The Residencies Trampolino project, included in the latest MiC-Regions agreement, sees the experimentation of an open, dynamic and informal network dedicated to expressing, welcoming and supporting the creative potential of its reference context. Lavanderia a Vapore has chosen to refine this network in order to trace the contours of two realities that have shown criticality and important potential for the vitality of the cultural system: asylum seekers and dance schools.

The reality of asylum seekers, known thanks to the dialogue with the Cooperativa Atypica of Collegno, reveals a prospect of development of its cultural system that was previously hidden. The protagonists of the One Blood Family project are a number of young Africans who arrived on the Italian coast and later landed at Villa5 in Collegno. Together with the Associazione Culturale Spazio Rubedo and the band The Sweet Life Society, a musical partnership was born and after a few months, it led the One Blood Family to perform with sounds, songs, and improvised choreography at various festivals in the Turin area. From this starting point, a project was developed with the Lavanderia and some dance schools in the Piedmont area throughout 2018. The Burkinabé dancer and choreographer Jerome Kaboré intervened to operate a valuable carding task, working on the talents expressed by the musicians, to produce short choreographies. Simona Brunelli, choreographer, and Afro dance teacher at the Sowilo school, supported and guided the first steps of these novice dancers in order to give body to the natural abilities expressed by the musicians. Together with the dance schools’ students, they worked to create a final choreography which was ultimately used in My Nigga, One Blood Family’s first video clip.

Dance schools are a very important community of reference for the Lavanderia, which now counts dozens of organizations in the city and province of Turin. Three projects have been outlined around the Residency Trampolino, starting in 2018 with the formation of a Young Board composed of a group of female students belonging to different dance schools for the international residency project Dialogues fragments and stream’s gestures in collaboration with the Compagnia EgriBiancoDanza, Balletto Teatro di Torino and the Scottish Ballet of Glasgow (Scotland). The primary objective of the project is the initiation of young generations of dancers to a path of professional choreographic research, with a close synergy between the two historical companies of Turin both in terms of choreographic practices and artistic values, as well as the organization of an evening shared between the two choreographic realities.

In 2019, continuing its effective scouting action, Lavanderia a Vapore collaborated with the association NOD – Nuova Officina della Danza for the creation of a professional training course for dancers. Bruno Guillore, the current rehearsal director of Hofesh Shechter’s company, worked for two weeks with twelve young dancers, to then perform on stage during one evening of Lavanderia a Vapore’s season.

In 2020, the number of dance schools increased to about twenty, united around the project Danzare la memoria, ripensare la storia, which sees them as protagonists for Le Sacre du Printemps. The pathway is articulated both through practical workshops with the tutors of reference (Elena Rolla/Compagnia EgriBiancoDanza, Stefano Mazzotta/Compagnia Zerogrammi and Viola Scaglione/Compagnia Balletto Teatro di Torino), and through a more theoretical path with two seminars on choreography (lead by Alessandro Pontremoli, professor at DAMS, Turin) and accompanied by the musical score of Igor Stravinsky (by Antonio Valentino, professor at the Conservatorio di Torino).