At the end of March, a group of women of different ages and backgrounds participated in a Danza Duende Residential Workshop. They used their body and movement to reflect and experience the complexity of the relationship between individuals and the urban and social space, starting from a core text of the Italian literature: Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities.
When looking at the local context, one cannot help but noticing how the Covid-19 pandemic and the consequent isolation has impacted people’s mental health. People’s relationship with the urban and the social space has in some ways shifted in a direction of greater detachment, fear and mistrust.
The evident need for this relationship to be healed was what drove the CESIE to the construction of the concept behind this residential workshop. The aim was to support a process of re-appropriation of the urban space by people who have lived the trauma of isolation and are in a condition of psychological distress, to facilitate the healing of the relationship with the urban dimension.
Led by Anastasia Francaviglia and Soad Ibrahim, the workshop developed the theme through the principles and methods of Danza Duende, and with the help of Italo Calvino’s text.
“Cities, like dreams, are made of desires and fears, even if the thread of their discourse is secret, their rules are absurd, their perspectives deceitful, and everything conceals something else.”
– Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities
What is Danza Duende?
Danza Duende is a movement training created in 2004 by Yumma Mudra with the intention to live dance and dance life. Danza Duende’s purpose is to let practitioners be themselves, exactly as they are in a specific given moment in time and space. This is done through a series of games and exercises that use movement and improvisation.
The main impact of the experience on participants (women of different ages between 20 and 60 years old, from different social and cultural backgrounds) was the creation of an invisible space in which to feel safe and free from judgment. A space in which a collectivity is in support of the individual and gives them the strength to carry on in a process of growth in self-expression, self-consciousness and self-confidence. In this sense it was a therapeutic experience for many of them.
I feel my heart bursting with joy. Like a tickle that dances inside of me. Because we are experiencing the authenticity of each of us and each of us in relation to the others.
Participant
Watch the video-story of the residency:
About the project
FAE – Fusion of Arts and Education is funded by Erasmus+, Key Action 2, KA227 – Partnerships for Creativity.
Partners
- HochVier – Gesellschaft für politische und interkulturelle Bildung e.V. (Germany, coordinator)
- CESIE (Italy)
- Embaixada da Juventude (Portugal)
- uniT GmbH (Austria)
For further information
Read more about FAE.
Contact adult@cesie.org.
