Bolzano Danza 2026 - Chiara Bersani

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Michel – The Animals I Am

Three performers with disabilities share a stage. What follows redefines what dance can be. Michel – The Animals I Am began as a solo. Over four years, through a series of deliberate and considered steps, it became something entirely different: a work for three performers that challenges the idea of the artist as an exceptional individual — and replaces it with something more honest, and perhaps more interesting.

The title pays homage to jazz pianist Michel Petrucciani (1962–1999), who performed until his death despite the same rare bone condition as Bersani — osteogenesis imperfecta — and whose playing remains a masterclass in expressive freedom.

This is not a work about disability. It is a work about presence, about what a body can do when it stops trying to conform, and about the particular kind of power that comes from being seen exactly as one is. The performance is accessible to blind and visually impaired audiences through a poetic audio description by Camilla Guarino and Giuseppe Comuniello, developed within the RING Project.

The project originates from L'ANIMALE (2021), a solo created by Chiara Bersani for Swans Never Die, a project inviting choreographers to engage with Fokine's The Dying Swan. Over the following years the work toured across different spaces; in 2024 the LIFT Festival in London produced a forty-minute version. In 2025 the project reached its choral form, co-produced by Bolzano Danza as part of the RING Project, with its world premiere on 9 November at Festival Aperto in Reggio Emilia.

Tickets:
Full price € 18,90
Under 30 € 12,60
Under 12 € 5,25

Tickets are available online or at the box office of the Teatro Comunale di Bolzano.

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