Late Hour Scratching Poetry

Alda Merini’s voice, her texts of poetic everyday life, and a group of female performers: together, these map out a nocturnal constellation in which words form an evocative pendulum, a means of putting the fragments back together. With an altogether different breath, this daily coming together at nightfall enables us to listen, to come to terms with the way we see things and put our objective view on hold. Eyes closed, it allows us to let the sparks of Alda Merini’s poetry reverberate through our arteries, and restructure our individual experiences; it’s the Doppler ultrasonography that unveils the innocence we had long archived.

LATE HOUR SCRATCHING POETRY is an ambitious project that sees the participation of major institutions and female artists – in addition to the staged reading of Alda Merini’s famous prose works, notably La pazza della porta accanto (The Crazy Woman Next Door). Leading the way into these universal words is a heroine of our times, an artist and woman who breaks all the rules of the conventional identity portrait, brushing it off with a rough-edged spirit devoid of any self-satisfaction. Asia Argento will be the first to sponsor this adventure with that same voice, heart and limbs we’ve seen shake and shape-shift in so much international cinema.
This bold project also sees a partnership with one of the oldest and most prestigious drama schools. The Accademia Nazionale d’Arte Drammatica “Silvio d’Amico” will be the muse that weaves the fabric of this design, starting with the artist heading up the project: Galatea Ranzi. As one of her generation’s foremost representatives in Italian theatre and cinema – as well as a graduate of the prestigious Institute – Galatea will curate this journey of nightly segments, one for each night of the Festival. Every night she will be accompanied by a different female performer, a host of women who represent the theatre of tomorrow, and all graduates of the same academy. On the final night of the Festival, the journey will be sealed by an appearance from the rarefied figure of Sonia Bergamasco. As one of the most rigorous and vibrant performers to grace the contemporary Italian stage, she will be charged with bringing us ’back to land’.

This nocturnal feminine city will also play host to the masculine essence of Demetrio Castellucci, amid female performers and authors. Thanks to a sonic sensitivity nurtured in his family environment and enriched by a wealth of professional experiences abroad, he will sketch out a path of musical evocations that will leave the words suspended in time, allowing sound to inhabit the body and vice versa. After floating in amazement, once the last fluorescent poetic phoneme has been uttered, they will take a deep dive into a DJ set – a Dantesque banquet that will transform astonishment into a feast, recapturing that sense of being together, and glorifying in our real, everyday life. The outcome will be a blurring of the boundaries of feminine and masculine, towards a multiform word-gender that outlines the desire for peace, freedom and respect for the differences of others – a wealth yet to be secured.