SPELLBOUND EVENT

Small Crime | The Hesitation Day | Mysterious Engine | Lost For Words studio III

SMALL CRIME
Choreography Mauro Astolfi
Music Jonny Greenwood, Nils Frahm
Performers Maria Cossu, Giovanni La Rocca
Renouncing pride creates miracles
A Spellbound production with the contribution by the Ministry of Culture and Turism,
world premiere A.P.A.P. conference New York/January 2015, City Center

“Small Crime” it happens by chance, unfortunately it often needs to be masked by interest… it happens every time you seek, with any amount of force, to enter a person’s life…stubbornly attempting to get their attention. The second small crime, the one which often permanently ruins our lives, is a direct consequence of the first… which happens when a person who has been rejected at one point in their life, seeks revenge, ignoring and refusing to recognise the same person who was at the center of their thoughts. In some cases, renouncing pride… creates miracles.

THE HESITATION DAY
Choreography Mauro Astolfi
Music Norn, Amon Tobin
Dancers Fabio Cavallo, Giacomo Todeschi, Mario Laterza, Giovanni La Rocca
Lighting Design Marco Policastro
A Spellbound production with the subsidy of the Ministry of The Heritage and Culture in
cooperation with The Egg Albany/NY.
World premiere October 23, 2015-The Egg/Albany, NY

Hesitation day is that day in which action, thinking and judgment are temporarily suspended.
A precious moment in which we take a fresh start, we try to remember what we want to
accomplish in this world. In its etymological sense, “hesitate” also means to carry something towards a destination… The dual and apparently, opposite meaning of the word has been the inspiration of this work… sometimes, despite our inability to decide, our inputs disperse and somehow, someone will receive them in a way or another. Someone will understand us. To most of the people, we will remain unreadable and hard to follow, to those who will be able to only perceive through this work a permanent movement and not just what starts and ends the action.
Mauro Astolfi

MYSTERIOUS ENGINE … or the need for authenticity
Choreography Mauro Astolfi
Music AGF, Rachel’s
Dancers Caterina Politi, Giuliana Mele, Giacomo Todeschi, Fabio Cavallo
A Spellbound production with the support of the Ministry of Heritage and Culture
World Premiere, Roma 4 jan 2017

ME is the first of a new two-part creation exploring the human condition and our lack of freedom. Over time, our purpose as humans becomes impervious and frequently shifts, and as a result of these changes, at a certain point, we lose contact with colours, sounds and words.
We need to use our bodies to recalibrate ourselves, with our own dismantled and disorganized movements, to recreate a navigable and clear way forward. We need to rekindle the condition for an internal freedom and defend it from unfettered instincts, striving to remain in control of our own desires rather than having our lives shaped by them. The ability to make such a choice brings our search for freedom into the real world.
ME focuses its search on the factors which can widen our field of vision to take in everything surrounding us: skin, bones, a beating heart – everything morphs into something other than what it used to be and becomes an incredible driving force which works in an entirely different way. Another small step towards discovering freedom comes in losing one’s self in the mystery of how we work, and never taking anything entirely for granted.

LOST FOR WORDS/The Invasion of Empty Words- Act III
Direction and choreography Mauro Astolfi
Dancers Maria Cossu, Mario Laterza, Giuliana Mele, Caterina Politi, Giovanni La Rocca,
Giacomo Todeschi, Serena Zaccagnini, Alice Colombo, Fabio Cavallo
Music
Original Composition by Carlo Alfano
Music by Michal Jacaszek
Light designer Marco Policastro
“Lost For Words” is a Spellbound production in collaboration with Avvertenze Generali 2011,
Amat Civitanova Danza 2012, with contribution from the Ministry of Heritage and Cultural Activity and Regione Lazio, restaged for Vancouver Chutzpah !Festival, February 2016

“Defeated by an invasion of empty words… Initially, the body tries to resist, but eventually gives in even though it sees that many others merely pretend to understand and agree. Dialectic projects and various slogans invade the language and hinder the mind and its work… At this point, the body must find the strength and power to free itself from these empty words, movement becomes something mixed with people and finds out that behind most of them… there is nothing…
Lost For Words study III is the final act of the trilogy, a process of the “spoken system” and distorted human relationships… the refusal to accept and consider how reliable a confession, a testimony can be. Those questioned will not speak, offering only answers to questions not asked, real, truthful answers…
The third act recounts the attempt to regain the power of words, as if to return to the fundamental teachings of the Egyptian spiritual master Ptahhopte, which stated “In order to become strong, we must first become an artist of the word; because the strength of man is in words, and words are stronger than any weapon”… Lost For Words study III does not contradict the “spirit” and the suggestion of its first two acts, but tries to reconnect to the word to a pure and direct meaning… A language not confused with another meaning.” Mauro Astolfi