Performance - ARTI E TERAPIE 2

DECAY 3

performance by Michela Montrasio

The performance is a reinterpretation of previous work "Decay". When you transfer, the shape goes to pieces, shatter; the fragility emerges and proceeds precariously without any landmarks, but it continues to go between trying to hold together, to recover something of himself and the breakup alone leaves room for qualosa new and perhaps more true. This performance was presented at the International Multimedial Art Festival di Odzaci in Serbia nel 2016, during artist's exhibitions, in Venice (2017), in Bergamo (2018), during the Butoh Festival in Amsterdam in 2019 a the Performance Festival in Riga an this time at Perfor/Media festival in Polonia in 2024.

QUI SUM?

I search, I search, I continue to search and as when I walk my shadow follows me relentlessly. I'm tired, I hope to give in and in that moment find.

GESTATION

As written previously, the performance of this project takes various forms and contents depending on the location and feeling. here it was presented at the butoh festival at the Munanga theater in Amsterdam (2023)

INITIATION

Initiation is the latest and new work by Michela Montrasio. A video-performance to propitiate and celebrate the encounter with the Divine Feminine, our soul. A ritual to favor a metamorphosis and the evolutionary process of being, drawing on ancestral gestures and elements full of sacredness.

GESTATION

Gestation is an installation-performative project. It was made for the first time in 2016 for the personal exhibition at the ancient Church of St. Stephan in Cesano Maderno; it was proposed later with different modes and implications depending on the space and intent.

In 2019, during the Perfomedia Festival in Venice, the intervention, symbolically aimed at bringing about an inner rebirth of the individual, draws inspiration from the now numerous episodes of violence against the woman who is responsible for finding herself and being reborn to herself.

IMPROVISATION

Performance by Michela Montrasio

Festival of Naked Form 2018 in Praga

ON THE WAY

performance/installation by Michela Montrasio

The peformance was presented for the first time at the Perfomedia Festival in Bergamo 2018, in St. Vigilio's Castle, then during the Festival Naked Performance in Praga. First of all it is a magic-propitiatory action to advance towards new paths, above all to leave space to our authentic nature, without forgetting the path traveled.

DECAY 2

performance by Michela Montrasio

The performance is a reinterpretation of previous work "Decay". When you transfer, the shape goes to pieces, shatter; the fragility emerges and proceeds precariously without any landmarks, but it continues to go between trying to hold together, to recover something of himself and the breakup alone leaves room for qualosa new and perhaps more true. This performance was presented at the International Multimedial Art Festival di Odzaci in Serbia nel 2016, during artist's exhibitions, in Venice (2017), in Bergamo (2018), during the Butoh Festival in Amsterdam in 2019 a the Performance Festival in Riga.

FOUNDATION

performance by Michela Montrasio

This spiritual performance contains references to the myths of foundation of the city in which was delimited the sacred space in which it would have been built. At the same time there are references to ancient cultures, such as that Lakota with the presence of four different colored stones to indicate the four sacred directions. The action takes place inside and outside of the space, that also becomes the sacred space of each individual and of Mother Earth. This performance was presented several times during arttist's exhibition, in Novi Sad (Serbia 2016), Venice (2017) and Bergamo 2018.

DECAY

Performance by Michela Montrasio

The performance is part of a project” Solitary flight”, where every score has been done away, every intention; only the body remains, a place of sensations, where the external world encounters the memories of the person. Memories of the individual and of the species, biological and essential.

It is a way of distancing oneself, waiting for a sign. Distancing oneself in order to try to feel free, without ties. It is only because of this premise, that it has been possible to give a title to the work, only to the following, on the base of the notions which have emerged during the work.

When it cedes, the form goes into a thousand pieces, it fractures; fragility emerges and one continues precariously without a point of reference, but one carries on torn between the attempt to keep it together, or recover something of oneself and the disintegration which alone gives space to something new and maybe more tangible.

The performance “ Decay” was presented at the International Performance Arts Festival di Monza (Mi) in 2008.

CORPORALITY

Performance by and with Lucia Citterio, Nicola Frangione, Michela Montrasio

The performance was realized especially for the event of poetry and dance held at Voliera, installation by the artist Mauri, inside the park of Monza.

The work was the result of a meeting among three different artists who contributed with their work according to their own linguistic specificity and sensibility, starting from the physical space where it had to be placed. Voice, word, movement blended together, interacting among themselves.

Quite often, in environmental itineraries, the body and thoughts travel on two different parallels: one is an inner suspension for the places which can be reached; the other is a suspension of the body which experiences the physical space. The sensitiveness appears to be simply in transit, modifying only gestures and movement.

Only the voice arrives and the body opens up to a new perspective of words, inhabited and crossed over revealing the nomadic poetry of the senses.

Duration: 35' ca.

SOLITARY FLIGHT

Performance by Michela Montrasio

The improvisation took place outside and inside the Urban Center of Monza, on the occasion of a Vertical Action Poetry event (an artistic project by Nicola Frangione) where three different artists developed their own work on three different levels of the building.

In this work every score was done away with and every intention, only the body remained a place of sensations, where the external world came together with the dregs of memories, memories of the individual and of the species all together, biological and existential.

Also the will to express oneself was dispensed with; only the body remained, where the inner and external images can open spirals as far as the stranger is concerned, maybe feeling a sense of such freedom which could be manifested by him at that very moment.

It is an attempt to put oneself on one side, waiting for a sign, setting oneself apart in order to try to be free, without constraints.

Duration: not defined

UADI

Performance by Michela Montrasio

The performance was realized for the event “Rigiralarte” (Milano, 2005) realized by the artist Angelo Caruso.

UADI is an improvisation on water, of fluidity and continuity. The initial stimulus is focused on a trickle of water which comes down the body, leaving behind sensations and resonances.The journey of the movement through a spiral, creates, the reflection of oneself as if in a mirror, making one recognize oneself.

duration: 10'

WHITE, RED, BLACK

Performance by Michela Montrasio

A work realized for the event "Rigiralarte" (Milan, 2004) created by the artist Angelo Caruso.

A journey in the female sphere through symbolism embodied by three colors which represent a part of the rational element, cerebral, retreating into oneself, while on the other leaving one to follow one’s instinct, from the stomach, free to follow the flows which are continually changing and evolving in ourselves and around us. White stands for possibility, potentiality, a blank ,white sheet and this is the putting together of these two aspects of being a woman, maybe an expression of one’s own SELF, beyond every analysis and definition.

An attempt at being a woman, experiencing one’s own femininity in the midst of extreme forces with the ability to swallow you up and with which there is always a comparison.

TO MY FATHER, TO THE EARTH

performance by Michela Montrasio

My father had already been ill for about eight years when I thought of recording his voice.

His memory was quite weak and he had difficulty in speaking. Even so memories of his past were still clearly in his mind, those of his childhood, of his family and of his youth.

After his death I felt that a bottomless pit had opened.

When I started to have an interest in tribal culture, I felt a great emptiness because of the lack of a bond with deeply rooted ties, like the ones which bound me to my father.

I experienced envy because of the close relationship the Tribal population had with our Mother Earth, as if those close ties were able to overcome the loss of a loved one.

I needed to find those roots and in finding them, I rediscovered my Father ….. And I did not feel alone any more

DANCE ON THE BRIDGE

performance by Michela Montrasio

The event, which the performance is part of, is the inauguration of a resonant bridge created by Engineer. Giacomo Ruspa. The sonorous installation has been put inside a park in the Novarese region (in the Cascina Nuova in the locality Baraggia di Suno), a place in which there are different places where other works with sonorous characteristics have been installed.

In the improvisation and the movement which produces sounds, by putting one’s own weight on the boards of which the bridge is made up. Gestures, expressiveness and musicality are built moment by moment, together with a continuous dialogue.

THE DARK SIDE

Performance by Michela Montrasio

The work was carried out especially for Montegrosso (At), as part of an artistic exhibition "Percorsi", created by the artist Ovidio Piras.

The performance takes place going uphill, along the paths and the open spaces of the town before arriving in the square of the church. The itinerary is a symbolic journey and inner discovery of oneself, in parts of one mind and body which are weighted down by conditioning and self awareness, in order that one is able to create space and new possibilities for oneself, bringing about rebirth.

duration: 35'

THE SILENCE OF THE WORD

Performance BY Michela Montrasio

Going in and out, a profound dimension which is present inside us, behind us, where shadows are crystallized, lights of one’s being. Going in and out and doing our dance in the precarious equilibrium of one’s existence, writing with our body on a blank tape, what we can not reveal nor make known with words with words.

On the scene there is a only a chair on which the performer carries out his movements, anchored to that object, but with the capacity to detach himself through means of gesticulation.

Duration: 15’ ca.

Technical requirements: two spotlights, audio system

HARTA

performance by Luigi Bianco, Nicola Frangione and Michela Montrasio

HARTA is a collective performance put together and realized by Luigi Bianco, Nicola Frangione and Michela Montrasio, who belong to the group SINERGESTA, which was created in 1988 in order to experiment in the theatrical fields– poetic – performance blending the maximum of energy and “media” in artistic expression.

The first performance of this work was created especially for the “Performedia” Festival (in the year 1990) together under the directorship of Emilio Morandi.

The project of the performance was planned to be held in two venues where the festival was held: the church of Disciplini at Clusone and the Town council hall of Ponte Nossa (Bg).

The work, in its first showing was intended to present the newly launched HARTA (a twice monthly publication of cultural events) to the public. During the performance it was extracted from the ground.

In the following years, the group re-proposed and carried out the original performance, in a wider scenario with the participation of other artists.

In particular, Nicola Frangione and Michela Montrasio have taken up again the performance through a working in progress and over the years have presented it with different titles (ALLITTERAZIONI SONORE, IL GESTO DI HARTA, FASTI POIESIS).

duration: 40'