It’s hard to describe the feeling of dancing almost three meters high on a surface so narrow it seems more like a pedestal than a platform. From the ground, that is, from the stage of the Teatro Rosignano Solvay, where the show debuted for the Inequilibrio festival, the latest work by Claudia Catarzi has something intimate and shameless. Shameless because the spectator, compelled to keep their eyes upwards, admires the technical skill, explicit and evident, of a figure that doesn’t perform acrobatics, but nonetheless constructs a tense and sculptural choreography, made of plastic poses, clear and defined gestures, even jumps. Although the tone is far from baroque – a certain austerity prevails, though never frigid – there is something triumphant in this construction that resembles the base for a Renaissance equestrian statue. Indeed, in the dramatic arc of the show, the satisfaction of reaching the top is palpable. As if we were in the mountains. Looking down from above is satisfying, but it also gives you chills. Not only because it’s easy to fall, but perhaps because at some point from this peak, the only thing left to do is descend.

And this is the other intimate dimension that runs through the entire show and speaks to us of fragility and strength, of change and resistance. The title of the show is 14.610, a number that hints at something never explicitly mentioned. But it is a key, like the code to a hotel room, that allows easy entry into the show. It’s a small and sophisticated puzzle to solve. Not too difficult, to be honest, but we want to leave it unresolved, so as not to spoil the pleasure of discovery. In the second part of the work, the pedestal reveals itself as a steep slide, and the descent becomes a sort of struggle; the muscular body strains to defeat the weight of gravity, as in the whirls of some Giambologna statue. Even though the aesthetics are tied to a sober normality, which makes the image even more intimate and common. About ten years ago, Catarzi debuted in her solo 40,000 Square Centimeters, again a number for a title, striking for presence and power in the small space drawn on the stage of only four square meters. Ten years later, this space has shrunk but has risen into the air. Not a diving board to jump from, but a mountain – like life – to embrace and climb.

(Rodolfo Sacchettini – July 18, 2023)