Xenos. Performance festival - program November 13

Opening of the exhibition Metamorphosis of the Sacred by Teodora Axente and of XENOS performance festival

Exhibition halls - VI level
at 6:00 PM

Institutional greetings

In the gaze of Teodora Axente agitated performance with  Alessandra Cristiani, Jacopo Giarda and live music with the jazz trio of the’Accademia Siena Jazz directed by the double bassist, composer and teacher  Silvia Bolognesi, with Matilde Gori on trumpet and Gerardo Pizza on sax inspired by the works of Teodora Axente.
Everything hinges on improvisation born from the gaze that the performers bring to observing the works of the Spanish artist naturalized Belgian. Together they will explore the possibilities of free improvisation as a place of interaction between the body that observes, acts and plays for a total synesthesia between human being and work of art.

The agitated performance lasts 20 minutes.

Costumes Sara Butera

Alessandra Cristiani since 1996 she has explored Butō, founding the company Lios and the festival Trasform’azioni. Graduated in Methodology and Criticism of Performance, she has worked with Akira Kasai, Roberto Latini, Daria Deflorian and Silvia Rampelli. With the company Habillé d’eau she won the 2018 Ubu Prize with Euforia. Critics' Best Actress for An Empty Apartment, directed by Sara Masi and Francesco M. Mortati, Stockholm City Film Festival 2024.

Jacopo Giarda A dancer and performer, he graduated from the Ballet School of Teatro alla Scala. Dancer at the Compañia Nacional de Danza in Madrid, subsequently at the Opéra National de Paris and with the Corps de Ballet of the Teatro dell’Opera di Roma. He has performed solo roles by choreographers such as Forsythe, Kylián, Naharin, Ek, Balanchine, Inger, Bausch, León/Lightfoot, McGregor. Today, also freelance, he collaborates with independent companies and choreographers such as Nicosia, Bolognino, Riva-Repele, Kratz, Ferrara.

Siena Jazz – National Academy of Jazz, founded in 1977, is among the main European institutions dedicated to jazz education and research. It promotes improvisation, creativity and dialogue between languages, training artists capable of inhabiting the contemporary scene. At Xenos it brings jazz as a meeting space between body, sound and identity in transformation.

Silvia Bolognesi is among the most authoritative voices of contemporary European jazz. Double bassist, composer and sound designer, she has worked alongside Roscoe Mitchell and the Art Ensemble of Chicago. Founder of the Fonterossa Records label, she curates the Fonterossa Day festival and directs the Fonterossa Open Orchestra, platforms dedicated to research and improvisation.

Free admission until seats are full

Jacopo Veneziani
The gaze in art 
lecture a popularizing lecture by and with Jacopo Veneziani

Italo Calvino Hall - VII level
at 7:00 PM
Duration 60 min.

Over the centuries, the gaze in art has taken unexpected directions.
From the Middle Ages, with the fixed and timeless eyes of icons, to the Renaissance that discovered psychological depth, up to the plays of glances by Caravaggio and the non-glances of Magritte, Bacon or Cindy Sherman: each era has found new ways of seeing and being seen. This meeting is a journey through three perspectives that intertwine: what the artist perceives in the world, what they decide to transform into image and what the viewer interprets with their own sensitivity. Because art history, ultimately, is also a history of crossed gazes.

Jacopo Veneziani art historian and communicator, he graduated in art history from Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne. He has published #Divulgo and Simmetrie (Rizzoli) and in 2023 La Grande Parigi (Feltrinelli). A regular guest formerly on «Le parole della settimana» (Rai3) and now on «In altre parole» (La 7) with Massimo Gramellini, he has been a juror of the latest editions of «Il Borgo dei Borghi» (Rai3) and from June 2025 he hosts «Vita d’artista» (Rai3). In 2024-2025 he brought the show Parigi to the theater, and he is currently performing in Perfette sconosciute. He also teaches the course «Comunicare l’arte» at IULM University in Milan.

Free admission until seats are full

Kor’sia
Renaissance 
site-specific performance by Kor’sia 
with Martina Anniciello, Giacomo Bertoni, Guibourg Julien and Samuel van der Veer

Pellegrinaio - IV level
at 8:30 PM
Duration 30 min.

Rebirth, reactivation and retraversal between gesture and gaze
Renaissance is a choreographic action conceived for the Pellegrinaio hall, an ancient healing space now transformed into a place of memory and vision. In this environment charged with history and transformations, the bodies of the four performers merge with the gaze and the architecture, becoming living matter among the frescoed walls, listening to and returning what time has deposited. The work confronts the idea of rebirth, understood not as a return to the past, but as movement towards the present: a physical and symbolic process in which bodies reactivate the space, re-traverse its wounds and project new meanings. The hall is not just a container, but a living organism in which dance reopens questions, connections, possibilities. In the dialogue between gesture and gaze, space and memory, Renaissance invites a rethinking of the very concept of origin, belonging and time. A choreographic rewriting rooted in the earth and looking to the future.

Artistic direction Mattia Russo & Antonio de Rosa; choreography Mattia Russo & Antonio de Rosa, in collaboration with the performers; music various artists; production Gabriel Blanco, Paola Villegas & Andrea Méndez (Spectare)

Kor’sia, the Italo-Spanish collective based in Madrid founded by choreographers Antonio de Rosa and Mattia Russo, develops its research from the body as a tool for reflection and emotion, creating performative devices that imagine new forms of existence. Supported by the Spanish Ministry of Culture and local institutions, it collaborates with companies and theaters of international relevance. With Mont Ventoux (2023) it received the Fedora Prize, the Max Prize and recognition from Time Out.

Admission with charge and by reservation
Ticket: €5.00 + museum admission
Reduced: €5.00 for residents of the Municipality of Siena and students of Siena universities

The gaze in virtual reality
Italo Calvino Hall – VII level
from 6:30 PM to 8:30 PM

The second edition of XENOS inevitably continues to investigate that immersive dimension generated by the encounter between real life and the virtual, between the concrete gaze and the post-organic one. The gaze in virtual reality offers an immersion into the world of virtual reality with the experience WAVE by Bart Hess, with choreography and performance by Sedrig Dimitri Verwoert; and HALF LIFE VR by Robert Connor from the choreographic work of Sharon Eyal and Gai Behar with the dancers of the Royal Swedish Ballet. It is possible to immerse yourself in these two worlds by wearing a headset and sitting comfortably in the dedicated space, not coincidentally that of the Italo Calvino Hall, named after the writer who in prescient times explored the complexity of the network, interconnected systems and the multi-level perceptions of reality.

Free admission with 20 headsets available for continuous use

Bart Hess & Sedrig Dimitri Verwoert
WAVE
digital performance by Bart Hess in collaboration with Sedrig Dimitri Verwoert
with Sedrig Dimitri Verwoert & Arad Inbar

Duration 3 min.

A solitary dance that multiplies, in a dream inspired by La Bayadère
Designer Bart Hess, in collaboration with Sedrig Verwoert, presents WAVE, a psychedelic and immersive dance film in which the body of a dancer is manipulated over time through the use of repetitions, delays and the repositioning of frames. This creates a choreography in which the history of a movement generates a new kind of organism. It is a group choreography performed solo, inspired by a scene from the ballet La Bayadère (1877) by choreographer Marius Petipa, in which a prince, after taking too much opium, sees a princess one hundred times. 

director Bart Hess; choreographer Sedrig Verwoert; performers Sedrig Verwoert & Arad Inbar; music: Thys de Vlieger; created with the support of Nederlands Filmfonds & Stimuleringsfonds

Bart Hess combines design, fashion and art, exploring materials, technology and virtual reality. His work, tactile and intuitive, investigates the human body wrapped in forms that recall performance art and science fiction more than fashion. He produces material studies, videos, animations and photographs, probing the tension between attraction and repulsion in the relationship between skin, materials and technology.

Sedrig Dimitri Verwoert, artist and choreographer, studied Contemporary Jazz at the Amsterdam University of the Arts. Since 2021 he has been a Young Creative Associate of the Dutch National Ballet. He collaborated with Nick Verstand on Within Without II and later on the exhibition Spirituele Urgentie. His latest creation, The Ritual, premiered in 2023.

Robert Connor
HALF LIFE VR
digital performance by Robert Connor
from the choreographic work of Sharon Eyal and Gai Behar 
with the dancers of the Royal Swedish Ballet

Duration 11 min. 32 sec.

Precise, intense and sharp in its gaze
Half Life VR is a virtual reality short film directed by Robert Connor that captures the immersive spirit of the dance work Half Life by choreographer Sharon Eyal, performed by the Royal Swedish Ballet. The short film is a co-production between the Royal Swedish Opera and Robert & Robert Studios. The VR production is inspired by 3D dance films such as Pina, aiming to present a unique artistic and immersive experience, a clear projection of the language, movements and formulas of the soul. 

director Robert Connor; choreographers Sharon Eyal and Gai Behar; performers Sarah-Jane Brodbeck, Joakim Adeberg, Frida Hambraeus, Devon Carbone, Daria Ivanova, Dawid Kupinski, Sarah-Jane Medley, Nacho Lopez, Emily Slawski, Ross Martinson, Lea Ved, Johnny McMillan, Amanda Åkesson, Dragos Mihalcea, Anton Valdbauer; music Ori Lichtik; director of photography Robert Jonsson; producers Sebastian Lönberg, Robert Connor, Robert Jonsson; executive producers Catarina Falkenhav, Peter Yngen; VR 360 editing & post-production Robert Jonsson, Robert Connor; VR sound editing and mixing Sebastian Lönberg

Robert Connor is a Swedish-American director. During his time at the Stockholm Film School, he was determined to learn the language of cinematic storytelling and convert it into a language for virtual reality. Robert is establishing himself worldwide as one of the pioneers of incredible cinematic VR experiences.

Sharon Eyal, co-founder, co-artistic director and choreographer of L-E-V. She danced with the Batsheva Dance Company (1990-2008) and began choreographing in the Batsheva Dancers Create project. She has created works for international companies and in 2013 founded L-E-V with Gai Behar. In recent years the company has performed over 200 shows at international festivals and theaters such as Joyce Theatre, Sadler's Wells and Montpellier Danse Festival.

The experience Half Life VR by Robert Connor is distributed by PRO|D|ES Caravan. 

PRO|D|ES Caravan is an action of the PRO|D|ES Project - Extended Digital Promotion of Dance, a collaboration between Cro.me, COORPI and Compagnia della Quarta, with the support of the MiC.