Laterale

Łukasz Twarkowski’s theatrical works invite the audience to embark on a perceptual experience that constantly challenges the way we usually look at things. Music, sound, live video, movement, and the deconstruction of time become tools for forging a different relationship with the audience every time, making them forget they are in the theatre for just a few moments. In the interview with Maddalena Giovannelli, Twarkowski discusses his creative work, which spans live cinema, formal and philosophical explorations of new technologies – from The Employees to Quanta to Oracle – and a method based on long periods of study and improvisation with the actors. But the conversation also touches on the more physical and political dimensions of his work: the rave-party energy that permeates many of his shows is not merely an aesthetic choice, but a way of countering our tendency towards passivity and of navigating the complexities of the present. 

In Caroline Guiela Nguyen’s theatrical works, history reaches into people’s private lives, passing through everyday settings such as restaurants, hospitals, and fashion houses, and takes the form of exile, a family secret, a war, or a wound that continues to affect the present. The interview with Rossella Menna clearly reveals just how much her background in sociology has honed her keen eye for social structures, affiliations, inequalities, and collective memories. A director and writer who is one of the most recognisable voices on the European scene, Nguyen constructs richly narrative worlds, populated by characters and marked by strong cinematic imagery, entrusting fiction with the task of giving shape to what cannot be conveyed by a document alone. Even when the starting point seems biographical, as in the case of Saigon, the individual story opens up into a broader history shaped by colonialism, migration, identity, and family traditions. In the conversation, they also touch on the role of locations in playwriting, the relationship with cinema, and Nguyen’s experience at the helm of the Théâtre national de Strasbourg, where she is working on a vision of theatre open to the city, new audiences, and different forms of storytelling.

In Trajal Harrell’s choreographic practice, dance is a space for encounters: traditions, conventions, and memories that do not necessarily share a common history come into tension with one another, shaping a new aesthetic. A now-unmistakable style that celebrates the vulnerability and joy of artistic creation. Winner of the Silver Lion at the 2024 Venice Biennale and named Dancer of the Year by Tanz magazine in 2018, Harrell’s work challenges the boundaries not only between different forms of expression, but also between virtuosity and subtlety, transforming dance into a space for expressing fragility.  
In the interview with Francesca Serrazanetti for Laterale, Harrell explores the cornerstones of his work as a choreographer, beginning with Twenty Looks or Paris is Burning at The Judson Church. In his words, artistic creation is a space for asking questions, a living substance inscribed in bodies and their capacity for transmission, while the stage is conceived as a relational space, not necessarily a theatrical one. 
This brings to the fore the relationship between imagination and history, and dance’s ability to reinvent the hierarchies of the canon, prompting us to consider how movement can preserve and transform memories and knowledge, making them visible once more.

If you were to summarise in one word the theatrical vision of Mario Banushi, the twenty-eight-year-old Greek Albanian director who won the Silver Lion at the 2026 Venice Biennale, it would be “melancholic”. He gained recognition quickly; his “Romance Familiare” trilogy (Ragada; Goodbye, Lindita; Taverna Miresia) and his most recent show, Mami, were extremely well-received. These works are an in-depth exploration of personal roots: childhood, domestic spaces, and acts of care, shared on stage through a gaze often filled with affection and nostalgia. The grammar of the stage thrives on evocative imagery, before it suddenly starts bleeding again in pursuit of inspiration for a more powerful phrase. Aesthetics that take on sharp edges. Banushi talks about this and much more in the interview with Diego Vincenti for Laterale. They reflect together on the ongoing dialogue with memory, on family and grief, on the existential turmoil that emerges from the female profiles, and on where to place the concept of home. But also on new generations, the creative dynamics fostered by Onassis Stegi, and on language and its absence. On the fact that language is, after all, the main tool we have for coming to terms with our own cultural horizon. But perhaps it isn’t really that necessary – at least for now.