PRIMI TEMPI

The most difficult choices are also the most honest ones. Let yourself be guided by your own instincts, not by someone else’s thoughts. Moving forward does not mean forgetting the past or your roots, but rather strengthening and fortifying them. I wish you an ever-bluer sky and a helping hand to guide and accompany you along your journey.

By and with: Alice D’Urso
Text: Excerpt from the book “Nostalgia” by Milan Kundera
Special thanks to Scenario Pubblico for their hospitality

Alice D’Urso grew up and trained in Catania through the MoDem Atelier program at “Scenario Pubblico” (CRID). Her first creation, Ingresso Libero, comes to life in the spaces of the Center of National Interest for Dance directed by Roberto Zappalà, with its public premiere in May 2025.

Drawing on Giuseppe Ungaretti’s striking image of the lupo di mare in “Allegria di naufragi”—the survivor who immediately resumes their journey after the wreck—the performance develops a physical exploration of resilience, endurance, and the act of continuing under extreme conditions. The open sea becomes a metaphor for states of radical uncertainty and transformation. At its core is the body as a site of experience and inscription: How do crises manifest in movement? Where are the thresholds between stability and loss of control, between resistance and surrender? The choreographic work approaches these tensions as dynamic states that continuously reconfigure in the act of performing. “Allegria di naufragi” thus unfolds a layered, embodied reflection on survival—as an ongoing process of locating oneself, losing ground, and moving forward.

Concept, Choreography and Performance: Emilia Quiñones
Sound design: Anouschka Trocker

Emilia Quiñoneswas born in 2002 in Berlin, is a contemporary dancer working at the intersection of dance theatre, interdisciplinary performance, and collective practices. She trained at the Academy Bühnenkunstschule Berlin and with the Motions Youth Company, and is currently completing her BA in Contemporary Dance at Danceworks Berlin. She has performed in various stage productions and, in 2023, was awarded at the Tanztreffen der Jugend with her collective Banditinnen for the work Alltagsmanifest. She currently teaches contemporary dance at HU Unisport.

Muga is a choreographic meditation: an invitation to recognize that fertile void from which a more conscious form of existence can emerge. The term derives from Japanese philosophy and refers to a state of emptiness in which the self dissolves, freeing itself from attachments, expectations, and desires. The performance unfolds as the journey of two bodies trapped in a system that transforms existence into production, consumption, and performance—perfectly synchronized cogs devoid of emotional depth. In a suspended, almost apocalyptic landscape, their movements repeat like mechanical rituals, until one of the two bodies loses precision and the system cracks. From this error emerge fragility, doubts, and awareness. It is the beginning of a process of awakening: a slow return to presence, to listening.

Choreography & concept: Francesco Paolino
Assistant choreography: Rebecca Fabbri
Dancers: Tom Blanc & Francesco Paolino

Francesco Paolino is a choreographer and dancer who trained at Codarts University of the Arts in Rotterdam. As a dancer, he has worked with internationally renowned choreographers, including Cayetano Soto, Wayne McGregor, Johan Inger, and Stephen Shropshire. In 2024, he won second prize at the Premio Roma Danza, receiving an invitation to create a piece for the young choreographers’ evening at the Théâtre National du Capitole de Toulouse, where he presented the duet Nothing Has Hurt Me More. His choreographies have also been presented at the Codarts Studio Evening with works such as Almost Human As I Was, Everything That Cannot Be Held, and Notes from Underground.