Folk-s is a performative and choreographic practice focusing on time. The work came to life while thinking about ancient folk dances as popular phenomena that have survived contemporaneity. The Schuhplattler is a typical Bavarian and Tyrolean dance. The meaning is “shoe batter” because it literally consists in hitting one’s shoes and legs with one’s hands. In Folk-s, this dance is conceived and executed to point to a pre-existent and primitive form of thought. Dance as a rule, a dictatorship, flux of images that follow the rhythm and the form, not the content. The form is rhythm, energy that is perceived through our ears, not the eyes, “eyeless”. Thus, for the performers of Folk-s, there’s no other time than the present, a time that is not-past and not-future. It’s the infinite insistence of the tide against the sand, the endless return of the same wave to the same shore. It’s sound. In the repetition, geographically and culturally decontextualized, the folk material finds its clearest revelation. In this loop of percussive actions, the introduction of anomalies and variations seems to refer directly to the iconography of religious rites, to a complex system of signs evoking festivals and martyrdom, in the presence of a new, elegant and cruel Exterminating Angel. This way, the folk and the popular, abstracted from their original sonic matrix, seem to wrestle each other until they fuse with the contemporary condition, perpetually fighting for their survival.

Alessandro Sciarroni is an Italian artist active in the field of contemporary performing arts. The performance "Your Girl", produced in 2007, has toured the main Italian Theatre and Dance Festivals and in 2010 has been presented to the European audience in London (The Place), Oslo (Dancenshus), Dublin (Dublin Dance Festival), Burgos and Warsaw. In 2008 he wins the prize "Nuove Sensibilità” with the show "If I was Madonna". Sciarroni's works are produced by the Teatro Stabile delle Marche [The Marche Regional Theatre] in collaboration with Corpoceleste_CC00#, an independent cultural association created and directed by S. Between 2009 and 2010 his productions become part of the Italian network Antibodies Explo and of Aerowaves, a cross-border dance performance network that promotes the mobility of artists throughout Europe.

Since 2009, Alessandro Sciarroni is member of the faculty of the School of Theatre at Teatro Stabile delle Marche in Ancona. His research workshops focus on the contemporary art practice and the cross overs between the languages of performance art, theatre, and visual arts.

In 2010, together with other 8 Italian coreographers, he is selected for the project "Choreographic Dialogues" and invited to spend a one-month residency at the Festival B-motion in Bassano del Grappa and at the prestigious SNDO institute in Amsterdam. In 2011, one of the two Italian artists selected for the Choreoram project, he has been asked to develop a research project within the cities of Zagreb, Copenhagen, Rotterdam, Bassano del Grappa, Madrid and London.

Alessandro Sciarroni, is part of “Progetto Matilde”, a regional platform for the promotion of new theatre. In 2012 he is chosen as priority company for Aerowaves with the creation "Joseph" and wins the Danza&Danza prize as best 2012 emergent author. His last creation "Folk-s, will you still love me tomorrow?", inspired by Northern Italy's folk dances, is a performative and choreographic practice focusing on time.

More information: www.alessandrosciarroni.it