19 oCTOBER 2025, 7.30 PM
Irene Russolillo
Orbita | Spellbound
Fatique
project, choreography, vocal writing, costumes Irene Russolillo
sound creation, vocal writing Edoardo Sansonne/Kawabate
creation, performance
dancers Toma Aydinyan, Andrey Tikhonov
singers Zara Gevorgyan, Lusya Karapetyan
textile artists Hermine Melkonyan, Piruza Gevorgyan, Hermine Iskandaryan, Anahit Gasparyan, Karine Galoyan
costume maker Gohar Ghazaryan
coproduction ORBITA|Spellbound National centre of dance production in Rome and Henrik Igityan NCA National Centre for Aesthetics in Yerevan
production coordinator Nara Makaryan
residency support Associazione Culturale Dello Scompiglio, TRAC Puglia, Network Crossing the sea
partnership High Fest International Performing Arts Festival
with support of Italian Ministry of Culture, Ministry of Culture of Republic of Armenia
"Many people who are not European, not Western, and not wealthy cannot decide if they want to move, where to go or to return at will, as I can. They cannot pursue the aspiration for change, whatever form it may take, as I have the privilege to do. The inability to move freely is an urgent and pressing issue. Even though a performance can do nothing and does nothing to influence migration policies, with this work, we celebrate every effort that precedes or accompanies people’s movements".
Irene Russolillo
Fatigue is a choral, vocal, and physical performance about the act of going forward, evoking a climb and a procession, where breath and song lie at the origin of the choreography. A body made of many bodies confronts the fatigue of a physical and spiritual journey, where visions and traces of people and places lost or left behind may emerge. The ascent is often used as a metaphor for achieving a goal or even for conquering new territories. But what if there’s no peak to reach, and the endeavor took place on an infinitely flat surface? Fatigue puts bodies and voices under strain, in a space that is both one of struggle and of mutual support, as they create an ephemeral refuge, before the journey continues beyond the gaze.
Irene Russolillo’s experiences in Armenia, beginning in 2019, laid the groundwork for the international co-production Fatigue, a transdisciplinary work conceived for non-theatrical spaces, whose title evokes both the notion of work and the fatigue that arises from any endeavor. During her stays in Yerevan, she carried out creative residencies, presented performances, and led workshops for diverse groups of students: young people and adults, professionals and amateurs, people with and without disabilities. These workshops, focused on dance and vocal research, were part of the professional activities of the Henrik Igityan NCA National Centre for Aesthetics. Through these journeys, Russolillo gradually immersed herself in the local cultural and social fabric of Armenia, developing a strong bond with its people and its political realities. Thanks to her growing familiarity with this context, and rejecting any extractive or folkloristic approach, the creation of Fatigue found its ground, fostering what might ideally be described as a “choreography of relations”: an ethically grounded environment in which the collaborative mode that shapes the stage action can emerge.
Irene Russolillo is a dancer, vocalist, performer, and choreographer with a nomadic and transdisciplinary approach to the stage. She creates solo projects or collaborates with visual, music and dance artists in Italy and internationally. She is an associate artist of ORBITA|Spellbound, the National Dance Production Centre in Rome, where she is based. Her latest work, fàtico (2024), premiered in Rome as part of Festival Equilibrio/Vertigine, the dance season of ORBITA. Among her recent creations are dov’è più profondo (2022), which premiered at the T*Danse Festival in Aosta, and If there is no sun, created with Luca Brinchi and Karima DueG, which premiered at Teatro India/FuoriProgramma Festival in Rome. Since 2014, she has received numerous awards, including the Premio Equilibrio, Premio Masdanza, Premio Prospettiva Danza, and CROSS Award. She has been an associate artist at Oriente Occidente Dance Festival, was selected by the Crisol and Crossing the Sea networks, and collaborated with GRIOT for the production Mirrors, part of the Italia Culture Africa 2019 programme. As a dancer, she worked for many years with Roberto Castello. She has also collaborated with Lisi Estaras of the historic company Les Ballets C de la B, the duo Abbondanza-Bertoni, and many other choreographers in Italy and across Europe. Her mostly non-academic training allowed her to encounter key mentors who shaped her career, including Gabriella Musacchio (classical ballet), Ivan Wolfe (movement research), and Micha Van Hoecke’s Ensemble, with whom she had her first professional experiences. Later, she trained with David Zambrano, Thomas Hauert, Julyen Hamilton, and many others. Her background also includes a degree in Political Science (Naples) and a diploma in contemporary dance teaching (Paris).
Edoardo Sansonne is a singer, electronic music producer, and researcher/composer for sound installations, video art, theatre, and contemporary dance performances. He produces electronic music under the pseudonym Kawabate, a project that generates and organises atemporal soundscapes through processes of deconstruction and manipulation of sampled and archival audio sources. His first release came in 2020 with the track Epicentro in Mutants Mixtape Vol. 2, alongside Arca and other artists from around the world. He is the co-founder of Migma Collective, a group of artists creating and promoting avant-garde culture in the VCO Lakes district of Italy. In Europe and the United States, he has studied singing with teachers such as Elise Witt, Oskar Boldre, Rhiannon, Anita Daulne (Zap Mama), Nico Note, and overtone singing with Alash Ensemble and Agnese Banti. He has collaborated with musician Alberto Ricca/Bienoise, musician and performer Karima 2G, choreographer Irene Russolillo, choreographer Elisa Sbaragli, multimedia artists Luca Brinchi and Daniele Spanò, director Federico Gagliardi, multimedia artist Fabio Brusadin (Kokoshka Revival), Mauro Pace (Hyperstudio), director Simone Bozzelli, and many others.
