year: 2021

by and with Elisa Pol
in dialogue with Raffaella Giordano
texts* di Elisa Pol
sound fragments Sleep by Max Richter
costumes Sofia Vannini
production Nerval Teatro
with the financial support of Emilia Romagna Teatro Fondazione, winning project of ERT- Spettacolo in Emilia Romagna Performing Arts under 40
with the support of Sosta Palmizi, Armunia, Olinda, E Production
a special thanks to Paola Bianchi, Barbara Caviglia, Franco Caviglia, Elena Marinoni e Michele Bariselli – Rifugio Quinto Alpini
photos Antonio Ficai
*texts inspired by La montagna Vivente, Nan Shepherd, Wanda Rutkiewicz, la signora degli ottomila, Gertrude Reinisch, Tutte le opere, Antonia Pozzi, Il leopardo delle nevi, Peter Matthiessen, La montagna e il suo simbolismo, Marie Davy Madeleine, Sensi soprannaturali, Cristina Campo

Premiere: May 2021, Castello di Rosignano Marittimo (LI)

È It is the first day of July 2018: step by step I climb the scree that takes me to an altitude of 2,877 metres, my feet propelling me over the 1,170 metres of difference in altitude. As my body moves through my surroundings, the changing landscape begins to merge with the past. The expanse of mountains around me is as real as the suitcase on the bed (to which I return). I am ascending along a gully of grey rock and I am at home: my two environments overlap in continuous transition, in a continuous dialogue with the present. When I reach the refuge that will host me for three months, i look like a pale and inappropriately dressed young woman to the mountain guide who is drying his equipment in the sun. But in that moment, I’ve already forgotten that I am a woman, I couldn’t care less.

Walking Memories – First Episode is a performance of gestures and words about the mountains and the worlds of memory and forgetting. It recounts my experience in an alpine hut at 3,000 metres, with its challenges and evocations. Mountains have always invited and demanded ascension, silence and solitude, heights and depths, risk and thrill, continuity… until one discovers the intimate connection between subject and landscape and they becomes a place of transformation. The project represents a path that trespasses the bordering territories of theatre, dance and philosophy, spanning a period starting in 2020 and ending in 2021. It comprises two episodes, two autonomous but complementary stages that recount the different moments of a climb, two spatial movements and at the same time two stations in a personal ritual.