IN SHORT⟶ A figure immersed in the blackness of the stage. A choreography that fosters a dialogue between two artistic generations: Cristina Kristal Rizzo and the young deaf performer Diana Anselmo. By exceeding oralism, it becomes a monument to the creative and political power of LIS, Italian Sign Language.
Following its launch in 2022, Monumentum DA, a choreographic intertwining conceived by Cristina Kristal Rizzo, has evolved into a homage to the interaction with Diana Anselmo – a deaf performer bilingual in Italian and LIS, and an activist/co-founder of the Al.Di.Qua.Artists association.
“Monumentum” stands for memory, for documenting as well as forms of recognition. It is a treasured delivery from the past. Something that fixes the progression of the productive flow, weaving itself into the depths of memory and whilst all the time proposing anachronisms. The dialogue with Anselmo transforms the choreography and turns into a bodily language that amplifies the creative and poetic possibilities of Sign Language, alienated and marginalized as it is by phonocentric power processes. Throughout history, audism and oralism have attempted to abolish it as a living, corporeal language that does not speak of margins but of new forms.
The LIS and Diana Anselmo’s body display an archive documenting continuous dynamic and linguistic movements that allow us to tune into another idea of listening, one in which a politics of the body flows into its material vitality. The boundaries of the body which have become osmotic and full of transits open perception to different levels of memory, all ways to reconnect to a certain history.
The work is accessible for deaf audiences.
Cristina Kristal Rizzo is a dance creator based in Florence, and active on the Italian contemporary dance scene since the early Nineties. She is one of the founders of the historic Kinkaleri collective, and since 2008 has taken an independent path in choreographic production, directing her research towards a theoretical reflection with a strong dynamic impact, aimed at regenerating the act of creation and opening reflections on our present, establishing herself as one of the main personalities in Italian choreography.
Diana Anselmo is a performer, activist and improvisational human being. As a student in Theatre and Performing Arts at the IUAV in Venice, and during their three-year degree in Sociology, they begin to get to know the world of performing arts by working within it – and haven’t left it since then. Performer on their own but also with artists of the calibre of Xavier Le Roy, an activist on the issues of intersectional transqueerfeminism, president of Al.Di.Qua. Artists, the first European association of and for artists with disabilities. Anselmo is also the youngest member of the Cultural Advisory Board of the British Council.
Laura Pante is a dancer and PhD student in theatre theories and practices at the IUAV in Venice. Her study focuses on the theoretical and practical analysis of political relationships between thought and movement inherent to bodily techniques in the expanded conception of contemporary choreography. Her artistic research is actualised through choreographic devices, collaborative performative, curatorial, pedagogical and dramaturgical projects in which it is the knowledge of the body that stimulates new theoretical discourses and encourages the development of transdisciplinary practices through movement.
by Cristina Kristal Rizzo and Diana Anselmo
choreography Cristina Kristal Rizzo
performance Diana Anselmo and Cristina Kristal Rizzo
text curated by Cristina Kristal Rizzo, Diana Anselmo and Laura Pante on writings from Yvonne Rainer, John Cage, Simone Weil, Ilya Kaminsky and CKR
theoretical support Laura Pante, Sergio Lo Gatto
production Fuorimargine Centro di Produzione di danza e Arti Performative della Sardegna and TIR Danza
with the support of MilanOltre Festival e Oriente Occidente
artistic residencies PARC – Performing Arts Research Centre, Kilowatt, Armunia
with the support of Fondazione Alta Mane Italia and of Insieme Siamo Arte 2024 by Città Metropolitana di Roma Capitale and ATCL
realised with Otto per Mille funds from the Chiesa Valdese
ph. Sara Meliti
