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Francesca Lazzeri

Biography

Francesca Lazzeri (Italy, 1991) is able, through a pure, minimalist visual language, to give a human dimension to big themes such as death, sexuality and time. With great precision, she develops her (often philosophically underpinned) ideas with the utmost consistency. Behind the extremely physical, deceptively simple performances, a world of personal associations and social, sometimes even decidedly political, connotations opens up. Francesca Lazzeri is a member of the Wild Vlees collective, with Tamar Blom, Job Rietvelt and Joost Segers.

Francesca Lazzeri studied and worked in Switzerland, Austria, Ireland, Russia and Italy. In 2016, she graduated in Mime from ATD in Amsterdam with two productions: Being Singular Plural started out from the fact that every person is both ‘singular’ and ‘plural’; a unique individual and part of the human race. Lazzeri was able to capture the essence of this duality in the powerful, poetic image of an older and a younger man sharing one another’s breath. In When everything is human, the human is an entirely different thing, together with Tamar Blom she investigated how it is possible to stand back from your own identity. The performance took place in a large, empty shed, the floor of which she carefully covered in plaster, eventually immersing herself completely in this white material and becoming a living sculpture. Both productions were co-produced by Festival Boulevard with Festival Cement, and When everything is human… was nominated for the BNG Nieuwe Theatermakersprijs award. Lazzeri and Blom went on to make An Incomplete Life, which premièred at Festival Cement.

In September 2017, Lazzeri created her first Frascati Productie, Everything must be interpreted as intensity, about the relationship between man and animals within our society. What is ‘the animal’ in a world everything has become an object in the service of man and his needs? And what are the consequences of the current power relations for animals other than man? In three well-chosen images – a fight between two man-animals, a beautiful bloodbath and a caricature of the man the consumer – she brings these questions into sharp focus.

In July 2018, Lazerri’s second Frascati Productie, Dear friend, wolves have always eaten sheep, premièred at Over het IJ Festival. In this production, Lazzeri translates images familiar to us all from the refugee crisis: bodies wash ashore, but are – to put it bluntly – just a nuisance. With a huge water cannon, Lazzeri sprays her own actors back into the River IJ the moment they set foot on land. Through her strong, unambiguous imagery, she creates an almost symphonic choreography on political divisions concerning migration within Europe today. Simply put, Lazzeri riles her audience in order to hit the mark: Dear friend, wolves have always eaten sheep is an exceptionally confrontational production amidst a cheerful, fizzing, dynamic theatre festival.

Francesca Lazzeri (Italy, 1991) has studied and worked in Switzerland, Austria, Ireland, Russia and Italy. In 2016, she completed the Mime course at Amsterdam (ATD). Together with Tamar Blom, Job Rietvelt and Joost Segers, she makes up the collective Wild Vlees. Her graduation production When everything is human, the human is an entirely different thing (2016), made with Tamar Blom, was nominated for the BNG Nieuwe Theatermakersprijs award. With Frascati Producties, Lazzeri made Dear friend, wolves have always eaten sheep (Frascati Producties & Wild Vlees in co-production with Over het IJ Festival and Theaterfestival Boulevard 2018) and Everything must be interpreted as intensity (Francesca Lazzeri (Wild Vlees) / Frascati Producties 2017). Frascati Producties and Plan Brabant cooperated closely on the development of Wild Vlees. In addition, Francesca Lazzeri is developing her own work with Frascati Producties.

Productions

  • Dear friend, wolves have always eaten sheep (Frascati Producties & Wild Vlees in co-production with Over het IJ Festival and Theaterfestival Boulevard 2018)
  • Everything must be interpreted as intensity (Francesca Lazzeri (Wild Vlees) / Frascati Producties 2017)
  • An incomplete life (Francesca Lazzeri & Tamar Blom (Wild Vlees) / Festival Cement 2017)
  • Being Singular Plural (Graduation production Francesca Lazzeri at the Mime Course of the Academy of Theatre and Dance Amsterdam. Francesca Lazzeri (Wild Vlees) / Festival Boulevard / Festival Cement, 2016)
  • When everything is human, the human is an entirely different thing (Graduation production Francesca Lazzeri at the Mime Course of the Academy of Theatre and Dance Amsterdam. Francesca Lazzeri & Tamar Blom (Wild Vlees) / Festival Boulevard / Festival Cement, 2016)

Press

"Lazzeri interrogates the intensity with which people push their projects through in the world at the cost of the rest of creation. She chooses three strong images, one after the other: the unequal struggle of four-legged beings against the two-legged variety; building a bloodbath and ridiculing overconsumption. Never does this production feel over-dramatic, even though every scene has a pronounced intensity."

★★★★ Theaterkrant on Everything must be interpreted as intensity

"One by one, then sometimes in pairs, and finally as a group, the performers try to keep their footing in the stream from the canon, if they aren’t washed straight back into the water the moment they step on the quay […] By leaving the arena of political debate and simply focusing on the suffering at the border, the production clearly evokes – on behalf of the audience – a feeling of powerlessness and frustration."

★★★★ Theaterkrant on Dear friends, wolves have always eaten sheep.