Alessandro
We are one in the other hidden
and we learn ourselves as the hidden of the other.
Alternating, we reveal ourselves when we are most hidden
and we hide when we show ourselves the most.
publications.
performances.
I was born in India, in Santiniketan, a small town in West Bengal, where I lived on the edge of a forest until I was sixteen. I attended the school founded by the poet R. Tagore. At sixteen, I moved to Europe and the journey began, a new language that required me to rewrite the body and voice.
As a playwright and director, I have written and directed To Celebrate the Human Glory, Dance Once Pray Twice, The Tea Room, Human, and Antigone. The play Hamlet, directed by me, has toured major festivals in India and has been invited to tour Europe. I am the artistic director of Theatre House - Sources Research of Performative Arts, a research center dedicated to traditional and contemporary performing arts. Located in West Bengal, Theatre House is a center immersed in nature, where art is integrated with professional training and social integration projects for the less well-off.
I am working on a new production of Antigone and a book that explores the theme of the night as a geography of the body and desire, questioning darkness as a place of connection and transformation.
Each of my works arises as an act of attention and presence, an attempt to be in the world without owning it, creating openings of light and listening between languages, bodies, and cultures.
Young Artist Development
At Theatre House, I'm developing Young Artist Development, a program for young people from slums and those experiencing economic and social hardship. The goal is for artistic practice to become a skill, a means of transmission, and a means of economic and individual independence, ultimately enabling those who learn it to teach it to others.
I made my debut with the collection Versante d’esilio (Minerva, 2019). With this collection, I won the 2019 Camaiore Proposal Prize, the Guido Gozzano First Work Prize, and the City of Como Prize. That same year, together with Franca Mancinelli and Maria Grazia Calandrone, I published Come Traduzione la Neve (Animamundi). My latest book, "Terra dei Ritorni" (Land of Returns), was published in September 2023 by Pordenonelegge-Samuele Editore. I was nominated for the 2024 Strega Poetry Prize for this book and won the San Vito al Tagliamento Prize. In 2021, I founded Zeugma - Casa della poesia, located in Rome, through which we hold courses, events, and poetry festivals.
I am working on a new production of Antigone and a book that explores the theme of the night as a geography of the body and desire, questioning darkness as a place of connection and transformation.
Each of my works arises as an act of attention and presence, an attempt to be in the world without owning it, creating openings of light and listening between languages, bodies, and cultures.
What feeds us
I'm developing What Feeds Us, a new theater project dedicated to food as a place for connection and community building. The work explores nourishment, memory, hospitality, and what people choose to share.
Towards something open
Writing, Reception, and Cultural Differences in the Present, a project of conversations and interventions dedicated to what happens to writing when it traverses different historical conditions, languages, audiences, and cultural systems. The project aims to build a constellation of positions, allowing each encounter to transform the question that sparked it.
