Women's bodies and habits that do not pass

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The gaze of men has incessantly influenced women's lives, and I don't think this is an easy fact to overcome. Rather, it will take time for women to regain this gaze on themselves and have fun regardless. A certain type of sensuality, of seductive movement of the woman's body, still in existence, comes from there, from the command of the male gaze. A little, you have to understand it: women's bodies are objectively more beautiful than men's bodies, beyond any impartiality or equality. A woman's body is a landscape full of valleys, hills, curves that tell the story of paths. A man's body is total flatness, with a few protuberances here and there, and this also makes a difference in dressing. When she dresses, a woman has more chances to tell the story of the four seasons, her landscape being much more varied and fun. I, who have always wanted a female child, especially to indulge in clothing, have a male child instead; but it happened that I put women's clothes on him and he liked it a lot. The other day, for example, I bought him a pair of red shoes, and he was very happy. There are colors, some manufacturing in women's clothes that are designed to attract attention, to make the gaze rest, like a flower: the more open it is, the more fleshy it is, the more colorful it is, the more the bee goes to suck its nectar.

When Vanessa Sannino and I worked on the costumes for “Salome” for the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino and in particular on the dance of the seven veils, we thought of it as a moment in which a ritual is performed, and that the seven veils were the petals of a mythological flower, blooming in Olympus, of which this girl is the pistil. The costume of Salome itself was gradually born on the figure of Lidia Fridman, observing her move her long and graceful arms. There the idea of ​​giving her wings was born: the costume is the character's skin, paradoxically it makes the character real even if it disguises and camouflages it. However, since a character is an almost mythological entity, the costume gives its mythological being an identity, and we become even more aware of this fundamental relationship when we take the costume off the actors on stage . At one point in my career, I did a show called “Bestie di scena,” where the action was about undressing and being naked and not being able to get dressed again. There was this community of people, actors and actresses, who would train on stage until they delivered, almost threw their wet suits to the audience and remained naked for the rest of the show.

In the first moments they were lost, they covered their genitals, their private parts, because they were ashamed of the gaze that the audience was placing on them; this gaze was expressed in a conflict, in pain. But as the show continued, the shame disappeared: the actors became accustomed to the gaze of the audience, the audience became accustomed to their nakedness. Little by little, they took their hands off their private parts and let themselves be looked at. Nudity had become a costume, which for me is never a way to cover, to put the characters at ease; it is not a raincoat, and it is not even an element that serves to defend oneself, just as music is not a soundtrack . It is always about dramaturgy, about creative elements that help the story, the characters to be, to exist. In the costume there is never a decorative idea, but an idea that has to do with the essence of the character, of the story, with the dramatic truth that is being implemented in that moment.

Italian director, actress and playwright. Her last show in Italy was “Salome” by Richard Strauss, which just opened the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino. Upcoming events include a debut at the Comédie Française.

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