Ginevra Panzetti and Enrico Ticconi: Harleking

Ginevra Panzetti and Enrico Ticconi, based between Berlin and Turin, have been working as a duo since 2008 with a style that merges dance, performance and visual art. Harleking is a choreographic work that was first seen in 2018 and has since been featured at several dance festivals; its subject is a harlequinade style of mannered gestures through jerky, robotic movements that manage to combine a courtly formality with a sense of danger and mistrust. There are obvious references to the Harlequin of the Commedia dell’Arte, a sly servant moved by an insatiable hunger, a trickster who ultimately derives from a devil character in medieval Passion Plays. Harleking‘s mode of communication has something of ancient wall decorations in which monstrous figures blend in with elegant ornament – figures which can evoke amusement without any joy.

This piece is part of the Frontiers dance programme. There’s a second performance on 14 December at 7pm; and Panzetti and Ticconi are giving a workshop on the techniques used in Harleking on 14 December at 1pm.