Chiara Bersani

Since I starded working - first as a performer and later as a performance maker-, I have always put at the centre of my reflection the body as custodian of an unique and irrepeatable story. After a journey through biographic and autobiographic immaginaries (Dearest - 2009; Post-Scriptum per il mio biografo - 2010, Family Tree – 2012), the very concept of body started to transform before my eyes. No more a simple witness of the story of a life but a political entity, crowned as such by the encounter or clash with society.

Chiara Bersani is author or performer. Her work is especially focused on the concept of “Political Body”. She is affected by“Osteogenesis Imperfecta”. This syndrome was her inspiration to study the deep political meaning that a body can assume when simply connecting with the society. 

In 2013 she started to conceive and develop a project focusing around the topic of political body, structured in three different projects: Tell me more (a dance piece for 8 old singers man in a museum co-produced by Teatro Pradillo/La Tristura in Spain and OperaEstate Festival Veneto in Italy) Miracle Blade (a movie supported by Corpoceleste_C.C.00#, Elevetor Bunker Filmworks and BMotion) and in 2016 Goodnight, Peeping Tom (a performance for five spectators at a time produced by Gender Bender Festival and Lo Scompiglio in Italy).
In 2015 she works as creative assistant with Jérôme Bél in his new production Gala, also performing in the italian version of the piece. 
As a performer, she works for many artists from the international contemporary theatre scene, such as Alessandro Sciarroni (IT), Lenz Rifrazioni (IT), La Tristura (ES), Rodrigo Garcia (ES), Babilonia Teatri (IT).

GOOD NIGHT PEEPING TOM

a project by Chiara Bersani

Goodnight, peeping Tom is a performing art work that aims at demonstrating a thesis:

at the basis of every behavior or sexual desire

there’s an emotional impulse, a romantic request.

The main objects of this research are the power of desire and the intensity of the action that is finalized at satisfying it.

According to the legend, Peeping Tom was punished with blindness because he dared watching Lady Godiva through a hole in the window as she was riding naked through her city's street as a sign of protest for high taxation.

Tom was punished because of his gaze, because of his desire.

Tom became Peeping Tom and thus any thought of perversion was associated to him.

Now I wish to make him a present, to compensate him for an injustice.

Underlying all behaviour and sexual desire is a sentimental thrust, a romantic request: this is the thesis behind Goodnight, peeping Tom, latest work by Chiara Bersani. Beginning from the legend of Lady Godiva and Peeping Tom, a reflection on the performative form of the body as a “political entity”, which is formed and transformed in contact with the gaze of others and society. A subject the artist cares very much, Chiara suffers from a form of imperfect osteogenesis. Here her reflection widens out onto sexuality and its stereotypes: “disabled people seen as asexual, the elderly perceived as devoid of eroticism, homosexuals to whom a dissolute life is frequently attributed”.

The performance is based on the creation of a practice that explores the daily research of balance between our desires and the ones of the others. The performers will welcome small groups of people into the performative space, actively involving them in a relations network made of gazes, glimpses, whispers, proximities and distances, suggestions of intimacy and farewells. This temporary encounter will last for an established amount of time.

Since I starded working - first as a performer and later as a performance maker-, I have always put at the centre of my reflection the body as custodian of an unique and irrepeatable story. After a journey through biographic and autobiographic immaginaries (Dearest - 2009; Post-Scriptum per il mio biografo - 2010, Family Tree – 2012), the very concept of body started to transform before my eyes. No more a simple witness of the story of a life but a political entity, crowned as such by the encounter or clash with society.

Therefore, I started to define the features of the concept I have of a political body: the body responds to its social function when it chooses to dive into society imposing/exposing itself to others to be watched/seen. Those who come across it can't help giving it a meaning, interpreting it, creating expectations about it. The body chooses to respond its political duty when it welcomes, analyzes, customizes the bestowed meanings, transforming them into an aware self-manifesto.

You are not the one who interprets me but I am the one who shows you the path to comprehend me.

I accept the responsability of drawing the image that the world will have of me.

In this journey around the Political Body sexuality assumes a central position. The stereotypes linked to this sphere strike many kinds of people, e.i.: the disable seen as asexuated, the elderly percieved as lacking of erotic charge, the homosexual as therefore living a promiscuous life, porn actors considerated to be unable to love.