Presentation of the circus arts workshop
The performance *Lane No. 6* draws inspiration from the short story of the same name by the playwright and writer Anton Chekhov, blending the story with the language of the circus: the setting, a mental asylum where doctors and patients, guards and madmen confront one another in a suffocating atmosphere, is reimagined by Guidi as a succession of lives and images, visionary fragments in which madness is punctuated by the skills of the circus. Guidi draws inspiration from Chekhov to explore the fine line between the mad and the insane. It is a madness, that of Firenza Guidi’s performers, which turns the world upside down: the madman climbs ropes, swings on trapezes, performs acrobatics on silks, precariously balances himself before leaping into the void; it is life, and the madmen come to narrate their stories through their bodies in tension, bearing the burden of their extravagant truth, whispering in our ears that there isn’t really much difference between us and them, just a thin line on the floor drawing random distinctions; as Dr Ragin explains to one of the inpatients, since prisons and asylums exist, ‘someone has to be inside them’, and it doesn’t matter who is the patient and who is the doctor. The circus arrives and weaves its way through the acrobatics of the narrative to ask us point-blank the cutting question: who is the madman? The show features an exceptional cast: the Italian participants of the basic course at the Circus Arts Workshop, who have had the opportunity to learn the basics of the various disciplines, are joined by six world-class artists from all over the world.
When
20 December 2009
Where
Fondazione I Care – Fucecchio
