“AGAPE has always been part of my life, in one way or another. Being almost the same age, we grew up together and over the years I have seen it structure itself, improve and evolve, always giving absolute priority to its mission. With a good part of the family actively involved within the association, I was asked over and over again the question: “and when are you leaving on a mission?” as if I had to leave to follow a precise logical scheme. I waited a while before doing so, so that it was a thoughtful and conscious choice, but above all functional for the association and for the people I would meet. In hindsight, I am happy to have done it.

Throughout the month of February, I was in Mozambique, in Maputo, where I worked with the ACCD Machaka and the Escola especial nº2, sharing my work as a dancer-choreographer with children and adults and experimenting with them practices already performed by the Psukédanza Group, which has been collaborating with AGAPE for more than 10 years. Through movement and drawing, the dancers explored their imagination, putting themselves on the line and giving free rein to their creativity.

With the children and adults of Machaka, who master several traditional dances very well, we also developed a work based on the encounter between contemporary dance and Mozambican dances, staging a small show, on March 1st, at the Projecto Utopia, in the Mafalala neighborhood.

At Escola Especial nº2, accompanied by Sebastian, one of the boys from the Civil Service, I met children and young people with different disabilities, carrying out work focused on proprioception (the ability to recognize the position and movement of one’s body in space without the aid of sight) and drawing, which, despite the difficulties caused by the number of participants (we had a ratio of 1 to 13, when normally it is 1 to 3), gave us some very beautiful moments.

My interventions are positioned within several cultural and artistic projects and initiatives, which AGAPE has been carrying out in Mozambique for several years, also in connection with Italian groups. Activities that aim at the personal growth of the individual, placing emphasis on creativity and meeting with others, also providing new points of view to understand the world and society around us. In my case, art has been a true unifying element, a bridge between different cultures, which has given us the opportunity to get to know each other, talk and, often, joke about many things, such as, for example, the concept of slowness. During a guided improvisation, in fact, after having asked several times to slow down, a child who continued to move fast told me: “But I go slowly. Slowly, Mozambican style”. I have so many anecdotes like this and they are, together with the people, the smells, the sounds, what made this mission unique.”