In English, the adjective “quixotic” has at least four synonyms: impractical, visionary, romantic and unrealistic. This semantic layering reveals a complex figure that goes beyond the familiar image of windmills mistaken for enemies. What if Cervantes’s parody of the romantic hero were in fact an ante-litteram device, a gesture against capitalist realism (as described by Fisher) already resonating with Halberstam’s “queer art of failure”? Exploring the practice of collaborative writing, Industria Indipendente begins from a reading of “Don Quixote” and its rewritings – particularly those by women writers, thinkers and linguistic experimenters – to investigate rewriting as a means of “going beyond”. From Kathy Acker (Don Quixote: Which Was a Dream, 1993) to Monique Wittig (Le Voyage Sans Fin, 1985), the project evokes an open bibliography of references, reflections and mirroring gestures. An alternative canon, expanded practices and collaborations open up a “gymnasium of forms”, a place for training and pushing the boundaries of writing. QUIXOTE is Industria Indipendente’s new theatrical experiment, the earliest version of which appeared in a CAMERA at Short Theatre 2025, and which unfolds through a series of episodes, a collection of objects and performances shaped by the literary concept of the novel “with no beginning or end”. A journey imagined as a continuous movement in and out of forms and texts, following the trail of a burning stance: what does rewriting Quixote trigger in us today? Short Theatre 2026 will host A Rose Is Not a Rose, a textual, sonic and choreographic composition with Annamaria Ajmone, a dancer and choreographer with whom the collective has been collaborating since 2019. The guiding figure of the performance is an ultra-feminine knight: a Don Quixote of the future who navigates the impossible in search of meaning and vision. She does not fight; she imagines and transfigures.
Roses are defence systems disguised as ornament. Thorns are their first language, the minimal grammar of refusal. They are not an aesthetic detail: they are a nervous architecture. Each thorn is a small barrier that organises the space around the stem, establishing a minimum safety distance between the vegetal body and whatever attempts to appropriate it. The delicacy of the flower exists only because the rest of the plant has delegated to the thorn the task of saying no. (…) It is not a superfluous addition, but the very condition that allows the flower to survive long enough to open. Whoever looks only at the colour of the petal and ignores the thorn sees only half the rose, and above all misunderstands its nature. One could say that every rose advances a simple botanical thesis: what attracts must also be able to defend itself. The thorn is the fine print beneath every flowering. Let only force be what remains in words and fury.
– Industria Indipendente
Industria Indipendente is a performing and visual arts collective founded in 2005 by Erika Z. Galli and Martina Ruggeri. Their research is rooted in language and an extended writing inscribed upon bodies, environments and surfaces. Regardless of the scale or dimension they choose to explore, their works constantly question and reflect on themes such as the unproductive nature of time, the creation of alternative worlds in which new communities and alliances form and the continuous redefinition of individual and collective identities. In its various forms, Industria Indipendente has performed in numerous venues, including the Venice Biennale, Romaeuropa Festival, Triennale, Théâtre Paris Villette, Merz Foundation, Santarcangelo Festival, Sandretto Re Rebaudengo Foundation, Istituto Svizzero, Short Theatre, MACRO Museum and Piccolo Teatro in Milan. In 2024, they created the exhibition “Blue Blue Blue Limbo” for the Almanac gallery in Turin, a “gym for the senses” through which they explore the body and language, from which they also produced a perfume released by the publishing house Nero. Since 2018, they have been holding a monthly residency at the Angelo Mai in Rome with the Merende happening party.
Annamaria Ajmone is a dancer and choreographer. Her research is centred on the body understood as malleable and ever-changing matter. Her work has a tentacular structure that spans various formats and durations, resulting from a collective endeavour born out of encounters and exchanges. She presented her works in several contexts, including La Biennale Danza Venezia, brut Wien, Palais de Tokyo, Torinodanza, Triennale Milano, Santarcangelo Festival, Short Theatre, BiPOD Festival Beirut, M1 Contact Contemporary Dance Festival Singapore and Night Gallery LA. In 2015, she won the Danza&Danza award for Best Emerging Contemporary Performer. From 2016 to 2023, she organised Nobody’s Indiscipline, a platform for the exchange of practices and research. Ajmone co-curates the programme for MOTELSALIERI (ß). She is dedicated to sharing practices and knowledge through workshops and training sessions.
in collaboration and with Annamaria Ajmone
voice Céline Sciamma
production Industria Indipendente and l’Altra associazione
with the support of Base Milano, Angelo Mai
realised with the support of La Ménagerie de Verre as part of the StudioLab programme
Industria Indipendente is present at ST26 with the support of SIAE
ph. Rafa Jacinto