Coproduction OE - National Premiere

by and with Francesca Santamaria
sound Ramingo
technical direction Giovanni Di Capua
text collaboration Domenico Volontè
styling Elena Luca
costume design Adriano Popolo Rubbio
co-production CodedUomo, Operaestate Festival Veneto
with the support of Carrozzerie N.o.t., ATCL Lazio
as part of the residency τέχνη - téchne 2024, Lavanderia a Vapore
part of the selected works of the Vetrina della giovane danza d’autoreeXtra 2023 by Network Anticorpi XL

The Greek word for body appears in Homer only to refer to the corpse. It is this corpse, therefore, or rather, it is the corpse and the mirror that teach us (who have, that is, taught the Greeks and now the children) that we have a body […]. M. Foucault

HOW TO SURVIVE IN THE CASE OF PERMANENT DAMAGE is a choreographic X-ray. A report that reveals a non-utopian body, the functioning of an imperfect machine, the gears of a corruptible organism. It is an exploration of a textual and sonic archive, linked to injuries and debilitations, that investigates the theme of physical and emotional pain post-trauma. In an aseptic “operating” room and over sounds stemming from the reversal of The Dying Swan, a movement sequence and the body of a dancer are vivisected.
What lies hidden within a “performing” body?
Does it make sense to survive?
To what extent?
At what cost?

Francesca Santamaria is a dancer and author active in the performing arts. After completing her dance education at Balletto di Roma, she continues her formation between Milan and the Venice Biennale. From 2019 she dances, among others, for Roberto Zappalà, Moritz Ostrushnjak, Amos Ben-Tal, Manfredi Perego, Alexandra Pirici. In 2021 she creates and interprets SHIFTING TOOLS, a Screendance work presented and awarded at national and international festivals. Since 2022 she’s part of Incubator for Future Choreographers – CIMD.
In 2023 she is co-author and soloist performer of Tutte le Immagini Scompariranno co-created with Company Fannibanni’s and RMX, a full length piece realized with Pietro Angelini and Vittorio Pagani. Since 2024 she is an Associate Artist with CodedUomo and in the same year she debuts with COME SOPRAVVIVERE IN CASO DI DANNI PERMANENTI, selected for the Showcase of the Young Author’s Dance 2023(IT). Alongside her authorial path, she interacts with academic research: she graduates from the Sapienza University of Rome in Performing Arts with a thesis on the dramaturgy of dance and since 2021 she participates in several projects with the ASAC of the Venice Biennale. 

choreography Marina Donatone
performance Ilaria Quaglia
lighting design advice Gianni Staropoli Ivano Salamida
light Cosimo Ferrigolo
organization Monica Maffei
amministration Laura Marinelli Elena Campanile Silvia Parlani
photos and video Laura Accardo
production Ass. Cult. CodedUomo
co-production Azienda Speciale Palaexpo - Mattatoio Roma | Progetto Prender-si cura
supported by Teatro India - Teatro di Roma, Lavanderia a Vapore techné 2021, C.U.R.A. Centro Umbro Residenze Artistiche, Live Arts Cultures, Santarcangelo Festival

lower is an exercise of inclination, a surrender to the vertical posture to other possible gravities.
lower is a research that tries to trace a space for action within a mobile and non-predetermined system, in which movement is produced from the environment and the forces that pass through it.
lower is a body that leans out from its center and lets itself fall, carving a gesture somewhere in the balance between doing and not doing, between pressing and brushing, and that keeps going down, lower, where one can still dance, and then find itself, look back and smile at being already elsewhere.

Marina Donatone, dancer and choreographer, was born in Rome in 1993 and trained at the Budapest Contemporary Dance Academy. As a dancer she has worked in Italy and abroad with artists and choreographers including Virgilio Sieni, Jacopo Miliani and Csaba Molnár. In her work she see for a body in becoming that gives itself to the choreographic system as an active matter, that works and is worked from the relationships in which it is included, bringing with it its own irreducible composition. As an author she has been supported by realities including Mattatoio Roma, Lavanderia a Vapore, Santarcangelo Festival, Teatro India - Teatro di Roma, Sín Arts Culture Centre Budapest, Short Theatre. Since 2020 she has been curating training projects and leading movement workshops for children at Mattatoio in Rome.

Ilaria Quaglia was born in Turin in 1990 and trained as a dancer in Italy and abroad. She collaborates with Yasmine Hugonnet, Luna Cenere, kinetic collective, Raffaella Giordano and Mario Martone, Masbedo, Ariella Vidach/aiep, Gabriella Maiorino. With Superbudda she organised the event Masbedo peforming Night, the live performance Retroazione within The Others Art Fair, the short film Die Brücke later became installation presented at Artissima Fair. In 2017 she founded with Francesca Antonino and Laura Chieffo the Munerude Collective creating the projects GRANITO and Rotten#1.

Foto di Laura Accardo

Conceived, Choreographed and Performed By Elena Antoniou
Music & Sound Design Stavros Gasparatos
Art Direction Christos Kyriakides
Dramaturgy Odysseas I. Konstantinou
Lighting Design Vasilis Petinaris
Production Coordination Alex Papasimakopoulou 

Poet Charles Wright characteristically notes, “All landscapes are autobiographical.” In “LANDSCAPE,” Elena Antoniou treats her body as a landscape.
In his notes to the performer, dramaturge Odysseas I. Konstantinou writes: “You stick your butt out, you deliver your most erotic moves, you breathe, you get tired. And you are being seen and observed. And you want to be seen. And you want to be observed. And you expose yourself. And you have asked to be exposed. And that’s how you give what you got, your body, primarily as something sexual. You have conceived this performance and you are going through it. You think you are the one completing it, but you are not.”
Indeed, the gaze of each viewer/observer and, respectively, the proximity or distance from which they choose to observe the body/spectacle of Elena Antoniou are the elements that complete the work. She unapologetically offers herself towards the disclosure of personal experience as a collective landscape. She joyously overexposes the female body and challenges the outer limits of spectacle by skillfully inviting and provoking the viewer’s gaze. She instigates the space for
the political body to present itself as deeply traumatized but also unabashedly sexual.

Elena Antoniou has graduated with honors from the Greek National School of Dance and the London Contemporary Dance School "The Place" as a member of the Edge dance company. She was a
scholarship recipient from the Koula Pratsika Foundation and the Danceweb Programme at ImpulsTanz Vienna. She has presented her work in Athens, Berlin, and Tel Aviv and has collaborated with significant organizations, such as the Onassis Stegi, the Marina Abramovic Institute (MAI), NEON Organization for Culture & Development, and the Athens and Epidaurus Festival. Since 2021, she collaborates as a performer with the internationally renowned choreographer Maria Hassabi. In addition, she has also collaborated as a choreographer and movement director with theater directors and companies in Greece and Cyprus. She received the Choreography Award of the Cyprus Theater Awards for the play “Diary of a Madman” (Theatrical Organization of Cyprus), and she has been nominated for the same award in 2011 for the play “Beckettx5” by theater group Solo for Three.

Création et interprétation: Dana Michel
Activateur·ice·s artistiques: Viva Delorme, Ellen Furey, Peter James, Heidi Louis, Tracy Maurice, Roscoe Michel, Karlyn Percil, Yoan Sorin.
Consultant scénographie - Direction technique: Romain Guillet
Consultant son: David Drury
Production: SCORP CORPS - Viva Delorme, Dana Michel
Distribution: neon lobster – Giulia Messia & Katharina Wallisch
Coproduction: ARSENIC - Centre d’art scénique contemporain (Lausanne, Switzerland / Suisse), Centre national des Arts (Ottawa, Canada), Festival TransAmériques (Montréal, Canada), Julidans Amsterdam (Netherlands / Pays-Bas), Kunstenfestivaldesarts (Brussels, Belgium / Bruxelles, Belgique), MDT (Stockholm, Sweden / Suède), Montpellier Danse (France), Moving in November, (Helsinki, Finland / Finlande), Wexner Center for the Arts of The Ohio State University in Colombus (United States of America / États-Unis d’Amérique).
Résidences de création: Alkantara (Lisbon / Lisbonne, Portugal), ANTI Festival (Kuopio, Finland / Finlande), Centre national des Arts (Ottawa, Canada), Kinosaki International Arts Center and Kyoto Experiment (Japon / Japan), Kunstenfestivaldesarts (Brussels, Belgium / Bruxelles, Belgique), Künstlerhaus Mousonturm (Frankfurt, Germany/ Francfort, Allemagne), Montpellier Danse (France)
creation residency at Agora, cité internationale de la danse,
with support from BNP Paribas Foundation, RIMI/IMIR SceneKunst (Stavanger, Norway / Norvège), Shedhalle (Zürich, Switzerland / Suisse)
with the kind support of Tanzhaus Zürich and the Embassy of Canada to Switzerland, The Chocolate Factory (NYC, United States of America / États-Unis d’Amérique).
The creation of this work is being made possible thanks to the financial support of Canada Council for the Arts, Conseil des Arts et des Lettres du Québec, Ministère des Relations internationales
et de la Francophonie and Conseil des Arts de Montréal. 

The creation and production of MIKE is a commitment to highlighting the idea that without trust in ourselves and in others, it is impossible to safely live public lives that reflect our interior lives. We are sure to stagnate in a state of half-life and disharmony… gridlocked in the endless traffic of not knowing how to respect or even truly recognize the other. WE MUST LEARN HOW TO TRUST THE OTHER. We must first trust OUR «TRUE» SELVES in order to do this work.

Dana Michel is a live artist. Her works interact with the expanded fields of improvisation, choreography, sculpture, comedy, hip-hop, cinematography, techno, poetry, psychology, dub and social commentary to create a centrifuge of experience.
Before graduating from the BFA program in Contemporary Dance at Concordia University in her late twenties, Michel was a marketing executive, and a competitive runner and football player.
In 2014, she was awarded the newly created ImPulsTanz Award (Vienna) in recognition for outstanding artistic accomplishments, and was highlighted among notable female choreographers of the year by the New- York Times. In 2017, Michel was awarded the Silver Lion for Innovation in Dance at the Venice Biennale. In 2018, she became the first ever dance artist in residence at the National Arts Centre, Canada. In 2019, she was awarded the ANTI Festival International Prize for Live Art (Kuopio, Finland). In 2022, the Canada Council for The Arts awarded her the Jacqueline-Lemieux prize in recognition of her contribution to dance in Canada.