Cornflower Centaurea Cyanus

Tubular flowers‚ in large solitary heads. Alternate leaves‚ maximum 5 mm wide. Erect stem‚ evergreen leaves. Cultivated on ploughed ground‚ sometimes on old manure heaps or compost‚ along roads; in loose earth‚ highly fertilized; rare plant‚ in course of extinction.

Man has one body
Lonesome as solitude
The soul weary of its jointless
shell made of ears and eyes
4pence of greatness and skin
scar after scar stretched on the bones
from the cornea therefore flies away
in the sky wide–open well
on the wheel of ice
on the wings of birds
and from the grates of his living prison hears
the whispers of woods and fields
the roar of the seven seas
without a body the soul is bashful
like an undressed body
no thoughts no actions no projects no writings
a conundrum with no solution
he who retraces his own steps after dancing
where nobody dances
and I dream a different soul in a new dress
set ablaze by passing from fear to hope
like a flame fuelled with alcohol
shadowless
wandering across the earth
leaving on the table as a keepsake
a lilac spray.

verses by Arsénij Tarkovskij

Anguish is a promise of strength
Almost an exorcism to ward off the worst
Echo of children’s laughter‚ the new generations
Taking up the position which has been prepared for them in the world
The disquietude of mothers giving birth during war
Wanting to see‚ not wanting to see
Drawing from your own strength‚ resistance‚ sacrifice resources
The fear it will happen again
And thinking‚ rethinking about what generates unrest
Going back to a neglected thought‚
the dimension of childhood when everything is ahead
And everything is still possible

***

Stones thrown into water and the concentric circles they generate;
this is the associative logic with which thoughts are woven‚
the reflections that follow one another in the long silence of Fleur de Lis.
Theatrical action commends the body to dance
To go through the motion of inner experience;
and dance comes back to theatrical action
in its simplest and most daily way‚
a synthesis of human condition to be shared with the audience.

Danio Manfredini

A point of view…
Telling a story today‚ may mean staying silent‚ motionless‚ breathless‚ because we are denied and we deny the possibility of doing it; story telling‚ the power of the verb and the word‚ heavenly means‚ are no more communication models.
We repeat words that have been destroyed or substituted by roaring‚ almost disarticulated sentences‚ slaughters of sense and sensations. Nonetheless the inability to establish relations in authentic ritual ways and the difficulty of weaving threads of memory and tradition are more and more widespread.
In Fleur de Lis‚ a waiting woman‚ full of her everyday life‚ tells a non–story‚ beginning with the smashing in of that place of deception called stage‚ creating another self‚ new and amazed space where the “protected” attention of the audience is “unveiled and laid bare”; the stage lights and a few shy gelatins resist in the middle of the empty but not desolate space.
There is no desolation‚ only consciousness and courage of your own condition; all ends with the signs of a beginning‚ like an endangered flower just after being.

Bruno de’ Franceschi