Native

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This performance, which premiered at the Performance Studies’ Studio –  NYU (New York University) in 2010, started from questions related to the condition of being native. Far from trying to give a definite answer to that question, the performative explorations carried out in this case are permeated by various tensions: a tension between identity and alterity, between the necessity of recognizing one’s own roots  and the necessity of being in constant movement, between what is strange and what is familiar. In other words, this performance seeks to capture some forces and intensities that can generate a specific sense: the sense of belonging. And here, giving shape to a sort of spiral, we can perceive the emergence of another question: at what level is really possible to produce this kind of sense nowadays?

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The piece of read meat, the knife, the white paper, which gives shape to a sort of catwalk, and the sound design – with texts written by Matteo Bonfitto and interventions by Beth Lopes – acquire here the function of elements to be explored in their materiality in order to generate states or reverberations instead of producing situations. In this respect, this process can be associated with a dimension in which there is a tension between the order of representation and that of presentation. Native can, in this way, be considered as a development of previous works, such as Silence and Descartes.

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Performers: Matteo Bonfitto e Beth Lopes

Sound and Spatial Environment: Matteo Bonfitto e Beth Lopes

Text: Matteo Bonfitto