Since ancient times, a series of sound codes have been handed down, used to attract birds, bridging the gap between folk tradition and hunting practice. Mainly found in the Mediterranean region, these techniques – including the so-called ‘chioccolo’ – are based both on the use of breath-powered acoustic calls and on the modulation of unusual sounds that reproduce and imitate the songs of the most common migratory birds. BIRDSONG by Salvo Lombardo draws inspiration from these songs, which form the primary dramaturgical element of this new production by the Chiasma theatre company and serve as a means of-mediate the expressive forms of a language whose signs conceal a mysterious and unknown form of communication that transcends biological animal mechanisms, suspended between the human and the non-human.

The performance subtly explores the behaviour of the body in a liminal space between dance and voice, between presence and absence, with the hidden desire to overturn the predatory function of the call – normally a masculine expression – and to extend its meaning, pushing it towards forms that evoke an ‘elsewhere’ and summon the ‘invisible’.