The Italian Cultural Institute is pleased to announce the return of Artemis Danza to the United States for a three dates tour. Directed by Monica Casadei, Artemis Danza will present the contemporary theater and dance performance ViolatedBodies. The project brings to the stage the violated rights, abuse, violence and alienation which the least represented categories often encounter, including those who do not identify in the canonical gender definitions.

In ViolatedBodies there is a reminiscence of an opera, the Desdemona from Verdi’s Otello, retrieved from the past as a reminder of freedom and resourcefulness. The choreographer Monica Casadei is guided through the construction of the piece by the victims and their wounds. They become a symbol against rampant vulgarity and misogyny and a generalized hatred towards minorities manifested across all social classes.

In ViolatedBodies there is a teeming community of bodies, female and male, tightly held in the memory of a wound. Still open or healed, this wound reverberates on the scene in an non-stop dance nourished by impulses, instincts, anger and pain, in which overwhelming group dances are interspersed with duets and solos, and defenseless bodies are joined by the violent and ruthless bodies of attackers on which never falls a veil of pity at least until they themselves become victims.

Starting from the stories of victims of rape and abuse and from an improvisational work with the dancers, Casadei builds a show oscillating between raw realism and poetry dictated by a possible redemption.

On the musical side, Fabio Fiandrini‘s remix of electronic samples ebbs and flows throughout the story in melodrama and symphonic music. Arias and overtures from Verdi’s masterpieces such as La Forza del Destino or Otello in the sublime voices of sopranos Callas and Tebaldi are mixed with famous symphonies, Bach sonatas, melancholic pieces by Alva Noto and John Zorn and with the tremors of Julia Kent’s cello from Empty Spaces and Alexander Litvinosky’s Pelléas et Mélisande.

Performance run time: 80min
Age recommendation: 16+
Content guidance: This performance explores themes of violence and rape. Viewer discretion advised.

Choreography, direction, scenery, lights and costumes: Monica Casadei
Live Electronics: Fabio Fiandrini
Production: Artemis Danza/Monica Casadei
Co-production: Municipal Theater of Ferrara-Contemporary Dance Festival
In collaboration with: the Municipality of Rimini and Teatro Galli
With the contribution of Regione Emilia-Romagna-Assessorato alla Cultura e ATER Fondazione

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Tags: Artemis Danza, Italian Cultural Institute, Lakeview, Monica Casadei, The Athenaeum Theatre, ViolatedBodies