Residency of Alessandro Businaro, hosted by Teatro in Quota in partnership with Les Longues Journées
From the first week of June to 12 August, the Italian theatre director living in France, Alessandro Businaro, developed the project Déjà vu thanks to the collaboration between the Italian festival Teatro in Quota and the French festival Les Longues Journées.
In recent years, Alessandro's work has focused on creating participatory site-specific performances that emerge from the social context in which they are set. These performances are often carried out in urban settings and frequently allow spectators to become protagonists. For this reason, Déjà vu was born, a project exploring the relationship between food and memory.
@Manika Auxire
The first part of the work took place from early June until 7 July in Ville-sur-Jarnioux, a small village in southern France where the festival Les Longues Journées is held. During these weeks, Alessandro collaborated with actors Edouard Penaud and Juliette Malfray (both from the village) to build a relationship with the local community and understand what the traditional foods were. The identified food was "saucisson à la Beaujolaise," a pork sausage cooked with potatoes in the local wine.
Starting from this food, Alessandro and the actors created a performance where the audience cooked alongside them and shared personal and collective memories related to that dish and the region. The performance took place in the large garden of Edouard's grandparents' house (one of the two performers) and involved almost 150 people. It was moving for everyone (both the artists and the audience) to see how a show like this allowed the entire community to come together and embrace one another.
@Gianluca Iraggi
After the experience in Ville-sur-Jarnioux, Alessandro went to Italy, to Rocca di Mezzo, where the second part of the project took place. Starting from 5 August, the director, along with two actors (Francesca Astrei and Daniele Paoloni), conducted the same investigation into the typical food of this small town in central Italy and, with the advice of various representatives from local associations, chose "gnocchi al sugo." During that week, the actors worked with a family from Rocca di Mezzo to learn all the secrets of the traditional gnocchi recipe and to collect memories and stories related to this tradition. On 12 August, the Italian version of the project was performed beneath the church of Rocca di Mezzo.
Déjà vu was a very important project for Alessandro Businaro's work, allowing him to understand how crucial the theme of "shared rituals" is within his artistic journey. Moreover, this project exemplifies how theatre can build a strong connection with the community and serve as a meeting point for different professions and activities. For the realisation of Déjà vu, farmers, wine producers, fruit vendors and butchers were involved.