(EN) Harleking – Panzetti & Ticconi

Emphasis on king!

Panzetti and Ticcioni invite us into a witty, deconstructive exercise of Harlequin, the diamond-patterned troublemaker of Commedia dell’arte. In a dramaturgically clever and choreographically precise exercise, the Italian duo accompanies the viewer in the discovery of this harle-king, a ‘demon with multiple identities’.

Here a distance is put between the grin, or the spastic physical reaction of Harlequin’s laughter, and the actual thing these elements represent. The king, abstracted, appears in a new form. Consider their take on Venetian masks: Panzetti and Ticcioni draw the ornaments around their eyes, through their arms and above their heads, engaging the whole body in what becomes a hypnotic movement phrase, in canon and with purpose.

Even when the performance falls into a vague, under-illuminated blur, it feels planned: the sudden comeback and the final, political joke of the character land even with more weight because of it. The structure of the work, it seems, was also part of this commedia.

 

 

Jordi Ribot Thunnissen – Reviewed for Springback Academy during Aerowaves’ SpringForward 2019 in Val du Marne.(FR)

picture: Ettore Spezza