Symbiosis Rituals

Italian sound artist, Olimpia Fortuni and dancer/choreographer, Katatonic Silentio perform 'X' at 1F Projects in Manila on October 20, 2023.

Olimpia Fortuni, dancer and choreographer, and Katatonic Silentio (Mariachiara Troianiello), artist, performer and sound researcher, are the two creators of this journey between music and dance. The show is inspired by the shamanic tradition, the form of spirituality with the most ancient origins, a practice that does not end with a cult or a religion but is rather a tool for greater awareness and a deeper connection with oneself, nature and others. The central figure is Artemis who embodies the archetype of the independent, tenacious and at the same time reflective, intuitive, and passionate woman.

Sound, body, movement, natural and artificial architectures are tools for this compositional performance. The title “X” represents the symbol whose crossed lines are the bridge to communicate with each other. It is a journey in which the performers, in the role of researchers/explorers, accompany the audience to another place for a sensory experience towards their inner world.

The encounter of the female characters – priestesses/warriors, marks the moment in which music and dance, complementary since mankind has existed, become the key to accessing a universe in which one awakens from spiritual slumber: the gaze returns within us.

(The text above was taken from ASEF Culture360)

Credits

concept Olimpia Fortuni

music/sound engineering Katatonic Silentio

performed by Olimpia Fortuni, Katatonic Silentio

study of shamanic practices Corinna Ciulli

co-producted by Sosta Palmizi, Fondazione Fabbrica Europa

residency support Olinda/TeatroLaCucina

poster by Chloe O (IG: @cloathes_studio)

- taken from original photograph provided by Sosta Palmizi production and Fabbrica Europea

Director's notes 

The creation is nourished by the shamanic tradition, one of the most ancient forms of spirituality, a practice that is not limited to a cult or religion, but it is rather a tool for greater awareness and a deeper connection with oneself, Nature, and the Others.

In “X” the symbology that inspires the research emerges clearly: Artemis, the Greek goddess of the hunt and personification of the Moon, roams the forests and fields equipped with arches and quivers. In the archetypal imaginary, Artemis represents the predisposition to equal relationships with men, solidarity between women, and the ability to pursue a goal and accept a challenge. More fundamentally, she embodies the archetype of the psychologically independent, tenacious and at the same time reflective, intuitive, and passionate woman;

the moon, the archetype of the Great Mother, the most natural and instinctive part of the “feminine”;

the cardinal directions, the sound represents the pin of a compass needle and the dancer, following it, explores the space created by the music heading towards the four cardinal points that have been experienced during shamanic journeys: the Spirit of the North, of the South, of the West and of the East.

The conscious shamanic practices are inducing to the awakening from everybody’s spiritual numbness, answering to questions and healing the path of every single individual: they lead to look inward. Clearly, this numbness has been brought about by urbanization, by a detachment from nature and animals, and by a society that tends to suppress the spiritual and collective aspects of humankind favoring instead the individualistic, materialistic, and productivity-enhancing aspects of life.

Music has the great power of making the inner gaze immediate, carrying out an investigation and a critical analysis of the assumptions behind the truth. In “X”, the sound is the protagonist and the dancer’s body is just “a” body that is more prepared to assist the viewer to feel… The audience shall trust the experience they are about to receive avoiding any rationalization, but rather taking advantage of this moment to let their thoughts rest and nourish their spirit.

(The text above was taken from Sosta Palmizi)

Olimpia Fortuni is a dancer and choreographer. She graduated as a dancer at the Civica Scuola di Teatro Paolo Grassi in Milan and at the two-year course “Scritture per la danza contemporanea” directed by Raffella Giordano. She has presented her work as a choreographer since 2014 in numerous dance festivals in Italy and abroad. She is associate artist of Sosta Palmizi and collaborates as an artist on projects of various nature and duration for the brand RRUNA, which tells about art through fashion. Starting from the body, her research has been based for years on the study of time as a quality of movement and on the observation of the relationship between human beings, nature and animal which are the central themes of her creations.

Sound artist, live performer and independent researcher in sonic and performing arts and media studies, Katatonic Silentio explores the fields of electronic and experimental music with a unique approach to sound design, releasing music on numerous national and international labels and performing at venues and festivals across Europe. She is also active as an independent researcher: her practice converges halfway between sound and performing arts. Her sharp curiosity for cultural studies, combined with a strong passion for music, has led her to approach the world of sound with a sociological and anthropological methodology.

(The text above was taken from Fabria Europa) 

OTHER FEATURED ARTISTS

Pablo Bermudez (Video Art)

Pablo Bermudez was born in 1988 in Pereira, Colombia. He moved to Barcelona in 1998 and to Como (Italy) in 2002, where he currently lives. He studied at the Accademia di Belle Arti Aldo Galli – IED Como.

In 2013, Pablo created his first “Sottovuoto.” Sottovuoto is the process of placing the pages of magazines inside a vacuum (the process of placing an object in a bag and extracting the air within) a method he uses for his many works. Pablo handpicks images from magazines, particularly fashion and advertisements that feature the glossy faces of models to represent ephemeral beauty. Once vacuumed and crumpled, it creates a sculptural piece following the form it was folded into before being vacuumed. Sottovuoto was first introduced during his first solo show “Senzafiato”, at the Spazio Pedraglio, 2014. This exhibit, not only introduces sottovuoto, but also allows the artist to explore other ways to show the fleeting beauty of an image by distorting and lacerating the pages of the magazine with a scalpel blade.

Pablo is the founding member and main curator of B-house Art Company, an organization that focuses on developing marketing and branding strategies applied to the art world.

- Modeka Art

Seething Mass

Seething Mass are Manila-based, sound and visual artists Caliph8 and Nonplus. They met in the mid 90s while in art school, sharing their deep interest with crate-digging, graffiti, hiphop and other forms of artistic expression – later engaging in visual and sonic experiments and performances, developing a creative language that deal with ideas of merging, hybridity and their transformative implications.

Maia Reyes aka Nonplus is one of the few consistent female sonic experimenters and DJs in the Manila experimental sound community since the mid 90’s. Her work with sound, is a globally scaled montage of past sensibilities and strange tonal and rhythmic vocabularies that result in new cultural hybrids and intentional sonic anomalies where sound processing and composition play a huge part that fuels her live performances and DJ sets.

Caliph8 aka Arvin Nogueras is a sound and visual artist since the mid 90’s. Nogueras delves into sample-based granular synthesis using sound archives, where he treats samples beyond their ontological status. Rather, treating it as a part of history, wherein he dives deep into genres from the past – manipulating and shaping them to produce a rhizome-like outcome of obstacles and possibilities.

As Seething Mass, they both examine free form improvisation – combining sound manipulation techniques with prepared gear or objects with other recorded or sampled sounds where ideas of tension, summing and resolution all interweave. This allows them to scavenge for new meaning within the pronounced yet cryptic dialogue between existing ideas and encountering new ones accidentally in that given moment.

- Auspic Paper, 2021 (for TheCube Forum Music Festival)