During two stages in December, Neapolitan choreographer Giovanfrancesco Giannini is invited to develop an artistic residency at the Utopia Home – International Empathy Center in Krakow, as guest of Santarcangelo Festival within the programme of Boarding Pass Plus Dance. Dedicated to the development of the choreography for CLOUD, the research is realised with the support of the Italian Cultural Institute of Krakow.

A choreographic device interacts with the data flows of an always present online Internet connection. In CLOUD the performance space is connected to remote geographies, in a mediatic landscape which draws on information. Through images, videos and digital streams, the performer takes the audience on a journey through the archived data of his personal memory. A body that searches, reflects on and attests to the visible world. CLOUD is a reflection on the politics of images, on the media representation of bodies and the violence against them, and on memory as an archive of moving data, real and virtual. The work is inspired by the manifesto of queer communism and the reflections of Georgy Mamedov and Oksana Shatalova, radical activists from Kyrgyzstan. CLOUD was selected for DNAppunti coreografici 2019 Romaeuropa festival and for NID Platform open studios 2021.

GIOVANFRANCESCO GIOANNINI
Giovanfrancesco Giannini was born in Naples in 1990. He currently works with Francesca Foscarini, Alessandro Sciarroni, C.ia Aiep Ariella Vidach (Milan), C.ie Eco Emilio Calcagno (Paris), Fabbrica Europa (Florence), C.ia Korper (Naples). His performances have been presented at: FOG Triennale performing festival, Fabbrica Europa, Nao performing art festival, Romaeuropa, CCDC festival Hong Kong, Korperformer, Secret Florence. His work CLOUD was selected for DNAppunti coreografici 2019 Romaeuropa. His project Memories, in collaboration with the artists Fabio Novembrini and Valentina Zappa is among the winners of Crossing the sea (Marche Teatro). In 2020 he is among the Italian artists selected for CRISOL, Bording Pass Plus promoted by Mibact. He danced for Sang Jijia, Dimitris Papaioannou, Stefano Poda, Luca Veggetti, Mathilde Rosier, Dominique Dupuy, Ismael Ivo.

BOARDING PASS PLUS DANCE
Boarding Pass Plus Dance is a a project for professionalization and international mobility for dancers, choreographers, curators and producers funded by the Italian Ministry of Culture and promoted by a network of Italian organizations initiated by Comune di Bassano del Grappa – Operaestate / CSC with Associazione Culturale AREA06 – Short Theatre, Fondazione Piemonte Dal Vivo – Circuito Regionale Multidisciplinare, Indisciplinarte s.r.l. and Santarcangelo dei Teatri. The network shares the common mission of supporting the artistic development and professional growth of Italian artists by promoting their creative processes through mentoring and residencies, by presenting and facilitating the circulation of their works nationally and internationally. Boarding Pass Plus Dance is a response to the increasing need for artists to connect with the international scene, to research and discover new inspirations as much as to develop new collaborations and maximize their visibility.
In light of the new international challenges, the project rethinks the notion of mobility by providing Italian dance makers long residencies to create their own works, peer-to-peer artistic exchanges to cultivate future collaborations, public platforms on specific themes such as sustainability, inter-culturalism and dramaturgy in partner’s location and online presentations, dedicated to specific geographical areas to allow alternative forms of traveling and networking, exploring the digital as a collective space to overcome isolation and national borders.

UTOPIA HOME
Utopia Home – International Empathy Centre is the latest initiative by the Łaźnia Nowa Theatre in Krakow. A place of cooperation, exchange and partnership of artistic communities and the inhabitants of Nowa Huta in Krakow. The project includes a modern education centre, craft workshops, a meeting space, artistic residences, and a movement and rest zone. The building, which can accommodate up to 600 people, will carry out a non-theatrical programme of Łaźnia Nowa: concerts, performances, film screenings, social university discussions, literary meetings, workshops and activities combining innovative ideas, forms and concepts. Utopia Home is created by Małgorzata Szydłowska and Bartosz Szydłowski, who are the founders of Łaźnia Nowa. “The concept of empathy and art has accompanied us since the beginning of our artistic activities, which is for over 25 years. The theatres that we created in Krakow’s Kazimierz, and then in Nowa Huta were not theatres in the classic sense of the word, says Małgorzata Szydłowska, director of Utopia Home. We thought of them as places of general culture. Utopia Home will be an expansion of this concept, but also a kind of laboratory in which we will seek a completely new language of art”.