Regional tour: “Mavara” and “The Weight of Soul” / Cie WoW

Compagnie WoW, led by Chiara Marchese, will showcase two of its productions, Mavara and The Weight of Soul, at festivals in the SEE region.

In Sicilian dialect, “Mavara” refers to a woman with a unique perception. In 2016, Chiara Marchese created a work titled „Mavara“ which explores the delicate cohabitation between animate and inanimate bodies, balanced on a slack rope. Dance, puppet manipulation and circus are combined to create a live score, while the search for balance shows the fragility of the human being.

Furthermore, in “The Weight of Soul”, Chiara Marchese reinvents her own apparatus, the slack wire, by combining it with a human-sized puppet made of intertwined narrow strings. This fusion creates images reminiscent of the visual arts, echoing the idea of instability which is at the chore of Chiara Marchese’s work. The performance “The Weight of Soul” won the Circusnext prize in 2021.

About Chiara Marchese:

Chiara Marchese, born in Sicily in 1988, initially learned art through painting before transitioning to the art of the slack wire. She is referenced in a Sorbonne University thesis on circus and puppets and has also contributed to the Circus Arts Encyclopedia. Her work is also mentioned in the book “Du fil à la slackline”, as well as in Bernard Andrieu’s books regarding body philosophy. Currently, Chiara is focusing her research at the intersection of various disciplines including circus, puppetry, visual arts, dance, and theater performance in her third solo project, “Wonderwoman”.

This program is being supported through the Teatroskop 2024 call for projects.