From July 7 to 26, choreographers Elisa Spina and Camilla Cason, thanks to the Crossing the sea program, were invited to China by the SIDCT (Shanghai International Dance Center Theatre), which hosted them in Shanghai during its summer festival dedicated to young people.

We worked for 5 days with 10 children between the ages of 7 and 12 to create together the performance Game on rite!

Drawing inspiration from the universe of the tarantellas, we explored play as a ritual and as a way of being on stage. We transformed ourselves by exploring contact with the animals that inhabit our inner and outer worlds. We kept time together, spun around, threw ourselves to the ground, laughed while stealing fabric handkerchiefs from one another, and fell silent. We are happy to have successfully experimented with the possibility of seeing children laugh on stage and have fun, bringing vitality and joy, letting ourselves be guided by the simplicity that tradition teaches us.

This creation was presented on the vast stage of the SIDCT and at the MAP – Museum of Art Pudong.
In this museum, we also performed for the first time a new piece that brings together our two solos. Starting from the ritual practice of the tarantella, both offer, each in their own way, a contemporary take on tradition.
We were at the Shanghai Theatre Academy to lead a class for professional students, sharing with them material from our respective works.

We served as judges for the Hello Dance SIDC Youth Dance Festival, discovering the beauty and wide range of styles of traditional Chinese dances and those of some of the 55 ethnic minorities of this vast country.
At the Fotografiska museum, we screened the film Drop a line to the wind, discussed it with the audience, and offered a workshop inspired by tarantella practices.

We also explored the city and its surroundings, discovered unimaginable flavors, rode bikes, learned games and body exercises, met dragons, phoenixes, and two chinchillas, took shelter from a typhoon, marveled at it all, and in Chinese we learned to count up to 4 and to say “Thank you!”

We come back eager to start again and to continue exploring the tradition of play, song, and movement!
Thanks to Alessia, Tammy, Sylvia, and Simon, without whom none of this would have been possible.
Thanks to Crossing the sea for offering Italian artists the opportunity to bring their ideas and research into the world, and for allowing our projects to grow through exchange and diversity.

Elisa and Camilla