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24,42
Vegliate dunque
Ph Sara Meliti
BY MATTEO BITTANTE
with DANCEHAUS COMPANY
COSTUMES | TOM REBL
SOUND DESIGN & MIX | CHRIS COSTA
PRODUCTION DANCEHAUSpiù
with the support of:
duration 60' with break
A soul, torn to pieces, dresses itself in memory and looks back at the ages of its life: the time of unconsciousness, the gold of dreams, the baroque chatter of intentions, good intentions. He sees a dancing self re-emerge, the struggle of the many selves agitated and confused by the thrill of domination, attracted by power. In the heart of a tale that refuses words, the biography of mute, unchanging pain emerges: the unjust martyrdom of an absurdly sacrificial victim, observed in the light of memory stripped of judgement. 24:42 is the reflection of this gaze: the man who reflects himself by contemplating his wounds, no longer fears or condemns himself. Instead, as in a dawn, he leads himself by the hand towards the breath of play, in a free run on the tracks of a recurring step, in the sweetness oozing from a living rebirth, unexpected, and yet so awaited.
Matteo Bittante sinks the roots of his research into the abysses of an eternal conflict: that between victim and executioner. Not with his gaze turned outwards, outside, but consciously drawn into the meanders of human nature. He represents its traits by painting two frescoes, two acts, two visions. In the first, two young men frolic in the tanning sun of unconsciousness, savouring the taste of secret, of gossip, discovering the multiform richness of a golden skirt, now ruff, now rosette, now refuge. Then the team comes into being, a group of four that aggregates and governs itself, deludes itself into thinking it dominates its animal side, experiments with the function of its dynamics, determines its dominant logic. And where one dominates, another is dominated. It is the system that forms the scapegoat, legitimises hatred for the designated victim, crime and abuse against the different: the weak, the last, the other.
The victim is chosen and isolated, stripped of his right to exist: through skilful citations of a secular Eden, a new Saint Sebastian is struck by the darts of modern abuse and the sacrifice is accomplished. But in the tragic epilogue, the light preludes to the second, dramatic, luminous vision.
24, 42 are two even numbers. Palindrome figures that rise to symbolism, they represent two cycles: one begins, rises, the other reaches, declines and ends. They are youth and maturity meeting in the deep skies of awareness, the student and the master, Icarus and Daedalus, fury and calm, flight and embrace. If one ascends and collides with gratuitous pain, the other understands and with firm resolve, repairs. The two men are not strangers to each other, they are parts of the same harmonic whole: they embark on a journey that will lead the first to full maturity, the second to the acceptance of a new phase of self, invigorated by a resilient sap, both caught up in the perpetual vortex of change. In it nothing is lost, everything shines with a renewed energy, to be cherished and passed on, never to die again.
Words by Laura Massari
