PIECES OF STORIES MEET PIECES OF VIOLINS AT A GALLERY
Memories of marginal characters from literature and stories, collected by recording friends and acquaintances, are set to music equally fragmented, played on broken violins by Marija Kovačevič. These recountings of often blurred memories are presented in art gallery spaces and imagined as etchings of mysterious vignettes, altered by time. An assemblage of impressions of moments and characters that left an impression.
While this project continues an ongoing exploration of bringing to the foreground characters, narratives, or aspects of performance meant to be marginal as a way to tackle ideas about visibility and perspective, it also stems from an interest I’ve been cultivating in folklore. I keep trying to imagine what aspects of our culture will be perceived as heritage years down the line, and I’m fascinated by the idea that what turns culture into folklore is possibly a passing of hands and authorship contaminated by unreliable memory. I love the idea of gathering memories. Maybe someone who sees this performance will retell one of these stories embellished by their own memory, perhaps melded with another. And maybe that will become its own story that will find its way to an anthropologist of the future.
Created and performed by Alessandro Magania with Marija Kovačević
Text contributions by: Kitty Chen Dean, Nick Cregor, Richard Epro, Alison Folland, Justin Gordon, Riitta Ikonen, Modesto Flako Jemenez, Savannah Knoop, Fiorella Maestrani, Thoma Marshall, Tanya Marquardt, Nicolas Noreña, Lee Relvas, Eric Schaal, Tim Scott.