Enzo Cosimi's 'Estasi' Blends Dance, Performance, and Visual Art at Triennale Milano

The dance performance 'Estasi' by Compagnia Enzo Cosimi premiered at Teatro dell'Arte de La Triennale di Milano as part of the Festival Exister. It is the second installment of the trilogy 'Sulle passioni dell'anima'. The piece features six nude dancers with painted genitals who gradually dress, stuffing their clothes to create awkward, disproportionate figures reminiscent of Erwin Wurm's 'One Minute Sculptures'. Discarded clothing on stage references Michelangelo Pistoletto's 'Venere degli Stracci', later thrown in fury like Christian Boltanski's installation at HangarBicocca. The performance explores lust, perversion, desire, eroticism, love, adultery, and mystical ecstasy through lascivious scenes and multiple couplings. Dancers wear plexiglass masks and prosthetics, moving in crawling, ungainly steps. The atmosphere evokes Dante's inferno and Pipilotti Rist's surreal vision. A dancer repeatedly recites Pier Paolo Pasolini's words: 'Non lasciarti tentare dai campioni dell'infelicità... Sii allegro... T'insegneranno a non splendere. E tu splendi, invece.' The festival MilanOltre will dedicate a focus to Enzo Cosimi in October 2017 with two choreographies at Elfo Puccini and a site-specific project with Antonio Marras at Spazio Nonostante Marras.