In CorpiViolati there is a teeming community of bodies –female and male– tightly held in the memory of a wound. Still open or healed, this wound reverberates on the scene in an incessant dance nourished by impulses, instincts, anger and pain, in which overwhelming group dances are interspersed with duets and solos, and defenceless bodies are joined by the violent and ruthless bodies of attackers on which never falls a veil of pity at least until they themselves become victims.
Starting from the search for testimonies of victims of rape and abuse and from an improvisational work in the hall with the dancers, Casadei builds a show oscillating between raw realism and poetry dictated by a possible redemption. Antithetical colours – on one side the brilliance and light of gold, on the other the enigmatic darkness of black – for a precious upholstery of an imaginary domestic hearth where respect and love should reign.
As to music, Fabio Fiandrini's remix of electronic samples ebbs and flows throughout the story in melodrama and symphonic music. Arias and overtures from Verdi's masterpieces such as La Forza del Destino or Otello in the sublime voices of sopranos Callas and Tebaldi are mixed with famous symphonies, Bach sonatas, melancholic pieces by Alva Noto and John Zorn and with the tremors of Julia Kent's cello from Empty Spaces and Alexander Litvinosky's Pelléas et Mélisande.

“In Corpi Violati – explains Monica Casadei – I continue the investigation of a theme that is very close to my heart, violence against women, which began several years ago with the transposition into dance of some famous feminicides from Italian melodrama and beyond. After Tosca, Violetta (Traviata) and Carmen, and a multi-year collaboration with the Anti-Violence Centres of the D.I.Re Network, I also address the topic again in light of the sad and disturbing reality that news data reports on the increase in domestic violence during the Covid pandemic, and in general suffering and abuse against all minorities”.
In Corpi Violati there is a reminiscence of an opera, a Desdemona, from Verdi's Otello, recovered from the past as a reminder of freedom and resourcefulness. Choreographer Casadei is guided by the construction of the piece by the victims with their wounds. They become a symbol against rampant vulgarity and misogyny and a generalized hatred towards minorities manifested across all social classes, even in our Western democracies.