Can Can stems from the collaboration between the author Giovanni Ortoleva and the performer Irene Mantova, who, in 2023 at the age of twenty-five, was diagnosed with epilepsy following a life marked by unexplained ‘seizures’. The work intertwines Irene’s story with that of Jane Avril, the famous can-can dancer immortalised by Toulouse-Lautrec, who transformed her epilepsy into an expressive trait, parodying it in her dance.

Drawing inspiration from the biographies of the two artists and recalling the profound impact epilepsy had in the late 19th century on actresses such as Sarah Bernhardt, who replicated its poses in her acting, Can Can plays with the performative aspect of epileptic seizures, transforming them into choreographies that can be treated with varying degrees of realism and identification. The project brings together movement and documentation, drawing on diverse materials such as the photographs of patients at the Salpêtrière Hospital in Paris taken by Charcot and YouTube channels where people recount their own seizures, questioning the very nature of these representations of the ‘sacred evil’. Irene Mantova interprets epilepsy – her own and that of others – through a blend of dance and parody, pathos and irony: a playful meditation on suffering and interpretation.