Butoh dance: Kea Tonetti
live music: Tivitavi
headpiece creation: Elena Borghi
duration time: 50’
The being is covered in a cape of newspapers, overwhelmed by the news that bombards us every day with heaviness, fears, and false truths; by a dark vision that envelops the planet. A shamanic cloak, loaded with memories and impressions, a symbol of human suffering and attachments: the fear of fading away, of death, anger, discord, lust for power. The sea screams, the ice cracks, wild nature rebels. An imposing glacier, reminder of previous eras and guardian of the planet’s fresh water; a bright new moon, shining White Goddess, worshipped from the British Isles to the Caucasus. Hair bristling, eyes veiled with tears, skin prickles, and a shiver runs down the spine. When She appears, She can suddenly turn into a snake, an owl, a wolf, a tiger, a mermaid, or a repulsive hag, as terrifying as the melting of the ice and the upheaval of life on the planet.
White-hot is a state of wonder, incandescent white, shining, the white of the Arctic, the last frontier of civilization, where the earth has no boundaries, where human beings are small if they separate themselves from Nature; compassion for human lacerations, for those wounded children who still fight and wage war, because deep down in their hearts, they have not been seen and loved. Children to cradle and reassure, paradise is here and now and can be so for everyone on this Earth.
White Lady of life and death,
White whale and Mother of all things,
are you telling us about the obscured age?
Shrouded in your luminous silence,
Being is suspended in the empty whiteness of dawn,
Free to act.
Kea Tonetti
The performance was presented at: Pontedera Butoh Festival – IT (2015); “Behind the Movement”, event at Loophole, Berlin (2015); Stems Festival Migratorio des Artes, Barcelona (2015); Jurányi Art Incubator House, Budapest (2015); Teatr Novyy Balet, Moscow (2016); One Theater, Krasnodar – RU (2016).
Video of the first two short version of the show.
Photos by Elena Bennati, Eugene Titov, Ignazio Perra, Eude Panel, Mahjabeen Bee Zafar, Barbara Bernardi.