Two performers play out on stage the gestures of  the loom weaving. Starting from the gathering reeds for the threads to the weaving of the final fabric, “Testo” (from latin textus, past participate of texĕre ‘to weave, to interweave’) writes and tells a new story building on Maria De Stefano’s testimony; weaver and master at the Textile Art Reserch Centre in Calabria, in “Testo”, her work has been translated and handed down in a scenic and performative form.

I met Mrs. Maria in the small village of Squillace during a pottery workshop, during a hot Mediterranean August. I was collecting notes for a wide-ranging paper. So I asked her to tell me about her weaving practice. We met at her house. Shortly after she started telling me about her work; I saw her hands making gestures, which corresponded to those of harvesting and processing loom. Immediately those gestures reminded me of something else, with her hands to the sky, she was gathering fabric and counting the stars. So I asked her to repeat the entire sequence for me the next day. I filmed it.