Marinella Senatore, art without borders

And what was all that effort for?
«To understand how much energy is needed to work. I also did office cleaning for a while: I wanted to see the faces of those who woke up at 4 in the morning to catch the first bus. How can you create a truly inclusive art by staying closed in a studio? ».

Is that why you founded the School of Narrative Dance?
«It is an itinerant and free school, based on a horizontal learning system: there is no real teacher, I act as a sounding board, relaunching ideas. You work creatively on concepts such as emancipation and inclusiveness. The final result is a performance that uses the movement of the body, a basic dance that appears as a sort of procession, useful for telling stories. When, fifteen years ago, I began to involve the participants also in the writing of the script of the performance, the cultural institutions looked at me with suspicion. But do we want art to be an agent of change or not? ».

Her attitude also struck Maria Grazia Chiuri, creative director of Dior, who then called her to create the sets for one of her most beautiful fashion shows, in Lecce, in 2020, a glimpse of light in the middle of a pandemic
“He saw one of my American performance processions in Cold Spring on the Hudson River. In the audience there was also Jovanotti, I later learned. Even the observer has an active role: recent studies have confirmed that this type of aggregation aligns the heartbeat of those present, transforming them into a single body that breathes. This is inclusiveness ».

That is to say?
“I am not, as someone once told me, making me angry, a social worker: I don’t pretend to heal people, I don’t feel better than others just because I am an artist and I am successful. Participatory art was taught to me by the participants themselves ».

How do you select them?
«The open call is a real political act. At the beginning, in New York, I went door to door, even in the most disadvantaged neighborhoods, to explain what I wanted to do at the museum: it was the only way to attract an audience other than the well-to-do and cultured average white. I received a lot of rubbish, someone gave me a dollar of alms just to lose myself, few understood. Now it’s the people who come to me. I feel a spasmodic search for belonging to a community ».

Next project in the pipeline?
«In 2022. A large performance in Rotterdam, with the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen. I discovered that 135 languages ​​are spoken in the city: incredible, isn’t it? We have taken steps to adequately communicate the project to everyone, including the homeless. We will involve two or three hundred people, the idea is to exploit parkour, which for many is just a reckless stunt for kids while it is an incredible resistance movement ».

Does he parkour?
«It is a form of dance that appropriates the spaces of the city. It helps to emancipate oneself and to overcome fears: for some the challenge is a jump of 5 meters, for another one only step, for another still leaving the house is already a success. The participants will write the script with me, and we will talk about the need to never leave anyone behind: isolation generates monsters ».

In the photo of the cover the collage Speak Easy, on show in Turin in the solo show Make it Shine.

Appointment in Turin
From 5 to 7 November the best of international contemporary art meets in Turin for the 28^a edition of Artissima. The title, Controtempo, “is a metaphor for the ability of art to strike weak accents, transforming them into strengths and creating a contrast of dominant voice”, explains the director Ilaria Bonacossa. 154 galleries are expected in the spaces of the Oval, divided into the historic sections: Main Section, for the most consolidated realities in the world; New Entries for emerging ones; Dialogue / Monologue for special projects; Art Spaces & Editions also open to non-profit organizations (artissima.art).

To subscribe to Vanity Fair, click here.