L’incontro

♦ shows at 4.30 pm and 6.30 pm

choreography and performers Giovanni Leonarduzzi, Lia Claudia Latini
sound designer Maurizio Cecatto
producer Compagnia Bellanda Ets
performance selected for Danza Urbana XL 2023 – Network Anticorpi XL
duration 15 minutes

Emmanuel Lévinas is against romantic love understood as the fusion of two beings. The face cannot be absorbed into my identity and represents the beginning of the break with the whole because true union is a face to face, reciprocal otherness that is not absorbed or eliminated. The relationship does not neutralize individuality, but preserves it.
“In the simple encounter of one man with another, the essential, the absolute is played out: in the manifestation, in the “epiphany” of the other’s face, I discover that the world is mine to the extent that I can share it with other. And the absolute is played out in proximity, within the reach of my gaze, within the reach of a gesture of complicity or aggression, of acceptance or refusal.”
The face, for Lèvinas, is the meeting place, it is the place where all the dynamics of man play out.
Taking some reflections from Charles Pepin The meeting, a now forgotten gesture:
“It is impossible to fully live our lives without others: whether they are friends, colleagues, family members, partners, we are in fact moved naturally towards our neighbor with an impetus and a need such as to give us the impression of being able to be reborn every time. But what are the characteristics of a true encounter and under what conditions can we treasure them?”
Even before analyzing how diversity from the other constitutes one’s identity (Lévinas), how can we free ourselves from the chains of our prejudices, overcome the fear of losing control and trust the other?

The company is currently focusing its attention on the couple’s relationship. On the internal dynamics of it, on the attractions and repulsions. From the analysis carried out in this regard by philosophers and sociologists, the moving figures and the movement mechanisms of the composite figures take inspiration, where two bodies collaborate in the creation of a single “being” which acquires autonomy of movement only thanks to physical repulsions and attractions , concrete, between the two bodies.