Deserance
a Circo Zoé show

Thursday, February 19 at the Donizetti Theatre

They call themselves “acrobats, musicians, philosophers, but first and foremost dreamers, creators, visionaries and fearmongers”: they are the members of the international but Bergamo-rooted company Circo Zoé, who on Thursday, Feb. 19, bring to the Donizetti Theater (8:30 p.m.) the show Deserance, one of the seven stages of Altri Percorsi, the Donizetti Theatre Foundation’s review dedicated to research theater. On stage: Simone Benedetti, Anouck Blanchet, Adrien Fretard, Maria Reis, Chiara Sicoli and Gael Manipoud. Music by Jean Stengel and Diego Zanoli. Singing Irene Geninatti. Circo Zoè production, co-production Théâtre + Cinéma Scène Nationale du Grand Narbonne, Teatro Asioli Correggio, Le Pôle La Seyne sur Mer. Duration 1 hour 30 minutes without intermission. Tickets: full 25 euros, reduced 20 euros

“Deserance-as the company itself notes-awakens the archetype of the journey. The intimate and desperate quest to make what we think and desire adhere to the vulnerability of our experiences. The bodies recount the loneliness of uniqueness, the abandonment of one’s defenses through an encounter with the other, suspended and dizzying as a waltz for two, the primordial belonging of a whole when self-affirmation emerges from the magma of bodies. The voice, through a repertoire of ancient music, leads and guides like Charon the travelers in search of their personal history through which they seek the origins of a vital sigh. Singing, in its most formal expression represented by the operatic voice, is set free through dialogue with contemporary sonorities that enliven and sustain the journey.”
“Deserance is an incubator of states of mind gathered in a word. It takes shape through the plurality of meanings it contains, a collection of identities and visions that take on a specific meaning only when together. Desire is the engine that starts from the body, visceral, in a certain sense innate. A creative urgency necessary to keep alive the feeling that justifies a choice of life always on the edge with oneself. Deserance contains within itself wandering, absolute mistress of the Company’s life. Indomitable and uncontrollable movement that has always led wayfarers and pilgrims in search of meaning, of an immanent purpose. A state of probable restlessness that renews itself, questions itself about the profound change of one’s choices and will.
And finally, resistance, that sacrificed self that finds so much space on stage but in everyday life is compromised and subordinated to the collective. That resistance, moreover, to external or internal events that cyclically demand confirmation and reaffirmation of choice.”

The Circo Zoé company was formed through a network of acquaintances and friendships linked by a passion for entertainment and in particular for circus. The first encounters took place in the social and street theater sphere right in Bergamo; contacts then expanded to Turin, to the Cirko Vertigo School, and later to the Académie Fratellini in Paris. In 2012 he debuted his first show Zoé at the Astra Theater in Turin. From there an international tour that took them to the Karacena Festival in Morocco, Mirabilia, Cirque Electrique in Paris, Arènes in Nanterre, and Mois Molières in Versailles. Circo Zoé is not only a company, but also a strong introspective will that translates almost into a programmatic manifesto of life and art: “The name of the company is composed of two words, Circo and Zoé (“life”). Circus because for us it is important to emphasize the importance of circus as art and as history: the circus encompasses a universe that goes beyond the moment of the show, it encompasses a choice of life, a choice of performing and artistic expression that encompasses many aspects of life, a true artistic and human sharing.” The term “life” means not so much “bios” as the philosopher Agamben’s concept of “naked life,” a choice that Circo Zoé feels is its own since it is akin to popular circus art, wrongly perceived as secondary to the classical arts. Circo Zoé was therefore born from the choice to take an artistic and life direction, yes uncertain, but made strong by the virtuous union of the collective that aims to defend an art, that of the street circus, which in Italy has not yet found its recognition.”