When
Saturday 31 March at 9.30pm; Sunday 1 April at 7.30pm and 9.30pm
Where
Auditorium ‘La Tinaia’, Parco Corsini, Fucecchio (FI)
Press office
Camilla Rigatti
A fascinating journey through the wild and unknown territory of diversity
After its premiere, which closed the first day of the International Conference on Autism in San Miniato, ‘Blu come il Mercoledì’ (Blue like Wednesday) will be staged in three performances open to the public on Saturday 31 March and Sunday 1 April, this time at the auditorium la tinaia. The performance, conceived and directed by firenza guidi and performed by a single performer, the young circus artist Davide Salodini, recounts a typical day in the life of Daniel, a low-functioning autistic boy. But while for most people light and darkness mark the cycle of sleep and wakefulness, for autistic people time is an abstract perception. In Daniel’s time, everything flows into everything else, in a dimension without boundaries.
The audience is led into Daniel’s world, with its colours, its childlike joy, and the constant challenge that the smallest everyday gestures pose to his precarious balance: getting dressed, brushing his teeth, tying his shoelaces. The rigid 85-centimetre sphere on which Salodini – a specialist in balancing acts, but also an actor and musician – moves is a metaphor for the character’s discomfort, happy next to his sphere but struggling to cope with external inputs.
Blu come il Mercoledì is the result of research carried out by the director both through written sources and through the opportunity given by parents of autistic children to spend time with their children. The story – albeit non-verbal – of Daniel and his small and large daily challenges stems from a specific desire to represent autism in the simplest way possible, a reality that affects many families every day and is totally removed from the voyeurism with which the syndrome is treated in mainstream representations, in which the autistic person is a sort of misunderstood genius, to be observed as a freak of nature.
What is striking about guidi’s performance – who chose to place her protagonist’s habitat within a white, sterile space – is the wholeness of Daniel’s character, which debunks the notion of autistic or disabled people as totally dependent on others. Daniel is a complete person, and he lives actively and intensely in his space, with a completely autonomous fantasy and imagination that create a unique and particular identity.
The performance was conceived and designed to raise awareness among young people, involving as wide an age range as possible (from primary school to secondary school). The aim is to create awareness among children that approaching Daniel does not mean approaching a sick world, but rather a different world, of people who think, look and behave differently. From this perspective, it is not only those who are different who must adapt to society, but society that must welcome anyone, like Daniel, who lives their life by renegotiating balances.