MARIANGELA GUALTIERI – NATURALE SCONOSCIUTO

UNKNOWN NATURAL

A sound ritual by and with Mariangela Gualtieri

guided by Cesare Ronconi

I have lived in an uncultivated countryside for over twenty years. Below my house is a forest I wander into whenever I can. I've realized that this landscape has changed my thoughts, has entered my breath and my heart, and inexplicably led me to write so many poems, perhaps in a dazed attempt to approach this unknown Natural, this all-born, all-living, and teeming thing. This landscape is for me a source of daily joy and also of fear, at times, with its populated darkness, its crushing violence, its overflowing eros. I can think of every word of this sound ritual of mine as dictated by something I thought I knew, but which instead renews its enigma within me and around me, so often leaving me speechless, filled with wonder. And wonder is always linked to my perception of the mystery that lies behind things. And when this perception occurs—rarely, unfortunately—it shakes our entire belief in the supremacy of the visible. Everything becomes shaky, and then, for me, it becomes exhilarating. It's the greatest and most beautiful adventure, the one on the brink of this wavering, when so-called reality cracks, fissures, and from that fissure we glimpse, for a moment, something that seems out of the ordinary.

Sometimes I have the impression that, unknowingly, we experience in order to escape experience, to touch

that threshold. And that threshold is often marked by the terrible or the marvelous.

M.G.

curated and press office by Lorella Barlaam

sound engineer Michele Bertoni

production by Teatro Valdoca

with the contribution of the Emilia-Romagna Region, Municipality of Cesena

Mariangela Gualtieri was born in Cesena, Romagna. She graduated in architecture from the IUAV in Venice. In 1983, together with director Cesare Ronconi, she founded the Teatro Valdoca, for which she is the playwright. From the beginning, he has overseen the oral delivery of poetry, devoting full attention to the vocal amplification system and the combination of poetic verse and live music.

Among his published texts: Antenata (Crocetti ed., 1992 and 2020), Fuoco Centrale (Einaudi, 2003), Senza polvere senza peso (Einaudi, 2006), Sermon to the Cubs of My Species (L’arboreto Editore, 2006), Paesaggio con fratello rotto (book and DVD, Luca Sossella Editore, 2007), Bestia di gioia (Einaudi, 2010), Caino (Einaudi, 2011), Sermon to the Cubs of My Species with audio CD (Valdoca ed., 2012), A Seneghe. Mariangela Gualtieri/Guido Guidi (Perda Sonadora Imprentas, 2012), Young Words (Einaudi, 2015), Voices of Blue Darkness (Stampa 2009 ed., 2016), Beast of Joy. Selected Poems (Chelsea Editions, New York, 2018), co-author of Album dei Giuramenti and Tablets of Oaths of Teatro Valdoca (Quodlibet, 2019), Quando non morivo (Einaudi, 2019), Paesaggio con fratello rotto (Einaudi, 2021), L'incanto phonico. The art of speaking poetry (Einaudi, 2022), Bello mondo (Einaudi ET Poesia, 2024), Ruvido umano (Einaudi, 2024), Album per pensare e non pensiero (Bompiani, 2025).

www.teatrovaldoca.org