What happens when public space ceases to be simply a place of passage and becomes a territory inhabited by identities, desires and solitudes? What form does solitude take when it encounters other solitudes? How does a collective body take shape?

La Plaza is a choreographic project that explores the ways in which bodies build, share and transform public space. Starting from the square as a place of encounter, passage and coexistence, the project investigates how people inhabit and shape shared spaces through everyday gestures, relationships and collective practices.

 

Inspired by Wim Wenders’ Wings of Desire and Fernando Pessoa’s heteronyms, La Plaza explores the relationship between the individual and the collective through the presence of a single performer. The dancer embodies shifting identities and traces of experiences, bringing forth a plurality of perspectives within a single body.

The audience is invited to engage with this space of plurality and reflect on their own relationship with the community, with others and with the space we inhabit together.

 

In La Plaza, the body becomes a place of encounter: a space where individual memories, presences and imaginaries intertwine to shape, even if only temporarily, a possible collective experience.

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Methodology

The research process combines anthropological observation and poetic inquiry through the archiving of gestures, actions and figures encountered in the public space of the square. These elements are extracted from their everyday context, released from their original function and transformed into choreographic material, entering into dialogue with the memory and identity of the place.

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The research in public space unfolds through the following approaches:

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• Direct observation in public space: exercises in presence and prolonged observation, during

  which spontaneous gestures and micro-actions are memorised.

• Physical interaction with public space: movement exercises aimed at establishing a relation-

  ship with the space, the people and the sounds present.

• Interviews with passers-by: brief, spontaneous encounters during which people are invited to

  talk about the gestures, habits and rituals that inhabit the space in their everyday lives.