Art City 2026: Book of Waters. A Performance for Voices and Ghosts at Bagni di Mario

"Thanks to Book of Waters, we have added a significant piece to our personal artistic research. It was an ambitious project that rapidly transformed into a major organizational machine, composed of technically skilled individuals capable of navigating the numerous complexities such a large-scale program presents. This machine, managed with commitment and dedication, supported our artistic vision, propelling it toward full realization. Book of Waters is a complex body of work, the result of passionate research into the historical memory of Bologna.

By mutual agreement, we chose to undertake a true artistic journey into the depths of Bologna, consecrating the Conserva di Valverde (commonly known as Bagni di Mario) as the ideal site for a collaborative work where music and performance held equal weight.

It was immediately clear to us that the theme would be water, though we moved away from literal or didactic interpretations, focusing instead on the absence of water and its invisible passages.

Our attention centered on reactivating the vascular-hydraulic system through the sonic and performative orchestration of a 'total work of art’.

This work had to fill the void left by the absence of that continuous aquatic flow. To achieve this, we conceived the cistern as a large wind instrument; a giant ocarina sunken into the earth, complete with collection holes, conduits, and cavities—a true sounding board for sounds and voices, memories and ghosts.

The live performance, written and realized specifically for the cistern, was conceived as a sonic and visual ritual where hearing precedes sight, and a single voice—a breath—triggers a choral proliferation."

Arianna Bettarelli continues: > "Lorenzo Marra composed the music for Book of Waters entirely ex-novo in quadraphonic sound, recording and manipulating extended techniques for flute, ocarina, and piccolo (Valentina Gnudi), and clarinet and bass clarinet (Erica Rondelli). During the live action, he directed the musical production, interacting with the voices and the acoustic responses provided by the architecture’s natural echo. Armenia Panfolklorica oversaw the direction of the performers and created the costumes and scenic objects, inspired by the history and the myriad treasures guarded by the cistern."

Thanks to the participation of Antonella Iacuzio, Marco Minoia, and Lorenzo Valdesalici, we gave form to five "presences": figures that do not represent specific recognizable characters, but rather true ghosts emerged from the darkness of the tunnels, seemingly dissolving into the mists of time.

The performance was broadly divided into two acts: the first, harmonious and gentle, simulated the wavy, patient, and slow advance of water; the second, a moment of rupture, consisted of a chaotic intrusion that could be fully defined as Dionysian and propitiatory in nature.

Arianna Bettarelli: > "Resonating with the liminal figure of the King of Carnival, Armenia Panfolklorica’s body symbolically assumed the role of the scapegoat—not as a gesture of destruction, but as an act of transformation and renewal. This followed the Renaissance numerology respected by Tommaso Laureti (the cistern’s architect), who, in creating an octagonal space, drew upon the idea of the number eight as a symbol of regeneration and new life."

In agreement with FRAME, we wanted Book of Waters to have a dual existence, in dialogue with the ancient path the water once took—starting from the cistern and eventually springing from the Fountain of Neptune. This was the reason for the placement of the stunning pavilion, specially designed by SBTT Stile Bottega and made by Arredoquattro, whose exterior surface elegantly alludes to the rippling movement of water. Inside, there was no simple documentation of the performance, but a true transposition of the work into an immersive environment, placing the viewer at the center of the scene, made possible by Sublime Tecnologico.

If in our previous work for Art City 2025 (L’ultima cerchia) the city was supported and contemplated from above, here the perspective was inverted.

Memory was not delegated to the monument as an immobile form but reactivated as a sensory and collective experience.

For us, Book of Waters was the book of invisible, ghostly words—as ghostly as the subsoil we forget every time we hurry through the city. It is a total work of art that, through music and visual arts, succeeded in evoking the past lives of the Conserva di Valverde while molding new ones.

We were delighted to witness the great success of the work, both in the Cistern and at the Pavilion. We thank FRAME and Studio Woland for believing in our project of artistic regeneration, creating a work capable of uniting the underground with public space, and history with the contemporary.

Armenia Panfolklorica, Lorenzo Marra, Arianna Bettarelli

(Pic courtesy of: Stefano Scheda and Maria Giulia Trombini)