ALTRI ABITANTI

A reading with Annelisa Alleva, Marco Caporali, Sacha Piersanti, Irene Santori and the participation of Ludovica Bove, Augusto Cerruti, Francesco Utzeri

On the occasion of the exhibition The Uncanny House, the Museum Casa di Goethe is hosting a meeting with some of the most recognisable voices of contemporary ‘Roman’ poetry, differing in history, generation, style and expression but all sharing the same desire to transform private experience into collective ritual, one’s own home into public space, one’s own single self into an inhabitant other and always elsewhere: Annelisa Alleva, Marco Caporali, Sacha Piersanti and Irene Santori. Four authors, particularly sensitive to the oral performance of their texts, who will alternate and meet in the reading, offering the audience a true concert of voices. To enrich the evening, as mirror and counterpoint to the authors’ lively voices, the interventions of three young actors (Ludovica Bove, Augusto Cerruti and Francesco Utzeri), called upon to inhabit pages of poets and poetesses who have made the history of Italian poetry, in an ideal continuum of experiences and testimonies at once familiar and alienating.

PHOTO: Museum Casa di Goethe during the restoration works in the 1990s before the opening of the museum © Arbeitskreis selbständiger Kultur-Institute e.V. – AsKI

The authors

Annelisa Alleva (Rome, 1956). Annelisa Alleva (Rome, 1956). Her publications include: Chi varca questa porta e altre poesie (Il Bulino, 1998), Astri e sassi (Atelier Arte, 1999), Aria di cerimonia (Galleria Centofiorini, 2000), L’oro ereditato (Il Labirinto, 2002), Istinto e spettri (Jaca Book, 2003), La casa rotta (Jaca Book, 2010; Premio Sandro Penna), Caratteri (Passigli, 2018), Dita di vetro – Glass Fingers (Aragno Parallela, 2023) and the collection of essays Lo spettacolo della memoria (Quodlibet, 2013). An expert in Russian language and literature, she edited the anthology Poeti russiani oggi (Scheiwiller, 2008, Premio Lerici Pea Mosca 2009) and has translated, among others, Pushkin (Romanzi e racconti, Garzanti, 1990), Tolstoy (Anna Karenina, Frassinelli, 1997; Mondadori, 2009, Premio Russia-Italia 2010) and Cvetaeva (Vivo sul vivo, Passigli, 2023).

Marco Caporali (Roma, 1956). He has published the books of poems Il mondo all’aperto (Empirìa, 1991, Mondello Opera prima prize), Motivi danesi (Il Bulino, 1996, with two black manuscripts by Giulia Napoleone), Il silenzio venatorio (Empirìa, 2001), Casa Bagger (Il Labirinto, 2003, with four engravings by Svend Bagger), Alla fine del solco (Empirìa, 2007), Tra massi erratici (Empirìa, 2013, with a drawing by Gianni Dessì, Marazza Prize), La vita inoperosa (Empirìa, 2019), Il borgo dell’accoglienza (Il Labirinto, 2024) and the play Cose future (Tuscania Teatro, 1998). His translations include the Italian version of Ridere a mezzogiorno by Danish author Laus Strandby Nielsen (Empirìa, 1993). In 2009, he won the National Haiku Prize.

Sacha Piersanti (Roma, 1993). He published the poetry books Pagine in corpo (Empirìa, 2015) and L’uomo è verticale (Empirìa, 2018), and the essay Zero, nessuno e centomila. Lo specifico teatrale nell’arte di Renato Zero (Arcana 2019; 2022). He co-created the play L’ora dell’Alt, based on the work of Giorgio Caproni (Rome, 2016; Paris, 2019). In 2023 he translated extracts from the poetic work and diary Nature in the City by artist Jimmie Durham (Benetton Foundation). In the same year he conceived and wrote the recital Fonti, a hybrid project between live electronics and classical epic. Since 2017 he has been among the curators of the “La Casa del Poeta” project for the preservation of Valentino Zeichen’s ‘shack’, and since 2021 he has co-directed the literary initiatives of the “Zeugma” collective.

Irene Santori (Roma, 1973). Among her publications: Jean Racine. Poesie Sacre: Cantiques Spirituels e Hymnes traduites du Bréviaire romain, introduction, translation and commentary (Olschki, 2008) and the books of poems In tempo e disparte (Gazebo, 2006), Hôtel Dieu, (Empiria, 2016, Lorenzo Montano Prize 2018) and Il Libro dei Liquidi – The Book of Liquids (Aragno, 2021). She conceived and directs for Aragno Editore the Collana Bilingue di Poesia Parallela (Bilingual Series of Parallel Poetry), of which this latest publication is the birthplace, and Parallela Album (an out-of-format that links poetic texts and visual art). An author and presenter on Radio3-Rai (Uomini e Profeti, Vite che non sono la tua, Wikiradio), she also deals with contemporary art criticism and is president of the Vasco Bendini Archive.

The actors

Ludovica Bove (Roma, 1993). A graduate of the Scuola di Alta Formazione ‘Officina Pasolini’ in Rome, she has taken part as an actress and performer in several theatre productions that have allowed her to perform on stages of the calibre of Franco Parenti in Milan, the Auditorium Parco della Musica in Rome, the Teatro Antico in Taormina. Since 2022 she has also participated in television and film productions (Cattleya, Vivo Film, Filmauro, Wildside) working with Italian and international directors such as C. Verdone, A. Molaioli, N. Bendixen. Particularly interested in theatre-poetry experiences, since 2023 she has been co-curator and performer of Fonti, a hybrid project between contemporary poetry, classical epic and live electronics.

Augusto Cerruti (Firenze, 1994). A bilingual actor, he trained at the Neighbourhood Playhouse School of the Theatre in New York, where he took part in several plays and short films (Welcome to the Moon, by G. Kingstone, Hiding Rabbits, by M. Mikitas). After moving to Rome, he collaborated with directors and artists in American, Italian and Italian-American productions (Red Light Winter, by R. Pinter, If Lear Had a Lawyer, by D. Carroll, As Luck Would Have it, by B. Guion, Young Lions, by C. Evans, A Precipitated Symptom, by J. D. Skillas, Il Mostro, by S. Sollima, for Netflix), also devising readings and theatre-poetry performances (Six John Giorno Poems). In addition to acting, he works as a translator from Italian into English and vice versa.

Francesco Utzeri (Roma, 1992).

A graduate of the “Teatro Azione” School of Acting, he was a student at the “Scuola di Teatro e Perfezionamento” of the Teatro di Roma, where he had the opportunity to work with, among others, Virgilio Sieni, Michele Sinisi, Alessio Bergamo, and Muta Imago. She has taken part in several workshops directed by some of the best-known directors of the Italian contemporary scene (Massimiliano Civica, Filippo Gili, Francesco Villano, Dante Antonelli…) and in theatre productions, alternating experiences as a prose performer (Maddalè, by P. Zuccari) with others as a performer (Rufacontest2018; Extrahominem, by D. Casamassima).

The evening will be held in Italian.

Reservations a prenotazioni@casadigoethe.it