16 September 1947 a new border line –the line crossing the territory of Gorizia, or Gorica, dividing Italy and Yugoslavia– is marked on the ground. Wooden posts, long lines of white chalk, barbed wire. Images from the archivel show two diverging points of view – two countries, two systems, two propagandas, dividing, confounding, but also igniting a desire. To cross that painful white line, new spaces are invented – secret ones where personal belongings are hidden as they are carried illegally across the border. They are for small pleasures. Those secret places are new spaces of belonging and longing – for which one will risk all for a fleeting moment of freedom.
Amateur Smugglers (2024) takes us across the confines of “the fourth wall” a moving performance of belonging to and longing for a community. Imbued with a genuine, raw, disarming wit and humour, Silvia Gribaudi & Andrea Rampazzo’s choreography is a negotiation and mediation between personal boundaries, stage convention and collective desire.
Adaptation of Dražen Dragojević’s text
Credit:
Concept and Choreography: SilviaGribaudi andAndrea Rampazzo
Created and performed by En–Knap Group: Mattia Cason, Tina Habun, Davide Lafabiana,
Tamás Tuza, Carolina Alessandra Valentini, Nika Zidar
Music: Luca Scapellato
Lighting Design:Jaka Šimenc
Costume Design: Katarina Markov (Atelje d.o.o.)
Rehearsals Director En–Knap Group: Ana Štefanec Knez
Photography and Video: Sara Rman
Communication and Creation: Dražen Dragojević, Valerija Intihar, Marko Damiš
Editor: Dražen Dragojević
Print: Schwarz print d.o.o.
Production: En–Knap Productions
Co-production: Artisti Associati Centro di Produzione Teatrale
Amateur Smugglers are a part of the GO!2025 Official Programme.
Funded by: the European Union through the Small Project Fund GO!2025 of the Interreg VI-A Italy-Slovenia 2021-2027 Programme, managed by GECTGO / EZTS GO.
www.ita-slo.eu / www.euro-go.eu/spf
Silvia Gribaudi is an Italian choreographer, performer and theatre maker. Since 2004 she has explored the social impact of bodies through a comic choreographic language, as well as focusing on the relationship between audience and performer. She has received multiple awards and recognition for her work. ‘A CORPO LIBERO’ (2009), received the Premio Giovane Danza D’Autore, and was also a finalist at the Premio UBU for best dance show, and the Premio Rete Critica and was selected by Aerowaves in 2011. For ‘R.OSA’ (2017), she won the Premio CollaborAction#4 2018 2019 and was a finalist of the Premio Rete Critica 2019. ‘GRACES’ (2019) won the DANZA&DANZA award in 2019 for the best Italian production.
Silvia has taken part in several artistic research projects, including: CHOREOROAM (2011), TRIPTYCH (2013), and ACT YOUR AGE (2014) – an EU project about active ageing through the art of dance. This inspired the performance WHAT AGE ARE YOU ACTING?, as well as the community project OVER 60; PERFORMING GENDER (2015); CORPO LINKS CLUSTER (2019/2020), where the connection of dance, the mountains, and the mountain community gave life to a site-specific project TREKKING COREOGRAFICO (choreographic trekking), and to the piece MONJOUR (2021), produced by Torino Danza Festival and Brussels’s Les Halles de Schaerbeek.
In 2021, she was a guest choreographer at “Danser Encore, 30 solos pour 30 danseurs”, a project for the Opéra de Lyon. In June 2023, she premiered her new production GRAND JETÉ co-produced by MM Contemporary Dance Company (IT), La Biennale de Lyon (FR), Théâtre de la Ville (FR), Torinodanza Festival (IT), International Dance Festival TANEC PRAHA (CZ), Zodiak – Side Step Festival (FIN), within the frame of the international network Big Pulse Dance Alliance. Silvia Gribaudi is an associate artist at Le Gymnase CDCN (Roubaix – France) 2024-2026 and at the Teatro Stabile di Torino- Teatro Nazionale (Italy) 2025-2027.
Andrea Rampazzo is a dancer and choreographer. As a dancer, he has collaborated with dance companies including Compagnia Virgilio Sieni, Francesca Selva and Artemis Danza/Monica Casadei. Since 2015 he has been collaborating with Déjà Donné Dance Company, both as a dancer and a choreographer, creating ‘L’Appel du vide’, a solo investigating the desire for the unknown, and ‘Rapporto occasionale (prima stanza)’, a duet about (im)balances in human relations. His works have been presented at various festivals and venues (Caffeine, Tendance, Corpi in Movimiento and others). In 2027, he co-founded Dance Makers: a heterogeneous group of dancers working on choreographic itineraries in museums, site specific/stage performances and creative interventions.
En-Knap, founded in the 1990s by choreographer Iztok Kovač, gave birth to the international dance company EN-KNAP Group in 2007, which has been the only professional ensemble for contemporary dance in Slovenia since its establishment. The group, which consists of dancers from all over the world selected at an international audition, boasts an exceptional repertoire, created in collaboration with internationally renowned and diverse choreographers and directors. Since its establishment, the company has worked with over 30 Slovene and international choreographers and theatre directors, and created 26 full evening stage works and a dance film. The company has over 50 national performances over the year, as well as regular international touring.