Bella's Inferno
at palais du pharo, marseille
by EMMANUELLE LUCIANI
co-produced by ville de marseille
“This show was born from a desire to bring sculptures alive. Through performance, our sculptures evolve, transforming from mere objects into living participants in an mooving fresco.
Bella’s Inferno is a hybrid fantasy that borrows from the visual universe of science fiction and pop culture, from Akira and Blade Runner to Street Fighter."
For the l’été marseillais, under the artistic direction of Emmanuelle Luciani, Southway Studio, following on from New World (2023), reveals Bella's Inferno, an ode of ice and oil to technology and the car, following on from a series of exhibitions around car culture and cyber-punk aesthetics. Southway Studio delivers the latest opus in its choreographic work, inviting Régina Demina and Moodoïd, mixing sound, pole dance and uppercuts. Invoking classical and pop culture, from Dante Alighieri to tuning and boxing, Bella's Inferno will be a tableau vivant, a total spectacle in a dystopian future where the car has become sacred archaeology. On a set sculpted by Bella Hunt & Dante Di Calce, Régina Demina will perform sequences of her dances and songs, accompanied by an immersive quadraphonic musical creation by Moodoïd specially commissioned for the event.
Pour l’été marseillais, sous la direction artistique d’Emmanuelle Luciani, Southway Studio, dans le prolongement de New World (2023), révèle Bella’s Inferno, ode de glace et de pétrole à la technologie et à la voiture, faisant suite à une série d’expositions autour de la car culture et de l’esthétique cyber-punk. Southway Studio livre le nouvel opus d’un travail chorégraphique en invitant Régina Demina et Moodoïd, mêlant son, pole dance et uppercuts. Convoquant culture classique et pop culture, de Dante Alighieri au tuning et à la boxe, Bella’s Inferno sera un tableau vivant, un spectacle total dans un futur dystopique où la voiture est devenue une archéologie sacrée. Sur un décor sculpté par Bella Hunt & Dante Di Calce, Régina Demina déploiera des séquences de ses danses et de ses chants, accompagnée d'une création musicale immersive en quadriphonie de Moodoïd spécifiquement commandée pour l’événement.
Bella’s Inferno is a chaotic fresco inspired by the Divine Comedy, the writings of Philip K. Dick and the visual universe of science fiction, from Blade Runner to Akira. The metal, ridged and neon imagery of the sculpted stage, a fusion of organ and engine by Bella Hunt & Dante Di Calce, is evocative of cyber-punk, the dystopian literary subgenre of SF that emerged in the 1980s.
A blow-by-blow narration, suggested by a hybrid text composed of excerpts from Dante and Galactic Pot-Healer, evokes a post-apocalyptic world where the technologies of vanished civilizations become sacred relics; between antique concrete obelisk-returners resounds Moodoïd’s engine symphony.
In a contemporary chaos, alternating brutal movements by boxers from Marseilles selected by Southway Studio and lascivious dances and songs by Régina Demina, build bridges between violence and grace, technology and the divine. In one performance, the whole synthesizes a shared imagination around the power of science fiction as a fantasized projection of the future and time, and a creator of contemporary myths.