Art Enchants

Italy, 2021-2022

Is it possible to rewrite reality through art? What kinds of scenarios can we imagine with it?

National Geographic Society Emergency Journalist Fund supported this series of choral scenes, portraits, and details reflecting the border between fiction and reality.

Together with fellow journalist Stefania Prandi, we met eight artists during a pandemic year: actors, actresses, and dancers from freelance and small Italian theatre companies. Through their words and eyes, we enacted joy, hope, sadness and exhaustion moments. We created a continuous dialogue between reality and fiction, as if on a film set where actors, actresses, and dancers play themselves. Using a directorial mode approach based on their stories as inspiration, we created a visual narrative that breaks from the pandemic.

Published on Radar Magazine and live from Teatro Sociale Novafeltria – Italy

 
A dream of white

"The moment everything closed, I immediately began memorizing texts, poems. It was always something I did in difficult times, even in the past. The first poem was composed by Arsenij Aleksandrovic Tarkovsky about a child who recalls seeing a white nurse from his hospital bed when he became ill. I also thought of the color white during the pandemic: others were enveloped in a white glow." Isadora Angelini is an award-winning independent actress, dancer and director. She performs at international festivals like Santarcangelo. In 2006, she cofounded Patalò Theatre company with Luca Serrani. Project Elisabetta Zavoli and Stefania Prandi Photo by Elisabetta Zavoli @elizavola Words by Stefania Prandi @stefania.prandi
Setting by Elisabetta Zavoli, Stefania Prandi, Luca Serrani Styling and Make up by Elisabetta Zavoli and Isadora Angelini
Location ex-Corderia Santarcangelo (RN), Italy Assistant Luca Serrani @luca_serrani
“Fear of not making it” Project Elisabetta Zavoli and Stefania Prandi Art director Elisabetta Zavoli Photo by Elisabetta Zavoli @elizavola Words by Stefania Prandi @stefania.prandi Setting by Elisabetta Zavoli Styling and Make up by Elisabetta Zavoli and Silvia Gribaudi @gribaudisilvia Location Campo Teatrale, Milano (MI), Italy The pandemic is reshaping people's fears and anxieties. For those who work in the art world, uncertainty has prevailed over the rest, for a long time, with the great fear of not making it. “The important thing is not to be taken by the fear of not existing. In a work as ephemeral as art it is easy fearing of not existing, from one year to the next, also economically. The more you get older the more frightened you are because one year you work and then maybe the show doesn't go as well as before, so you don't work anymore. When I have a great fear, I know that I also need an act of great courage. How does courage feel? I know the emotion of fear very well, but what colour does it have, what does courage taste like? Maybe what I call fear is courage? The pandemic has motivated me even more to embrace things fully, not to be afraid of the pieces of me that are perhaps more fragile”, stated choreographer Silvia Gribaudi in her interview. Silvia Gribaudi is an Italian award-winner choreographer who also specializes in performing arts in general. She has taken part in several artistic research projects. Her shows have been featured in a number of national and international festivals and are the result of a creative process that focuses on dialogue and on the poetic encounter with other artists, dance companies, and communities. She founded ZEBRA Cultural Association, together with Chiara Frigo and Giuliana Urcioli, in order to support and promote the research and works of several independent performing artists.