marco di Nardo & Juan Tirado, Frantics Dance Company
Corrupt(ed) – Madison Hicks
Corrupt(ed) studies the relationship dynamics of two female identifying people. It explores the many stages to a toxic relationship. It was inspired by studying and observing relationship dynamics in American society. This work will be challenging gender norms along with work, family, and romantic relationship dynamics. Together, we will create an expansion on “Corrupt(ed)” that amplifies the toxicity of relationships in America. I will treat this work as a magnifying glass on relationships of all kinds, specifically focusing on the traumas we carry in and out within our bubble of society.
Ordinary – Marco di Nardo & Juan Tirado, Frantics Dance Company
Reality is anything we can perceive using one or more of the five senses: taste, smell, touch, hearing, and sight. It is possible, that reality is merely an ultra-high-tech computer simulation. All research is based on the “Simulation Theory” by the Swedish philosopher Nick Bostrom. The idea behind this is how two human beings can fight, love and be loved, discuss and communicate the one with the other. The piece has deep research into how human beings are challenged from the environment where they are created, and how they find a way to deal with a basic problem of all the selfishness that characterize our species. DO WE LIVE IN A SIMULATION? The question has been hotly debated since the Enlightenment period. There is no definitive answer, but simulation theory posits the universe as we know it is an advanced digital construct overseen by some higher form of intelligence.
Saturday, June 11 – Call for Creation
Looking for Totoro - Danae & Dionysios
Hunger - Mike Tyus
Looking for Totoro - Danae & Dionysios
aims on spreading contemporary dance to isolated communities, located away from urban centres. Inspired by Hayao Miyazaki’s movies “Princess Mononoke” and “My Neighbour Totoro”, it will reflect a mysterious but friendly, magical yet familiar creature, and approach the youngest in order to move their curiosity to meet it. This unusual creature will transform the atmosphere by adding a dreamy and magical dimension, while dance and movement will still remain the main focus of the performance. By adopting the same principals as in Miyazaki’s films, we want “Looking for Totoro” to be an opportunity to create fantastic worlds which echo the problems of ours. A simple but powerful narrative, leaving viewers contemplating important issues and resonating emotionally with the audience. We want to use our art to influence the younger generations and bring them closer to a conversation about environmental issues. To arise the most vital question: how can we inspire the youngest? Our aim with “Looking for Totoro” is by understanding the reasons why we have reached a point of crisis, a need for balance between the young generation and nature is more than needed.
Hunger - Mike Tyus
Hunger explores human sexuality and relationships through the language of movement. Within every human relationship a carnal and primitive instinct exists, irrepressible, untamed, animal in nature. The fairytale version of relationships does no longer hold true: there has been a shift in narrative and an uncovering of what is actually real. There is a constant juxtaposition within the relationship between pleasure and pain, joy and contempt, power and submission. Hunger explores the play between sex and food and the primitive need to consume and be consumed.
Saturday, June 25 – “Site specific” Preview
Rua da Saudade – Adriano Bolognino
Rua da Saudade - Adriano Bolognino
"Every Saudade is a transparent capsule, which seals and at the same time offers vision of what cannot be seen, what has been left behind, but is kept in one's heart." Saudade is the nostalgia for the future, the regret for the loss of time and the sorrow for the time to come. It is the pain of a moment in life that has ended, for being away from home. It is the lack of a lost friend, it is a latent disposition, that tomorrow will be conscious.
Saudade is a mood, a state of mind, that can perfectly be depicted through the infinite power of images. Bolognino's project was born from this set of emotions and sensations. Inspired by Fernando Pessoa and his four main literary personalities, four dancers on stage will play different heteronyms, each carrying his/her own biography and autonomous personality and having experienced his/her own, intimate form of Saudade. Everyone exists as an individual and in relation to others. Saudade, unlike nostalgia or loneliness, is not only experienced individually but collectively as well. Saudade faces the future, while it's perceived as uncertain but a desire that is full of hope that one does not yet possess.
Saturday, July 16 – Guest Artists and Student Open Sharing
Omen of Fárisa - Danae & Dionysios
Student Open Sharing - NUNES/FLOCK Creation Program
Omen of Fárisa - Danae & Dionysios
A duet created for outdoor spaces in the context of the “Pilgrims” umbrella. The work follows two characters’ need for connection and contact as they remain constantly in close intimacy. It is inspired by the notion of pilgrimage as a simulation of a journey through life, animals, and natural landscapes. How can two separate trajectories meet and travel together? How can relationships interact and support each other? How can the hierarchy of humans and animals be broken?
Student Open Sharing
NUNES/FLOCK Creation Program students will present an original work following their intensive with Juliano Nunes, Alice Klock, and Florian Lochner. In this one-week workshop, Juliano Nunes concentrates on the creative process, diving into pushing the boundaries of fusing classical ballet and contemporary dance. A new creation will emerge, serving as a path for dancers to discover their capabilities, focusing on rhythm, partnering, and group work. FLOCK dancer/choreographer duo Alice Klock and Florian Lochner focus on trust, communication, and the possibilities unlocked through equal partnership. FLOCK uses their unique approach to non-binary partnering to guide each dancer into new ways of understanding contact and their own physicality within the context of connection. Each participating artist is not asked to fit into a mold, but rather to fully express and explore their personal artistry and craft.
Saturday, July 23 – International guest
Icarus - Pontus Lidberg
Icarus - Pontus Lidberg
In Icarus, choreographer Pontus Lidberg daringly inserts a queer heart into classic Greek myths. It is the last part of a trilogy, inspired by liminal beings in Greek mythology who are caught in the paradox of being both human and not human, but also neither. Too human to be animals, but not human enough to be accepted as such, they live outside the bounds of society. The first two parts of the Trilogy, multi award-winning Siren (2018) and Centaur (2020), were based on definitional liminal beings who were born with the physical traits of their hybridity. Icarus, on the other hand, is inspired by a boy who was not born as a liminal being, but died as one.
Many people know Icarus as the youth who flew too high and so plunged to his death. In other words, he failed. In this third part of his Liminal Beings Trilogy, Lidberg draws on the stories of Daedelus, the master craftsman who sought to escape Crete with his son, Icarus, by building wings and flying away. Lidberg queers this arche- typal father-son relationship by imagining them as lovers. As such, the aesthetic center of Icarus—like in much of Lidberg’s work—is the relationship of two men, where the farewell is embedded in the first encounter.