SUSPENDED CHORUS
Isadora Duncan said that ‘the gesture is born from desire’.
Which desires move our bodies?
In which forms do we cage them?
In which judgements?
How can we revolutionise our gaze on the bodies?
In the solo SUSPENDED CHORUS, choreographer Silvia Gribaudi takes the stage all by herself. But she is not alone. From her desire for collectivity and togetherness the work revolves around a renewed dialogue with the audience. Acknowledging the space that both she and the audience inhabit, spectators are invited to transform themselves into a suspended, fluctuating, plural and necessary chorus. They become an essential part of the work. Influenced by female dance pioneers like Pina Bausch, Isadora Duncan and Anna Pavlova, Gribaudi reveals the limits of her 50+-year-old body and finds joy in the potential of it.
SUSPENDED CHORUS deconstructs modern codes of beauty and highlights the mortality of the individual human body while celebrating the power of the collective. We’re all in this together.
DIRECTOR’S NOTE
“The research behind the SUSPENDED CHORUS project originates from the need to find myself experiencing the empty stage alone, to focus on the bare relationship between performer and audience. I would like to deepen the relationship that arises between the temporary communities that are created during each performative act. This is intertwined with the urgency of some questions that I seek answers to: how can a dance influence the world we inhabit? How, and from what, does the potential and ability to influence each other as human beings arise? What relationship exists between dancing and generating pleasure? How can an individual impulse become collective and generate chorality? I would like to start by studying the experiences of some of the dance pioneers of the early 1900s such as Anna Pavlova, Isadora Duncan and Truda Kaschmann.
What these dancers have in common, despite their
different cultural origins and historical periods, is that they challenged conventions and influenced the society of their times. They revolutionised, subverted codes and created a new dance that opened new spaces of freedom.
Today, what revolution is needed?
Can dance create a space for collective exploration and transformation?
In SUSPENDED CHORUS, I want to experiment how empathy can be translated into choreography. The audience becomes a ‘chorus’ without scripts or scores, in an active and improvised relationship with those who perform. A chorus that can inhabit the subtle dialogue of ‘empty’ spaces, of silence, of hesitation and suspension. I want to create an indefinite choreography that comes to completion only through the interaction with those who came to the theatre that evening. A composition that, by interweaving empathy with humour, questions social conventions and stereotypes through an act of revolution, because in theatre we can train to be a metaphor for the societies we want to build.”
credits
concept, direction, choreography, dance Silvia Gribaudi
co-direction and video Matteo Maffesanti
assistant choreographer Andrea Rampazzo
music Matteo Franceschini
light design Luca Serafini
styling Ettore Lombardi
dramaturgical consultant Annette Van Zwoll
artistic consultants Camilla Guarino, Giuseppe Comuniello
technical advice Leonardo Benetollo
creative producer Mauro Danesi
production Associazione Culturale Zebra (IT)
coproduction Teatro Stabile di Torino – Teatro Nazionale (IT), La Corte Ospitale/Regione Emilia Romagna (IT), Rum för Dans (SE), Le Gymnase CDCN – Roubaix (FR), What You See Festival (NL)
with the collaboration and support of Operaestate Festival Veneto (IT)
with the support of MiC – Ministero della Cultura, Italian Ministry of Culture
duration 60′
Silvia Gribaudi is associate artist at Le Gymnase CDCN Roubaix (2024 – 2026) and at Teatro Stabile di Torino – Teatro Nazionale (2025-2027)
