“Another world is possible”, Di Modica brings the Genoa of the G8 back to a stage
by Pietro Perelli
Twenty years plus one from that July 2001. The death of Carlo Giuliani, Diaz, Bolzaneto. They are names that have remained in everyone’s memory, they are moments that have marked recent Italian history and beyond. But in that G8, in those demonstrations organized by the no global movement, by the “People of Seattle”, there were instances through which they asked for a better world, a world more attentive to the environment, sustainable agriculture, social justice. They asked for the Tobin Tax and sustainable development as well as a pacifist, environmentalist and antiprohibitionist policy.
On the day Federico Aldrovandi would have turned 35, Arci Emilia Romagna and Arci Ferrara, with the participation of Ferrara Off and Cgil Ferrara, bring 20 years – Chronicles of the early millennium from the G8 in Genoa by and with Alessio Di Modica. “The memory of the events that took place in Genoa is very important – remembers Francesca Battista (CGIL) – but it is equally important to pursue the demands of that movement, issues whose importance is denoted by their relevance”. “Remembering Genoa – explains Walter Massa (president of Arci Liguria) – means asking for truth and justice for a twenty-year-old boy who lost his life and who, like Federico, had no justice”. But it also means continuing to engage in carrying out “another slogan that made the world tremble: ‘One world is possible'”.
The commitment in this case through a show that recalls those days lived by Alessio Di Modica himself. A real show and an accurate research that completes the experience lived by the actor. 20 years – Chronicles of the beginning of the millennium from the G8 in Genoa was born in 2002 less than a year after the G8: “At the beginning – explains the author – it was a spectacle of the stomach, now it has become a spectacle of the heart”.
A powerful show with a rhythm with an ancient flavor of Cunto combined with the youthful power of a language that incorporates the slogans and the ingenuity of an illusion. The Lilliput network, Arci, the Scouts, the Fiom, the Cobas all present at a party transformed into a tragedy by will that they never wanted to ascertain. The departure from a small town in Sicily and four guys who cross Italy to get to Genoa in what seems to be a party full of colors. On the trains there are those who kiss and those who tell what they want from this event, what their ideal world would be. There are also some old partisans who, after liberating Italy from Nazi-fascism, are still fighting for a better world.
The arrival in Genoa on 21 July, the day before they killed a boy, the families worried. It is not over yet, the positions of the police remain. Lemons pass from hand to hand for so they say, the effects of tear gas. Even the most peaceful person struggles to keep their hands raised in front of charges, fear makes you do things you never thought of. Even during the night there is no peace at the Media Center and those who try to return to the Brignole station are charged by the army.
“There is nothing invented” Alessio Di Modica reiterates at the end of the show. The viewer knows this. He has read books and newspaper articles. He has listened to podcasts, he knows the facts. Alessio di Modica, however, managed to bring the viewer back in time, to make him feel the emotions of those days. His heart beats fast, anxiety, fear, frustration assail him until the train leaves home, the tension subsides and the tears fall.