BLACK DICK
white lies chapter one
written, directed and performed by alessandro berti
curatorship gaia raffiotta
production casavuota
BLACK DICK looks into the gaze of the white male on the black male, and particularly on the black male’s body. Where does the synecdoche that makes another man just his genitals come from? This objectifying habit is very present in Italian newspapers, lately. What is the relationship between the historical oppression of the white man on the black man and the perception of an intimate, private, sexual, black-on-white oppression, according to the white’s eye? How much of fear and how much of desire is in our perception of threat towards the body of the black, towards his black dick? Does this fear and desire concern us males? Or, as the far-right claims, is it about the legitimate control of our women, considered as part of the property (“Better wed over the mixen than over the moor”) ? How has the image of black people in the United States evolved in two and a half centuries, from the first slaves arrived from Africa to the first black president? And in Italy, a country so far of no black immigration, how do we perceive today’s arrival of young African men on the run, stuck here by ambiguous policies? What is the relationship between our present and our removed colonial past? Working on news, history, costume, literature, music, I’m embarking on an exciting and surprising adventure, a journey trhough our fears, our unconfessable desires and our essential uncertainties disguised as identity.
Premiere:
29 / 30 October 2018 for Gender Bender Festival
Teatro Laura Betti, Casalecchio di Reno (BO)
Ticket: www.vivaticket.it/blackdick
www.genderbender.it