From the early days of On Record, it became customary to end the album with a story about a dog. We managed pretty well for the editions from PT.23, Baltic Dance Platform 2024, Moving Balkans 2025 (okay, we cheated a bit there), Lyon Dance Biennale 2026 and What Next Limerick 2026 (which also featured a chicken). But when it came to Balkan Dance Platform 26, no dog was to be found – yet providence still smiled upon us, in the form of a cat, whom our writer Daria Ancuța named Epicat. And lo, we had an Epicat.
With E’BAL, despite searching over two weekends, the first in Rimini, the second in Ravenna, Mondaino and Longiano, we could find no dog story or even cat or chicken story to end with. But we remained resolute, and once again a gift was given. We were at the wonderful Teatro Dimora in Mondaino talking with its director Paolo Brancalion and dance artist in residence Violetta Cottini, who mentioned that she was using hidden cameras in the surrounding woods as part of her work on nature, myth and mystery, and among other animals the camera had witnessed wild boar. That reminded Paolo of a former artist in residence, Silvia Gribaudi, who was afraid of wild boar so Paolo had told her there were none in the area (a “white lie”, he called it) – only for a whole family of wild boar to pass by the theatre window while she was in rehearsal, trapping her inside. The family moved on and Paolo went after them, only to find them gathered in front of his car, preparing to charge him.
“The females are very protective of their young,” explains Paolo. “But I wasn’t going to tell this to Silvia.”
Instead, he returned to the rehearsal with yet another white lie – that he had “forgotten something” – and picked up some utensils to make noises with back at the car, which shooed the family away. And thus, Silvia could emerge calmly and without anxiety.
Ha, nice story, and it also gave us an E’BAL version of Epidog: Epihog!
And we would happily have let the story rest there, but for one marvellous last moment. On our final night, in Longiano, Dany and I stayed in a former farmhouse with its own orchard and terraces, its guest rooms giving onto a panoramic vision across a long green valley. Above, the night sky seemed splashed with spatterings of stars, while below, all the way down the terraced valley, glowing embers of amber drifted in the dark. Fireflies! The nearest almost close enough to touch, the furthest winking way down in the distance.
A magical sight. Yet it was a different sense – sound – that gave this transfigured night its final enchantment: an incantation of frogs that gurgled up from below us like a clamorous choir, at once earthly and otherworldly.
We already had our Epihog, but the night had now gifted us an extra ending: Epifrog.
