For Poetry Day, a performance-tribute to Alda Merini in Milan, by Andrea Bianconi

On the occasion of World Poetry Day tomorrow, March 21, artist Andrea Bianconi (Vicenza, 1974) has organized a performance that also intends to pay homage to poetess Alda Merini, who was born in Milan on March 21, 1931, and would have turned 90 today. The experiment, which also kicks off the new management of the Casa delle Arti - Spazio Alda Merini in Milan by the ’Piccola Ape Furibonda’ Association, composed of Cetec, Ebano, Errante and Promise, is titled Il sogno canta su una corda sola and kicks off Sunday at 10:30 on Spazio Alda Merini’s Facebook and Instagram pages, on which Andrea Bianconi’s video will be broadcast, made by the artist at the invitation of Cetec and a project of Casa Testori, with the artistic collaboration of Donatella Massimilla (footage of the performance was filmed before the entry into force of Decree-Law March 13, 2021, no. 30)

Along a symbolic path on Milan’s Navigli, which runs from the “Alda Merini Bridge” to Via Magolfa 32, home of the Casa delle Arti - Spazio Alda Merini, twenty-one different women’s voices (artists, actresses, ex-prisoners, citizens) gave life to a free and “on the road” performance, declaiming the lines of the poem created by Andrea Bianconi through 90 titles of 90 poems by Alda Merini chosen by Bianconi to celebrate the poet’s 90th birthday.

The words spread through the space thanks to the ’rope’ of a very long wireless telephone, a site-specific work created by Andrea Bianconi, which created a word-of-mouth of verses by uniting women with different experiences and histories. Picking up the string, in front of the door of the Casa delle Arti - Spazio Alda Merini, accompanied by the accordion of musician Gianpietro Marazza, were Donatella Massimilla, Gilberta Crispino and Andrea Bianconi. Bianconi, on a large white canvas placed on the wall of the House of the Arts, created a work by handwriting the 90 titles of poems by Alda Merini: the work was then donated by the artist to the ’Little Furious Bee’ for the Alda Merini House Museum.

“Women to restore voice and memory not only to the Poetess, but also to all loved, lost and never forgotten people, voices that help to find themselves,” comments Donatella Massimilla. “Nostalgias and desires, poetic verses as seeds of rebirth, now more than ever, when we feel the strong lack of theater, art, culture and beauty.”

“Casa Testori,” stresses Vice President Giuseppe Frangi, “accepted with great interest the invitation that came from Cetec: thanks to the performance of Andrea Bianconi, an artist with whom we have worked for many public art initiatives, two personalities who have left a deep poetic mark on the city in which they lived, Alda Merini and Giovanni Testori, are thus united.”

The art of the “little girl Merini,” as Pier Paolo Pasolini liked to call her, takes its first steps on the bridge dedicated to her with Cetec artists Elena Pilan, Mariangela Ginetti together with other actresses from the San Vittore company and artists close to the poetics of Cetec (from Claudia Casolaro to Ivna La Mart and Elisa Munforte), to those who have already interpreted pieces of Merini’s life and poems such as Rossella Rapisardo to citizens of different ages and cultures. The hope of this performance is to be able to kick off as soon as possible, always having safety at heart, the project “Alda’s Rooms” with a program of workshops, for the moment at a distance, and exhibitions, events, theatrical and virtual poetry readings, in the hope of being able to return all live soon.

Finally, the action is intended to be a “spring awakening,” as the organizers put it. The initiative, sponsored by City Hall 6 of the Municipality of Milan, has received praise from its president, Santo Minniti: “We are happy and satisfied with the restart of a place of culture, in particular of female cultural production, so important for our area. The Spazio Alda Merini has become a landmark thanks to the commitment of the City of Milan, Municipio 6, the association and the women who have inhabited and managed it to date, and we are sure it will continue to be so in the coming years thanks to the newly formed ’Piccola Ape Furibonda,’ a network composed of Ebano, Errante, Promise and the CETEC that has already collaborated with our Municipio guaranteeing great passion, professionalism and attention to culture and gender issues. The idea of restarting precisely on March 21, a significant day for poetry, is a nice caress to the great poetess who was born on the very first day of spring.”

In the images below, some moments of the performance.

Photo by Alessandro Frangi

Photo by Alessandro Frangi

Photo by Stefano Cozzi

Photo by Alessandro Frangi

For Poetry Day, a performance-tribute to Alda Merini in Milan, by Andrea Bianconi

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