CO(N)VEN(T)
a salon in four episodes on menopause and God - by Maria Francesca Scaroni
Co(n)ven(t) is a salon centering the unnamable and ungraspable topics of menopause and god, a liturgy of the cracks, between dance performance, stand up comedy and listening chamber.
Choreographer Maria F. Scaroni, performs as a host determined to prove the generative power of deviated or halted production.
Each ‘episode’ features a more-than-dance artist from the Berlin free scene, midwifes of crisis, spirit seekers, Milfs, not enough yet too much kind of women….
Guests: Jessy Tuddenham, Ami Garmon, Louise Trueheart, Stephanie Maher
This show was one of those once-in-a-lifetime/only-happened-one-time collation of materials from Maria and my artistic practice. In the work, I read a long excerpt from my manuscript, LAMB, which is a memoir about dance and God. A turning point in the book is the moment I moved to Berlin, at which time I was Maria's student.
In our process of preparing the show, we talked through the disorientation I felt while studying dancing as channeling — without, I felt, a structure to hold it. Religious practices, for better or for worse, offer such structures.
As I read my text, Maria danced her material, such as the duet with a duvet first seen at Tanznacht 2024, and with the improvisation score she calls the "influencer dance," the influencer in this case being God. Both are loose-ish scores that rub against my desire for structure and form.
My text ends, and Maria yells that if I want structure, she will give me structure. She will, in fact, give me repertoire. Maria and I proceed to reorganize the space into a frontal theatrical situation, to undress, and to learn the duet that Maria made within the frame of Meg Stuart's piece "UNTIL OUR HEARTS STOP", originally performed with Claire Vivianne Sobbotke. This process of learning such nonsensical yet technical material resolves the conflict between us, to the extent that such a thing is possible.
Photo/Video by Rita Ventura @ritaventuraw