Hopper in a box: a site specific performance

The works of Edward Hopper came back to life in the streets adjacent to Padua’s Portello, in a reinterpretation of everyday places starting from the study of the suspended and evocative atmospheres of the painter, the main exponent of American realism.

Accompanied by poems by Raymond Carver, the performers’ bodies animated the marvellous Porta Ognissanti, in Padua, in search of a sense of community and closeness that goes beyond words. The unbridgeable distances between souls and the melancholy of modern man, challenged by existential crises and welcomed by a consoling monotony, were thus recounted.

The performance compositions inhabited the shop windows and commercial spaces of the Portello on 26 November 2021, in particular inside Portello20 and Pasticceria Red Velvet, and were realised by the performers and actors Gianmarco Busetto, Marco De Rossi, Veronica Di Bussolo, Alice Marchiori, Marco Tizianel, and Sandra Zabeo, with the coordination of Marco Caldiron.

As part of the project APPRODI – Facing the next distances – the site-specific performance ‘HOPPER IN A BOX’ was realised, with and thanks to the theatre companies and professionals of the Centro Culturale Carichi Sospesi, Farmacia Zooè and ANAGOOR.