Physical landscape: a performance on the role of the body

A unique contemporary dance performance with eight professional dancers from Cyprus and abroad, closes off the series of parallel events of the Larnaca Biennale 2021. Titled Physical Landscape, Larnaca Biennale and Tina Agency present a choreographic project and performance by Federica Dauri this Sunday.

During this year’s Larnaca Biennale the Italian performance artist, choreographer and dancer Dauri led a 10-day workshop with eight local and international professional dancers that finishes with this upcoming performance, that will reflect on the meaning of the body not only on a personal level but on a social level. Larnaca Municipal Theatre will host the performance which was inspired by various reflections about the role of the body in the complex moments of the pandemic.

In this long period of absence from performative and scenic practice, Federica Dauri reflected a lot on the function of the body during such a peculiar and alien time. The image of those solitary bodies relegated to their homes, dead bodies, the distant bodies seen as a threat, lived in private and deprived of any contact. “Are the bodies an extraordinary and complex machine that keeps human beings alive and allows them to perform actions,” ponders the project, “or the vehicle through which they express what they are?”

“Bodies are objects,” the organisers say, “not only mechanical and not only personal or subjective but above all social. Bodies are sensitive, they are memory, they are time and flesh, they are material and immaterial. Finally, bodies are also the surface of the indelible signs of the passage of time and the history of each person is inscribed on.”

The idea to hold this workshop and performance stems from the International Platform for Emerging Development which was originated during OPENFLR, a project that was created and directed by Valeria Cosi and Giacomo Della Marina between 2013 and 2017 in Florence. A 10-day residency where a choreographer meets local and international young professional performers and, working on the Larnaca Biennale Theme of Limitless Limits, develops a first choreographic capsule. This Sunday, the final result of this project will be presented and following the performance, a round table conversation will take place between the audience, the choreographer, and the participants regarding the workshop and the whole creative process.

Physical Landscape

Performance conceptualized by Italian performance artist, choreographer and dancer Federica Dauri. November 21. Larnaca Municipal Theatre, Larnaca. 8pm. €10. Tel: 99-403010. www.onceinabluemoon.eu