Improvisation – Federica Porello

OBJECTS DANCE
Improvisation workshop

“We don’t play with things nor with images, we play with objects that at the same time bend and resist to our desires. We are with them in a state of union and separation. To play with things is to be in union with them in the very place of our separation”.
Francis Ponge

Object dance is based in the inter-relation between objects and movement. A dialogue between the physical properties of objects (texture, form, weight), and a vocabulary of actions from which the dance emerge. The “things” with which we’ll work are objects without history nor meaning (pieces of wood, threads, elastics…), that have the capacity to give us a tangible experience of connecting with others, to expand our notion and perception of our individual body and to reveal stories and meanings thanks to their connection to the body and movement.
The workshop proposes tools for improvisation based on listening to the rhythms of each body and exploring the range of physical possibilities in relation to muscle tone, articulation, dynamics of movement, fragmentation of the actions of the individual body and the “group body”.
The objects will be our partners, an extension of our bodies and our landscape.

Ages: 14+
Level: All

Photo credit:

Federica Porello

(Genova, 1981)
Federica Porellois a dancer and pedagogue based in Catalunya. She studied at P.A.R.T.S. (Performing Arts Research and Training Studios) in Brussels. After finishing her education in 2006, she worked with the choreographer Marlene Freitas, the theatre company Tg STAN, the visual artist Anne Katherine Dolven, the puppeteer Merlin Borg, the choreographer Albert Quesada, and the shadow theater company Le Théâtre de Nuit. In 2012 she co-founded the Group LaBolsa, with seven independent artists who shared complementary concerns towards movement investigation and staging improvisation. In 2013, she joins the Catalan company Mal Pelo as interpreter and artistic assistant; in 2016 the company ZOO/Thomas Hauert, while regularly developing collaborations with dancers and musicians for the creation of interdisciplinary performances. In her work she investigates hybrid performative languages, linking movement improvisation and objects manipulation. This research brought to the development of the Objects Dance, a set of tools for improvising with objects, and the creation of the trio performance WeWood, the solo Nowhen, and the quartet VICINI. The last one is strongly influenced by the desire to explore how a poetic gesture can have a political impact, and how to use dance as a means of expression and resistance.