Simona Roveda

Image: Research during research residency Live Art Ireland 2024

I’m an Italian performer artist and physical theatre facilitator living in Ireland (Dublin) for 15 years. My background is in Commedia dell’Arte theatre and contemporary dance. My practice uses movement, physical theatre and visual arts as multidisciplinary tools to create reality and connect with others. I was a co-founder of Littlebellybuttons Puppet Co, creating and performing theatre for young audience. I collaborated with Mother Tongues organisation, facilitating theatre workshops for bilingual children. Once in Ireland I started to put value in community project collaborating with Draiocht theatre (Clown Choir). I created and performed collective multidisciplinary projects, thank for the support of Fingal Art Council and The Art Council (Trilogy,Pigeon, Oikos), joining Festivals (IMMA Earh Rising, Feile Na Bealtaine). I am interested in non-verbal communication, in which the body and its language. comes first before words, as my Italian background and expanded further by living in another country with a non-mother language, like Ireland. I am more interested in experimenting my practice outdoors, in nature. In these last two years I started to be involved in collective eco-projects, collaborating with visual artists and a filmmaker, exploring and sharing practice through movement, words, and video in connection with the natural environment. Thanks to these experiences and the support of the Agility Award I created my first short film `Trilogy of,Motherhood” (2022). Last year I started my research with Haumea Ecoversity by Cathy Fitzgerald to understand how my practice can fit into an ecological point of view, joining also
residencies to work in the landscape (Interface; Becoming Likens). I am very grateful to have received my second Agility Award, last September, to be able to delve deeper into my research of creation in contact with nature and on collaborations.
You can find more about me in the links below:
rovedasimona.wixsite.com
https://www.instagram.com/roveda.simona
Simona Live Art Ireland project
The Live Art Ireland space/time offers an invaluable opportunity to deepen my research and practice, providing the perfect environment to foster a connection between my body-based artistic work and the natural world.
My practice revolves around the body as a medium to intuitively understand and reveal the layers of reality, connecting inner experience with outer expression. As a performance practitioner, I aim to further explore my work through an ecological lens, where the landscape and nature become active collaborators in the creative process. I am deeply interested in the interconnection between the human body and the natural environment—how we, as humans, relate to the land, the creatures, and the rhythms of nature. In this residency, I want to explore the role of the human body in the ecological
narrative and how movement can articulate stories of belonging, nourishment, and home.
What can the human body contribute to the ecology around us? How can we listen to and
embody the stories embedded in the natural world?
Alongside my collaborator, dance artist Ailish Claffey, I will delve into Donna Haraway’s concept of the “symbiocene,” inspired by her book Staying with the Trouble. Our exploration will involve somatic practices, creative composition, and body-writing where the focus will shift from the human being to other non-human creatures. This exploration will unfold both indoors and outdoors, engaging deeply with the landscape to generate new material for performance.