DOPPIOGIOCO

Choreography Philippe Kratz
Dramaturgy and set design Fabio Cherstich
Additional music Various artists
Sound design and original music Luca Maria Baldini
Costume design Patricia Villirillo
Costume making Nuvia Valestri
Lighting design Valerio Tiberi

Production Fondazione Nazionale della Danza / Aterballetto
Co-Production Festival Aperto / Fondazione I Teatri di Reggio Emilia

Inside a black box, the space is etched with strips of white light: a ring, a court, a boundary that presumes to decide who we are. Two twin hoops, doubled, are motionless sentinels, totems of conquest and failure, targets that shine or dim depending on who looks at them. Everything is ready and nothing is stable: the game can begin at any moment, even when no one is truly ready.
The bodies enter, recognise one another, distrust one another, split into teams without knowing why, form alliances by instinct, betray one another out of necessity. Every gesture is an attempt, quivering like an omen; every step is a calculation or a tremor. The warm-up does not prepare — it reveals: the tensions, the suspicions, the silences before the burst.
At the centre, the ball. Weight, promise, threat. When it falls, it explodes: it is not a bounce but a bomb that opens cracks in the ground, in the breath, in the relationship between the bodies. Every pass is a risk, every shot a confession. You entrust yourself to the other by instinct, or you strike them with the precision of a necessary gesture. You protect and you wound with the very same energy.
Blind shots cross the air like prayers or challenges flung into the void: whoever throws cannot know whether they will hit the target or the memory of a missed intention. In that suspended instant everyone holds their breath: it is not the basket that matters, but the courage not to look, to let go of what cannot be controlled.
And then the group explodes, implodes, devours itself, sustains itself. One against all. All against one. Crowd against solitude, and a solitude that at times cries out louder than the crowd. Rules exist only to be broken; the ring is a cage only for those who do not dare to cross it. You push one another, lift one another, obstruct one another as in every day of our lives, where love and competition coexist in the same gesture.
But at a certain point, without warning, the bodies synchronise. The two teams dissolve, recomposing into a single breathing creature. It is a fragile, absolute moment: the geometry of the court becomes a guide, no longer a barrier. Conflict turns into dance, struggle becomes listening. There is no longer a victory to seek, only a sudden equilibrium, precious as a truce.
Then chaos returns, because it is in our nature. Alliances come undone, the ball’s trajectory breaks again in the air, multiplying like doubts, like attempts. The balls fall one after another, slow bombs that recount what has been lost and what might still come to pass.

Fabio Cherstich – Dramaturgy and set design