Aridità

A female body, parched like arid land, takes the form of a stone sculpted by river currents in an ancient ritual. The body is a vessel of power and fragility, exposing its strength and vulnerability.

Aridità explores the ancestral relationship between the female body and the Earth through dance, photography, and live sound. Inspired by Maria Gimbutas's studies on the Mother Goddess, the choreographic language emerges from the physical relationship between the performer and a stone collected on the riverbank. The stone becomes the symbolic centre of the body, shaping its movements. Breath becomes sound and voice evolves from a guttural cry to a lament sung in Friulian, a dialect from northern Italy.

A soundscape emerges from the interplay of dense silences and live sounds produced by the performer alongside Sébastien Béranger's original composition. A succession of scenic tableaux follows the body's continuous metamorphosis as it interacts with the stone, projected images and light.

The piece evokes lost rituals, transforming the performance space into a sacred, temporary territory where the audience becomes part of a collective rite of reconnection.

Trailer

Full Performance

Aridità is the result of research on the female body as a symbolic territory, exploring themes of transformation, resilience and ancestral connection with Earth. The performance draws on Maria Gimbutas's studies of the Mother-Goddess sculptures and testimonies of matriarchal societies centred on terrestrial fertility and feminine wisdom.

The vocal dimension incorporates a piece in Friulian that has its roots in an ancient pagan rain-invocation ritual, which was later banned by the Church as it was considered to be witchcraft. This vocal element links the physical dimension to oral traditions that were suppressed and erased from the collective memory.

In this vision, the stone — the bone of the Earth — becomes a dance partner, a catalyst for memory and a symbolic bridge between present and ancestral. Spectators witness an intimate journey that progressively opens into a ritual experience. The project is situated within contemporary European research on body-nature and cultural decolonization.