Gesti di relazione, la ballata

Gesti di relazione, la ballata (Relationship Gestures, the Ballad) is a site-specific performance conceived for the Casino Nobile at the Musei di Villa Torlonia in Rome. Developed through a workshop with students from the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome, the piece invites the audience into a layered experience of observation and listening through a selection of gestures drawn from the museum’s collection of paintings and frescoes, with particular attention to how these visual compositions encode and stage specific social hierarchies and positioning. Equipped with headphones, visitors are invited to listen to an audio featuring a dialogue between the artists on the significance of the gestures depicted, weaving in reflections on familial bonds and personal relationships. In the main hall, a quadrille is performed by artists and students. The dance begins with a simple handshake, a gesture at once ordinary and symbolically charged. From this initial contact, the quadrille unfolds, echoing the subtle negotiations that shape every human encounter. All these different elements contribute to creating a stratified narrative where the frescoed scenes, spoken memories, and choreographed gestures converge. Through the performative reactivation of selected scenes within the museum space, the artists thus interrogate how gestures produce layered dynamics of authority and intimacy.