LAC (Lugano art and culture)

Surviving You, Always: An Artistic Journey Through Memory and Mourning

24 December 2024

Curated by Editorial Team

Through visual poetry, live music and performance, the Treppenwitz Collective explores the universal emotion of loss

Debuts at the LAC on Thursday 9th January at 20pm (with a repeat on Friday 30th January) Surviving you, always by Simon Waldvogel, the most recent result of the artistic research of the Treppenwitz Collective, one of the most innovative realities of the independent Ticino scene.

Co-produced by LAC, the work is an immersion in the emotional sphere of mourning, a multidisciplinary exploration in which the visual nostalgia of images from the past combines with the sonic rhythm of live music and the expressive power of performance.

Surviving you, always It is the sixth result of the collective's artistic research and the fourth work co-produced by LAC, after:

Love is not une chosen for everybody again by Waldvogel (semi-finalist at the 2018 Prize and selected for the 2020 Swiss Theatre Meeting);
KISS! by Camilla Parini (selected by Reso, diffusion fund);
Love escapes while remaining (Loving Kills) by Anahì Traversi, who debuted in the artistic seasons of the cultural center.

Conceived and created by Simon Waldvogel, who also stars alongside Giacomo Toccaceli and Francesca Sproccati, the show features:

visual and spatial project by Daniele Spanò,
costumes by Francesca M. De Giorgio,
lighting design by Savino Caruso,
musical composition and live music by Magda Drozd,
collaboration on the dramaturgy by Ilaria Buffa.

Born as an investigation into the theme of loss, memory and remembrance of the people with whom we have spent part of our lives, Surviving you, always is a hybrid show, in which live-set, visual installation and poetry dialogue in a fertile way: the bodies on stage become the canvas on which to paint the emotional landscape evoked by mourning. Artistic techniques such as collage, superimpositions and duplications contribute to creating a visual space that represents the complexity of this feeling. The original musical compositions and live performances modulate the sound atmospheres to reflect the emotional flow of the projected images. Surviving you, always seeks to weave a narrative that celebrates the past, honors the present, and offers a moment of reconciliation with the future.

“A few years ago, during a move,” writes Waldvogel, “I found an old projector and hundreds of slides that told the story of my father’s life from the 60s to the 90s: images of his childhood until his premature death. Leafing through them, I began to reconstruct a fantasy about a father I don’t remember, discovering that that imagined memory made me feel less alone, less empty. A few years ago, the loss of my sister profoundly affected my life, opening up new questions. What happens when someone we love leaves us? How do we construct memories? Can we dwell on memory, modify it to find comfort? And what role does pain play? Does it transform or remain immutable? As time passes, pain seems to fade, but in reality time doesn’t pass, are we the ones who go through it? With these questions I returned to the attic, starting a new artistic research, immediately felt as necessary to explore mourning through multiple languages.”

Surviving you, always

Conception and realization: Simon Waldvogel
With: Giacomo Toccaceli, Francesca Sproccati, Simon Waldvogel
Visual design and space: Daniele Spano
Beachwear: Francesca M. De Giorgio
Light design: Savino Caruso
Musical composition and live music: Magda Drozd
Collaboration on dramaturgy: Ilaria Boffa
Outer eye: Carla Valente
Assistant directors: Camilla Parini, Giacomo Toccaceli
Scene photos and teaser: Luna Macelloni, Valerio Salvatore, Francesco Scaramuzzi

Production: Treppenwitz Collective, LAC Lugano Art and Culture
In co-production with: Southern Police Lucerne
In collaboration with: Le Grütli – Center de production et de diffusion des Arts vivants, Kaserne Basel

With the support of: