Shows /

Fragments of Love

Marta Bevilacqua / Compagnia Arearea
2021

Love is a mighty demon dwelling between mortals and immortals.

The desired body opens itself to nudity — a polyphony of languages, gestures, breaths, whispered words. This is lust: where the semantics of light blur with those of grace, and where nudity is born without decision, like light in the lover’s gaze. Lust is the surrender of shame as the last defense, the perfect disarmament in the giving of oneself, the oblivion of measure, the yielding of the mind — that fortress of reason — which, unlike Eros, cannot brush against truth without possessing it. It is lust that subverts every order, even the natural one; that unleashes irrepressible fantasy toward transfiguration; that yearns to pass from the language of vision to that of touch, from intoxication to the ecstasy of participation.

Within the frame of eternity, Paolo, Francesca, and Gianciotto sing and languish in their misfortune. They emit distorted sounds, laments and sighs, moans and whispers — rendering the storm to which they are condemned. The creation draws inspiration from the paintings depicting that celebrated transgression. The three dancers, to the music of cellist Martina Bertoni, compose closed forms, destroy them, alter them — until they come to accept their damned condition.

Canto V of the Inferno is almost entirely dedicated to this love story. Among the lustful in the second circle of Hell, Dante Alighieri encounters the souls of Paolo Malatesta and Francesca da Polenta, flying side by side, drawing his attention. Virgil urges him to call them; the two damned souls approach and tell their story. She was married to his brother, and they had begun an affair — before both were murdered by the betrayed husband.