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<age>
ph: Bruno Leggieri
ph: Camilla Caselli
ph: Nicola Galli
ph: Bruno Leggieri
direction and choreography:
Francesca Pennini
dramaturg:
Angelo Pedroni, Francesca Pennini
action and creation:
Nicola Cipriano
Piero Cocca
Francesco Gelli
Giulio Mano
Beatrice Monesi
Alice Ada Petrini
Nicole Raisa
Sofia Russo
Adele Verri
organization:
Matilde Buzzoni
Carmine Parise
co-production:
CollettivO CineticO
fondation Romaeuropa
centrale Fies Art Work Space
fondation Sipario Toscana
with the support of:
Goldonetta Firenze
Ferrara Off Teatro
fondation Armunia
L'Arboreto Teatro Dimora di Mondaino
partner VISIONI project:
ATER fondation
ERT Emilia Romagna Teatro fondation / National Theater- focus CARNE
Festival Bonsai / Ferrara Off Teatro
Fondation I Teatri
BMotion
Agorà Bologna
with the support of:
MIBAC
Regione Emilia-Romagna
winner of:
Call Ripensando Cage 2012
Award Jurislav Korenić for the best direction at Festival Internazionale MESS of Sarajevo
The project <age> left an indelible mark on the theatrical landscape, in the history of CollettivO CineticO, and on the young people who participated. What is revealed on stage are examples of young humans, between the ages of 15 and 18, straddling that alchemical threshold of adulthood. They tell their stories, they define themselves without ever being complete, they seek themselves with every step, handling the iridescent matter of reality. They enter the stage without knowing what will happen each night, without knowing exactly who they are, but continuing to bring themselves into focus and, in doing so, bringing us into focus. We observe them like passionate ethologists and in turn transform into teenagers, into parents, into ourselves.
What emerges is not only an incandescent portrait of a sample of humanity, but also a litmus test of the present, with its vertigo and cracks, its contradictions and its burning poetry. For this reason, we promised ourselves we would do it again, after at least ten years, in a radically changed world.
It was 2012, and those teenagers are now teachers, architects, unemployed, Ubu Prize winners, married, artists, lawyers, emigrants... always and in any case, kinetic.
A new <age> is born in 2024.
And we can't wait to see it.
The project <age> continues the research on the uncertainty principle and the systems of rules typical of games.
The performers are teen-agers, just before or after the threshold of 18 years old.
In this particular and ephemeral time span the relationship with the concept of rule (both socially and legally) is extremely specific and constantly shifting.
A teen-ager is biologically and chemically programmed to be a risktaker and therefore it’s the ideal candidate to be a performer in the ludic, uncertain and regulated environment of a theatre stage.
The piece is structured as a “human atlas”, a live taxonomy of the performers.
Each performative event is different from the others, it cannot be rehearsed and it constantly presents unpredictable reactions generating an atmosphere of high intensity and subtle irony.
"Yes, but what does happen in <age>? In addition to the actions themselves, generated by the observation of the peculiarities of each "specimen" what we see is an exposure - and perhaps this is what more disarm us - not so much to the eye as to the thoughts of the audience. This is a generosity as intense as it is clear that in <age> the image is not a sealed fetish, but a vibration to resonate with, a porosity to approach with respect and decency. It is with the strength of a tacit moral lesson that these teenagers share fragility and desires, inviting us to suspend any judgment to be open, us too, to life. They remind us how powerful can be an encounter: not only the one between them and a choreographer that is just a decade older, but also between them and us, anonymous observers in the darkness of the room, we foo every night different."
[ Andrea Nanni ]
"In <age>, a sharp tribute to the American composer, there are nine "kamikaze teenagers" that perform live, relying on a mechanism of carefully structured improvisation, a variety of daily activities, or better of "exposures". Nine touching, funny, evocative though extremely human (or rather, precisely because extremely human) specimens of a wild-eyed medieval bestiary. A fantastic taxonomy à la Borges, a catalog of every day wonders. Main merit of this "training of the viral criminality of performative practices" is therefore being an invitation, light and firm, gentle and ferocious, to find a gaze authentically, revolutionary epiphanic. "Sometimes there's no need to invent a world", seem to tell us the precious artists of CollettivO CineticO. The world is there, and you just need to watch it."
[ Michele Pascarella - Gagarin ]
"It's immediately evident the ability to touch the invisible substance of adolescence: its glories, its
marginalization, its cracks, its' sometimes impossible - exhausting research of equilibrium, its metamorphosis. A surprising and poetic palette is drawn, where video game and tenderness, aggression and sweetness, bullyism and gender reflection, love and courage, the test, the adventure, the desire, the charm, the exaltation, the skills, the confidence, the geometry and a barbaric, withheld, exposed poetry coexist and are painted on the faces, on the gestures, on different human types: fough, soft, frightened, "losers", fearless ... Francesca Pennini and Angelo Pedroni create a masterpiece of sensitivity and intelligence, a mirror of the generation that the later in life consider an indecipherable mystery. They do not provide easy access key: they accumulate masks and it's known that in the mask is hidden, sometimes immediately visible, the depth. They offer fantastic, delicate, sharp flashes of inspirations."
[ Massimo Marino - Corriere di Bologna ]
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