by Nicolò Abbattista and Christian Consalvo

supported by OPLAS/Centro Regionale Danza Umbria and “theWorkRoom”, a project by Fattoria Vittadini and Fondazione Milano

"You couldn't know, you couldn't understand, you couldn't appreciate. I had no right to expect it of you at all."

Oscar Wilde poet

“O” tells of an encounter, which is redefined each time according to its interpreters.

The two people on stage are divided by a soccer ball. They are two men, the teacher and the pupil, the adult and the young man, the expert and the shrewd. They are two strangers, in love. Together they discover each other in the other’s eyes. They go through desire, prohibition, mistake and what is politically incorrect. They observe and study each other, developing a relationship that grows through play, eroticism and aggression.

The aggressive and virile movements are transformed into a danced dialogue between the bodies. They begin to discover the other in a progressive abandonment that redefines the balance and leads to a frantic dance in which the poor ego becomes the cause of the loss of the relationship control, which ends up, in front of the audience, in a slow-dancing that consumes, extinguishes and strip them.

“O” is the representation of a love which struggle to discover the mutual identities on a football field, due to the tacit agreement that football is a heterosexual’s sport only. A taboo that arises from the widespread mentality that imposes a standardized attitude on those who are part of a locker-room. They have to show their heterosexuality, with no alternatives. Those who do not are sidelined.

“O” is a meeting, any meeting, between any two people.

YEAR
2018

CHOREOGRAPHER
NICOLÒ ABBATTISTA

DRAMATURG
CHRISTIAN CONSALVO

MUSIC
Goldmund, Yma Sumak

DURATION 17” 

WITH
Manolo Perazzi and Gioele Cosentino

ORIGINAL CAST
Samuele Arisci and Salvatore Sciancalepore

PREMIERE
November 18th, 2018 @ MAT Laboratorio Urbano – Terlizzi (BA)

OTHER PERFORMANCES:
  • November 5th, 2023 @ Galleria Toledo (COMBO Festival) – Naples
  • October 15th, 2023 @ Spaziò Agorà (Festival Corrispondenze) – Ladispoli (RM)
  • April 28th and 29th, 2023 @ The Studio – Edinburgh (UK)
  • August 20th, 2022 @ Uferstudios (Platform14) – Berlin, Germany
  • May 20th, 2022 @ Auditorium di Piazza Libertà (Festival Up To You) – Bergamo
  • October 18th, 2021 @ Laboratorio Urbano Rigenera (A Maglie Larghe 2021) – Palo del Colle (BA)
  • October 9th, 2021 @ CineTeatro San Filippo Neri (Vuoti d’Aria 2021) – San Benedetto del Tronto (AP)
  • September 23rd, 2021 @ Teatro degli Atti (Festival Sopravvissuti 2021) – Rimini
  • July 31st, 2021 @ Polo Museale Santo Spirito (FLIC Festival 2021) – Lanciano (CH)
  • February 22nd, 2020 @ Klub Żak (Gdansk Dance Festival / Winter) – Gdansk, Poland
  • September 29th, 2019 @ Spazio Diamante (Premio inDivenire) – Rome
  • July 25th, 2019 @ Largo Giacomo Leopardi – Matera
  • April 5th, 2019 @ Nuovo Teatro delle Commedie – Livorno
  • February 27th, 2019 @ Teatro Abeliano – Bari
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