Celestia is a theatrical project written and performed by Alvise Camozzi in collaboration with Roberta Colacino. Venice serves simultaneously as the setting and the subject of the work, which traverses different languages and genres to interrogate the contemporary city and its contradictions. The dramaturgy begins with the anthropology essay La bonifica umana, a title that recalls a concept presented during a lecture in the 1930s by Vittorio Cini. On that occasion, the entrepreneur outlined a plan for urban reorganization that prefigured a form of early gentrification, destined to deeply impact the social structure of Venice and the lives of its inhabitants, and which would later influence, in different ways, other cultural capitals around the world.
The idea, also shared and promoted by Giuseppe Volpi, materialized in the creation of a Venice administratively extended beyond the historic island toward the mainland, with the gradual relocation of the working-class population to new neighborhoods connected to the industrial hub. This process, conceived as a rational and modern solution, initiated a structural exodus that irreversibly altered the relationship between the city and its inhabitants.
The text is not approached as a documentary, but as a critical, poetic, and political device, through which the processes of urban emptiness and their repercussions in the present emerge in a fragmented form.
The performance develops from a surreal description of a Veronese painting: the Annunciation. The latter, now exhibited at the Gallerie dell’Accademia, overlaps in an ironic and poetic way, with the narrative of a farewell that is at the same time loving and political, intimate and collective.
Celestia is the name of an old working-class area in the Venetian sestiere of Castello, the location where the story unfolds and from which a broader reflection on dwelling, loss, and urban transformation begins.
The text, already experimented by Alvise Camozzi in the form of readings on several Venetian occasions, constitutes the starting point of a scenic research path that works on the layering of sounds, images, spoken words, and overwritten words. The linguistic investigation is an integral part of the creative process and will be further explored during the residency.
The dramaturgy is structured in two distinct narrative blocks. The first is devoted to Veronese’s painting “Annunciazione” and is narrated in Venetian dialect—a popular language that still retains a strong sense of identity—chosen to address a subject traditionally considered “high.” The second block is narrated in Italian. In this section, the presence of subtitles and translations becomes an integral part of the stage composition, functioning as an additional expressive movement. The Mary of the painting progressively merges with the Mary of the Venetian proletarian exodus, transforming the sacred figure into a historical, political, and contemporary body.
