Collective residency focusing on the relationship between sound, space, and the body
Curated by Enrico Malatesta
January 26–30, 2026
CHOREOGRAPHIC RESIDENCIES LAVANDERIA A VAPORE 2026
For the second year running, Annotazioni Superficiali returns, the educational project curated by Enrico Malatesta aimed at investigating sound and the dynamics of listening, applied to the performing, sound, and visual arts, as well as dance and theater.
In collaboration with Lavanderia a Vapore, Annotazioni Superficiali will take the form of a residential course from January 26 to 30, 2026 (from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., including a lunch break) based on the study of the relationship between body, sound, and space. The program is dedicated to eight artists, dancers, and performers who will use the building, the configuration of Lavanderia’s large spaces (both exterior and interior), and its urban setting as their field of investigation.
The overall aim of the project is to provide knowledge of the implications and power of sound in relation to the stage, its fluid ability to modify the perception of space and the presence of the body, transform the voice, revitalize materials, support, fill, and empty.
ABOUT US AND OUR MOTIVATIONS
Lavanderia a Vapore is the Piedmont Region’s Residency Center and Dance Research Center, focused on reformulating aesthetics as an opportunity to generate new postures, experiences, and critical imaginative visions; a place where artistic and political demands come together. In 2025/2026, with the claim “Il Sistema degli Affetti” (The System of Affections), we understand affection as a noun that indicates a state between emotion and psychology, capable of transforming sensations into emotions, while the system is understood as a set of autonomous elements that find meaning and significance, new balances and functions in the weaving of relationships.
To fulfill its mission, Lavanderia acts by offering artists a protected and porous space-time for research and training, innervated by relationships that prove to be lasting, sometimes outside opportunistic logic.
Enrico Malatesta is a percussionist, researcher, and sound artist active in experimental fields spanning music, performance, and territorial investigation. His practice explores the relationships between sound, space, and movement, with a particular focus on modes of listening, the affordances of instruments, and polyrhythm, understood as the definition of multiple pieces of information through an ecological and sustainable approach to percussion.
Active since a very young age as a stage musician, composer, and theater trainer, he also carries out intensive pedagogical work dedicated to sound and the dynamics of listening, collaborating with, among others, IUAV – Master’s Degree Course in Theater and Performing Arts, Academy of Fine Arts in Bologna, Academy of Fine Arts in Urbino, LABA Free Academy of Fine Arts in Rimini, IAAD – Institute of Applied Art and Design. For further information: www.enricomalatesta.com
Lavanderia a Vapore and Enrico Malatesta believe in the value of direct experience and creative practice as a basis for knowledge creation. The residency stems from the desire to imagine an alternative to the academic model: a training program in which the value of practice and theory is overturned and reconnected, opening up unexpected outcomes and reinforcing the emergence of skills removed from official curricula, thanks in part to methods that focus on collective work and listening and interacting with spaces, architecture, and contexts. An expanded vision of what the notions of body and choreography are.
HOW THE PROJECT IS STRUCTURED
The residency will be an intensive space-time and will include a theoretical part, based on stimuli that open up dialogue on the socio-cultural, artistic, and ecological implications of the use of sound in public and scenic spaces.
Conceived as a moment of discussion and exchange, this section of the work develops broad thematic areas interconnected by the medium of sound, for example:
• Listening to significant sound experiences from the 20th and 21st centuries created in the fields of performance, public art, and ephemeral intervention.
• Presentation of recent sound studies on aural architecture and in-depth analysis of the link between sound and space in performance practice.
• Study of the critical issues between music, sound action, acoustics, and silence in the creation of a performance.
• Presentation of the soundscape and the practice of field recording; introduction to audio technology as a means of intervention and modification of the listening space.
• Listening to traditional practices in which sound is a tool for altering the performance space on a symbolic, ecological-relational, energetic, and aesthetic level.
The practical part consists of active listening exercises (to be carried out individually or in groups) that invite participants to explore the relationship between sound, space, and the body. The purpose of this section of the workshop is to promote awareness of the performance space and one’s own movement through the medium of sound and its physical and relational potential.
The exercises proposed allow participants to enhance their specificities by investigating, for example:
• The relationship between the performer’s body and acoustic phenomena (reverberations, resonances, echoes, filtering, masking, fracturing) modulated by various forms of listening
• The production of sound through the use of the body, voice, or objects in accordance with the acoustic reactions of the performance space.
• The modification of the body in relation to sound and its physical component, exploring different degrees of sound immersion and separation and the reciprocity between the performer’s movement and sound waves.
• The relationship between the body and audio technology, enhancing the potential offered by the difference between recorded sound and live sound.
The way in which the exercises are conducted critically involves the participants, who are invited to contribute to the subjective evolution of the practices and to share their experiences. The aim is to produce an open and stimulating study device that improves the participants’ attentional structure and their ability to transform the listening experience into an active, project-based, and authorial resource in contemporary performance practice.
WHAT WE OFFER
The residency is structured as a free intensive training course, which includes:
• Tutoring by Enrico Malatesta
• 1 facility manager who, during the residency, will assist tutors and artists in the technical exploration of the project, in the setups and configurations that are to be experimented with and learned
• Use of the Lavanderia a Vapore spaces, equipped with technical equipment and instruments suitable for the project
• 1 facility technician with expertise in sound and lighting
• Artistic and dramaturgical discussion and exchange with Lavanderia a Vapore curators
WHO CAN PARTICIPATE
The call is open to artists of all ages working in the fields of dance and/or performance and/or sound, with a specific interest in the hybridization of languages, who can demonstrate basic training in at least one of the above disciplines and who have developed at least one artistic creation. Other relevant factors include a willingness to work collectively and a specific interest in the issues addressed.
HOW TO APPLY
To apply, simply send the following materials:
• Attachment A: fully completed application form – DOWNLOAD THE ATTACHMENT
• Motivational letter (max 2000 characters, including spaces) to be attached in Word format
• Bio and portfolio in PDF format (max 10 MB)
• Identity card: uncertified photocopy of a valid identity document
The material must be sent no later than 12:00 noon on January 7, 2026, via certified email (PEC) to lavanderiapdv@pec.it and copied to Anna Estdahl at estdahl@lavanderiaavapore.eu (please note that a valid PEC address is required). The time of receipt of the certified email will be considered valid.
Any questions regarding the call for applications will be collected by email and the answers will be published periodically on the Lavanderia a Vapore website, at the bottom of this call. Questions about the call for applications may be submitted by Monday, December 22, at 8:00 p.m.
The subject line of the certified email must read “Annotazioni Superficiali Call 2026.”
SELECTION CRITERIA AND RESULTS
Based on the materials received, projects will be selected by the Lavanderia a Vapore and Enrico Malatesta working group, taking into account:
• artistic background
• research question focused on in the application form
• willingness to work collectively and any previous experience
The selection will be made with the aim of ensuring a good balance and compatibility in the creation of the group of participants, in order to facilitate the optimal running of the process. The selection will be communicated by email by January 13, 2026, and subsequently published on the Lavanderia a Vapore website (lavanderiaavapore.eu).
For information about the project:
Anna Estdahl
estdahl@lavanderiaavapore.eu
