UN/DRESS ME NOW stems from a desire to refocus and explore in greater depth the research that began in 2012 with the solo project UN/DRESS, which was reworked and expanded in 2018 with the UN/DRESS Moving Painting project .

UN/DRESS ME NOW revisits the original exploration of the political significance of fabrics and those who wear them, bringing the research up to date with the contemporary socio-political landscape, in which the female body once again finds itself at the centre of an instrumental debate, stripped of rights deemed inalienable and abused by messages and power games. To deconstruct the noise and violence, the only remedy is to reunite bodies, realigning them within erotic and generative energy. Dressing in and undressing from the same garments to reclaim a human identity – hybrid and natural – in which one is free to embody one’s own life force beyond stereotypes and outside toxic commercial narratives.

In this new version of the work, Aurelio Di Virgilio is the dancer, whilst the author steps back from the stage to become the choreographer. By reinterpreting the movements of bodies that serve the instrumental message, the performer seeks to reclaim that narrative too, stripping it of its provocation, humanising it and scaling it down. The naked male body, confronted with the power of the image, rediscovers wonder and beauty; it reconstructs the frame and the canvas, once again becoming their conscious protagonist.