ALESSIA MALLARDO
ARTIST, BUTOH PERFORMER AND DANCE THERAPIST
When I get lost, I explore the body through dance. My research stems from myth and has evolved into a series of works on emotion. I propose a poetry of the senses in which the hands see, the eyes listen and smells have the taste of silence.
I present my work and art through my performances, by participating in dance and contemporary art festivals and events and by working for public and private institutions on projects for children. I also offer dance workshops inspired by Dance Therapy and Japanese Butoh, paths that constantly intersect and influence each other.
My performances and workshops inevitably contain my own experience, so something of my personal history ends up reaching out and touching the stories of others...
RESEARCH ON THE BODY began during my university studies in psychology and anthropology and my travels between Italy, France and Brazil. At this time I also started studying the I Ching, the Chinese philosophy book on change and dream analysis, with the Italian psychoanalyst Adalinda Gasparini.
ART AND CARE I am inspired by the Argentine dancer Maria Fux, whose method of dance therapy I have learned and practiced; by the colour workshops held by Italian educator Laura Mancini that I attended as a child; and by the experiences gained as a Butoh performer with the Japanese dancer Atsushi Takenouchi, to whom I was an assistant and of whom I am still a student.
MYTH AND RITUAL are subjects I studied during my university years. I travelled to places where I could experience magic or religious rituals and met, lived and worked with professional practitioners of magic and the occult. In these rituals I met with ancient deities and now use dance and song to bring elements of these myths into the present.
EMOTIONS AND SENSES I too have a body; I recognise, research and explore its language and sensations. I too feel joy, anger and pain. I too have open wounds that sometimes bleed. I therefore understand others and by sharing my experiences, I can help shed light on buried emotions and the invisible and transform metaphors of death into metaphors of life.