1. THE LABORATORY: WHAT IS PLAYGROUND

Playground is a journey of discovery of movement, play and dance led by the OPERABIANCO company, open to childhood and senior citizens and oriented to dialogue with the urban and natural landscape of Bologna.

The shared movement practices are inspired by Peter Bruegel’s painting “Children’s Games” and are suitable for all bodies, with or without experience. Their goal is to build a common physical language among the participants and create a “landscape within a landscape” to which everyone can contribute his or her uniqueness.

2. THE PERFORMATIVE OUTCOME

The workshop will end on Sept. 21 with a public return (time and place to be determined).

3. THE THEME

Playground focuses on the body, brings attention to the relationship between dance and landscape and the encounter between performers, children and people over 60. Bodies with different rhythms, dynamics and postures mingle in an aesthetic and ritual experience, generating a multitude of landscapes and dances.

It investigates how each person’s ability to observe the landscape can contribute to a different view of his or her body and, conversely, how this can help develop new relationships with the environment.

Playground’s choreographic research takes inspiration from Bruegel’s painting and Tarkovsky’s cinema. The final composition emerges from the confrontation between the movement of bodies and the complexity of planes and volumes of space.

4. HOW TO PARTICIPATE

The workshop is free of charge.

It starts on September 16 and ends on September 21 with a public performance outcome.

It is open to a group of 10 children ages 8 to 12 and a group of 10 people over 60.

No experience in art or performance is necessary to participate.

Participation in all days of the workshop is required.

For information and registration: laboratori@genderbender.it

5. CALENDAR

Times and locations are being determined.

6. THE COMPANY

Operabianco is an artistic research group founded by Marta Bichisao, dancer and choreographer, and Vincenzo Schino, director and visual artist. Since 2006 it has chosen the theatrical universe to explore dance, performing art, visual arts and video by activating processes of community involvement. The multiplicity of languages he feeds on creates immersive performance experiences, in which challenging the traditional form of fruition offers audiences alternative postures, visions and points of view.

Among the themes on which he focuses his artistic investigation is the dialectic between the comic and the tragic in the relationship between performer and stage and between human and universe. The greatest inspiration comes from the world of painting and cinema, used as an entrance to choreographic research to question the boundary between composition and reality, between foreground and landscape.

Playground is part of Bologna Estate 2025, the playbill of activities promoted and coordinated by the Municipality and the Metropolitan City of Bologna-Tourist Territory Bologna-Modena, and is supported under the program agreement between the Municipality of Bologna and MiC Direzione Generale Spettacolo for live performance activities in peripheral areas.