Festival Oriente Occidente 2021: Shechter, Ninarello, Bersani, Balletto Civile, Mazzotta

The Festival Oriente Occidente in Rovereto opened with Hofesh Shechter's Political Mother (2010) remix and Unplegged (2020), featuring Bach interrupted by dark silences and wind, performed by Hofesh Shechter II. Critic Stefano Tomassini finds Shechter's movement vocabulary limited and the work pre-Covid in style. Daniele Ninarello's solo Nobody Nobody Nobody. It’s ok not to be ok, commissioned by the festival, begins with the artist lying face down with an electric guitar loop, then rises to fight invisible oppression with glitch music, eventually tuning the guitar and singing E la luna bussò, taking a roll call of consenting attendees, and dancing to Loredana Bertè as if alone. Chiara Bersani's Moby Dick for Danskompaniet Spinn focuses on the long, slow wait for the white whale, with sound design by Ilaria Lemmo. Michela Lucenti and Balletto Civile's site-specific 20 Di/versi madrigali contemporanei uses Monteverdi madrigals and volunteer performers from Trentino, creating a memory theater with fixed giant faces and mobile dissident actions. Stefano Mazzotta's dance film I poveri, based on Raul Brandão's novel Os Pobres, uses static shots and few camera movements to depict moral exile and the silence of present things.