La Pavane

An irreverent reverence to the day of our birth, which was later called "Renaissance", in order to paint it with the colours of fatality. Three costumed figures, as if straight out of the wardrobe, replay in the shadow of the garden the furious games of the Western gaze, to the slow rhythm of a pavane.

A garden reached by a flight of steps, surrounded by a wall of old stones and overhung by vegetation: if you are silent and listen carefully, you can hear the wind blowing through the leaves, the chattering of the cigales, the bustle of the theatre terrace below and, further away still, the streets of the city.

The sun shines on this part of the garden as it did on the other garden, the Renaissance garden, in the Italian sun of the fifteenth century - that was the beginning of the moans: first moans of pleasure, then moans of pain, and then they became so intermingled that there is no ear that could distinguish them today. And we still eat the fruits of that ancient garden, even if they are now covered with a thin layer of rot or dust.

It was in this garden that we learned to look at and desire the world, the "New World". So we invented artists and conquistadors; artists to draw the world for us and conquistadors to possess it. Nothing new under the sun. We have become accustomed to this new way of looking at things and this new world that has become ours. But it was not always like this.