Gaia Clotilde Chernetich curated our Springback Assembly in Rovereto, generously sharing both her sensitivity and expertise to make our four-day venture rich and rewarding: simultaneously well-balanced and passionate.
Gaia became a Springback writer in 2015, which is when she and I first met. Since, she has been working as a dramaturg, curator, writer, researcher and teacher. Despite her many qualifications and wide experience, is she still able to thrive in the freelance lane? The end of the Assembly provided the perfect opportunity to check in with her over a cappuccino, while her two-year-old son and his energetic grandpa, Gaia’s father, a photographer and former soccer player from ex-Yugoslavia, took a bike ride in the vicinity.
‘Both my father’s and mother’s families moved to northern Italy at the end of the 50s, respectively from Istria and Sicily, where they were born,’ offers Gaia. ‘My father’s family arrived as refugees and although my grandparents learned the language, they never quite became “Italian”. This is my background legacy, it makes you fragile, you feel you inhabit a world that is not really yours. I’m the first one in my family to earn a degree for example, my education has been very important to me.’
‘I started out as a dancer,’ she continues, ‘and worked professionally for ten years from the age of 14, in France and Belgium as well as in Italy. But I always hated the audition process and at one point I felt I no longer wanted to be on stage. I passed the entrance exam to study literature at L‘École des Hauts Études en sciences sociales in Paris.
After she’d completed her first MA she felt ‘pressure to define a professional profile’ so accepted a PR position at a PR agency in London, working for a French baroque orchestra and other clients active in the field of opera and classical music. ‘They needed someone who could speak Italian, English and French and it was very interesting to have to approach my work from an angle other than artistic,’ she explains. ‘I soon realised, however, that I have a creative soul, that I missed dance and wanted to reinvent my relationship with it by doing more research.’
Gaia began a PhD at the University of Parma and at the University Côte d’Azur. Her research included delving into the history of Tanztheater Wuppertal and in the transmission of its repertoire. The Pina Bausch Foundation invited her over to Wuppertal and supported her work.
After her PhD she felt it was time to draw together the different threads of her research, life experience and her own artistic sensibilities. The way forward pointed towards dramaturgy. ‘However,’ stresses Gaia, ‘I opted for a career that didn’t actually exist in Italy. The choreographers I worked with had to forgo other elements of their productions, set or an extra dancer for example, to employ me. A dramaturg’s role was never part of the budget at the outset; but I took this on as a personal mission. It was a militant thing for me to try and create a new space within the system. Since I became a mother, the precarity of my position suddenly started feeling harder with my new responsibility.’
And writing? ‘I’ve always written. At one point I thought about starting a career in journalism, but success in journalism in Italy is connected to the ability support yourself with means other than your job. Journalism is a bourgeois thing, and with the social class I come from, I’m obliged to find other solutions. However, in 2015, the year I applied to Springback Academy, I was writing for Teatro e Critica, the web magazine founded by Andrea Pocosgnich that was directed by Sergio Lo Gatto [who also gave a talk at the Rovereto Assembly]. I tried to offer them my international, panoramic perspective.’
‘I also continually write on behalf of dance companies who have need to articulate and translate the ideas that emerge in the studio onto the written page.’
So how does Springback fit in? ‘When I came to know about Springback’s work, both Sergio and I applied for the Academy. It was me that was selected,’ she gleams. ‘It was very inspirational being part of the group. I remember meeting Ilse Ghekiere, the Belgian dance activist who launched the open letter against Jan Fabre, during the first Assembly in Reykjavik. I interviewed her for Teatro e Critica. Her encouragement of activism within art was a revelation.’
‘I felt incredibly grateful for all the experiences being part Springback had offered, I wanted to give something back. Curating an Assembly seemed to be an opportunity for Oriente Occidente – where I have been curating the educational and studio programmes – and Springback to mutually benefit from the relationship I have with both.’
So, in this current culture of instability what might the future hold? ‘I would love to continue doing what I do, but I’m fearsome about the precarity and lack of recognition for what I consider the crucial roles those of us on the periphery of art play. There is no clear place in Italy for my combination of skills. Culture here is still run along traditional lines. I feel we need to focus on knowledge to make the necessary changes, we need to reach new levels of awareness for the artists, the programmers, the audience, we need to evolve. I’d love to be able to continue to be part of that essential movement, and just hope I can be.’
And let’s hope Springback can continue to offer Gaia a voice and support in her mission.