Scavetta has developed a reputation on the international dance scene for his wildly inventive work, playful humour and subversive intelligence and his company
Wee/Francesco Scavetta is at the forefront of the Nordic dance scene.
Established in Oslo in 1999, together with Gry Kipperberg, Wee has produced 24 full length performances and experienced an extensive international activity, touring in 37 countries -in Europe, the Middle East, Asia, North, Central and South America.
Wee’s creations have changed in format and aesthetic, yet they have continuously explored what theatre and performance can mean in contemporary life and what kind of dialogues they can open with the audience. Scavetta’s theatricality has often been associated with the atmosphere of a weird dream or to a playful world of a child: strange, funny, poetic and, at the same time, surprising. The core of the company’s investigation deals with fragility and paradox, epiphany and dream, empathy and surprise, avoiding narrative and physical cliché, while questioning reality and identity with humoristic disbelief. “Wee creates performances that can engage and amaze, can evoke empathy and twist expectations, that can be both poetic and unusual, and that we experience as a challenge first of all for ourselves: that surprises us, as much as it talks to us and about us.”
The projects have been produced with the support of Norwegian Culture Council and other public bodies, in cooperation with national, European and international organizations.
Scavetta’s work has received numerous awards, among others: Awarded Culture Price 2018, by Tanums Municipality (Sweden); Awarded “Artist of the year 2016” by Lokstallet/Art Exhibition Hall and Strömstad kommun (Sweden); Awarded “Best Performance of the Year” in 2014, for the Croatian version of the Surprised Body Project (Croatia); 2003. Awarded for the solo performance “Live*”. The production was commissioned by the Biennial of Venice and received 1° Price for its relation between “dance, music and video” at the International competition IMEB -International Electro-acoustic Music Festival/Maison de la Culture, Bourges (France)
Pedagogue
Scavetta has had a long and extensive teaching experience and his method and research has been highly appreciated in Norway and abroad. Since 2005, the teaching project “A Surprised body” has been invited internationally in 47 countries in North, Central and South America, Europe, Africa, Middle and Far East. He has been giving classes, workshops and masterclasses, among others, at: IMPULSTANZ/Wien, P.A.R.T.S./Performing Arts Research Training Studios/Brussels (where he was part of the faculty teachers), Henny Jurriëns Foundation, Amsterdam (Holland), MTD/Amsterdam, SEAD/Salzburg Experimental Dance Academy, Tanzquartier Vienna, Greenwich Dance London, Laban/London (UK), K3, Hamburg (Germany), Hot Summer Kyoto International Workshop Festival (Japan), KHIO/Oslo, NDH/The Norwegian College of Dance, PRODA, etc.
Vitlycke – Centre for Performing Arts
In 2012, Scavetta established Vitlycke – Centre for Performing Arts in Tanumshede, Sweden. www.vitlycke.org
A Surprised Body
Francesco Scavetta proposes a personal approach to contemporary dance, based on release technique and contact improvisation, influenced by his experience as a dancer, choreographer and as well by his practice of Tai Chi Chuan, that links a deep transformation of the body to delicate “poetics of movement”.
Already the title, “A Surprised Body” defines for me, a metaphorical space – the image of a body in a constantly alerted state, able to surprise itself, escaping from a habitual daily body and from any kind of routine. A body more focused on reacting, than on acting. The reaction forces us to avoid mental approaches.
Throughout a structured score of exercises, that combines floor work, hands-on exercises, tai chi chuan and movement sequences, the work focuses on centering and gravity; on awakening the internal and external supports, while allowing isolation in the limbs and flow in the movement.
The physical training aims at generating awareness and at creating occasions for discoveries.
The research that led to the creation of the performance Surprised Body Project will ground the workshop. The SBP is a piece that has been developing, as an ongoing creative process. Since its première in 2010, it has been successfully presented, in different versions, in 27 countries in Europe, Asia, Central and South America. https://vimeo.com/57501069
Through exercises and games, focusing on attention and reaction, and different tasks for improvisations, we will underline the pathway to an interesting creative moment, which is rooted in mental relaxation and a physical openness: a willingness to play, being totally engaged in what we do and see.
We will explore how dance phrases can be de-structured and transformed treating as a spoken phrase, where movements can be isolated as “words” and used to compose new phrases. The random in the phrases is created by improvisations or composition, trying to use even small parts of movements as “syllables”, to build new movements.
“I believe that in dance, it’s more important to be able to forget, than to remember.”