“Exercise Number 1”, “Exercise Number 2” in a manner of delight. Today, in 2020, the stage lighting puts the pink spotlight on Marsicano, who wears a bright turquoise bathing suit.

The latter links to the interconnectedness between theatre aesthetics and installments of societal norms and hierarchies, when thinking about the norms of propriety and decorum under Ludwig XIV and his passion for ballet.

The ten exercises Marsicano performs on stage are done against the backdrop of a number of well-known and uplifting melodies and pop songs, including “Jolene” by Dolly Parton and “Toxic” by Britney Spears, as well as classical 18 th century French Baroque tunes. Because of Marsicano’s genuinely expressed joy, warm-heartedness and curious wonder about moving in her fat body, as well as her ironic mimicry and cheeky interactions with the audience, the dramaturgy of R.OSA moves spectators gently from insecurity, shame or even disgust for staring at a fat woman, towards ease and pleasure. In a dramaturgical mix of musical, clown and dance training, she headbangs, fasts forwards her singing, does “the robot”, backbends, shares her three favourite Italian words, makes the audience dance, lipsyncs and waterslides across the stage. R.OSA fulfills the expectations posed by its title: in a brief 45-minute time span, we watch Marsicano perform ten exercises, displaying how her body can move, sing and dance. R.OSA is a one-woman show and audience address is key and in two scenes, the performance offers a few “abgespeckt” participatory dance steps for the engaged festival audience. In particular, the spectators’ gazes at performer Claudia Marsicano’s fat female body take centre stage themselves.

Much like the Italian word “osa” from the performance’s title suggests, Gribaudi “dares” audiences to engage with a “non-normative” dancer body a body, which is seldomly deemed virtuous, as having agency and bringing about lightness. The performance R.OSA – 10 Exercises for New Virtuosities by the Italian choreographer Silvia Gribaudi shown at this year’s Move your Mind festival at Bora Bora, plays with audiences’ expectations, by literally shaking up “normalised” and traditional dance theatre-going routines of sitting in the dark and looking onto beautiful or grotesque bodies dancing, moving and labouring on stage. Despite or exactly because of that, we still deal with a socially constructed binary between normal and not-normal bodies – and the different privileges that come with our bodies, whether they are being forced into some shape or not.

We live in times, where morphing your body into a desired look, feel and appearance is normal, if not the norm: from make-up, tattoos, earrings and piercings, to plumped lips and bottoms, six-pack implants, diets and exercising. R.OSA – 10 Exercises for new Virtuosities af Silvia Gribaudi, Bora Bora

Koreografi s aerobick