by Sherif Awad
-My mother was daughter of immigrants from Sicily to Northern Italy. My look into my heritage was at one point mixed with cinematic storytelling: I was sure sooner or later some Padrino from the Sicilian Mafia would have found us and taken my mother away.
-My first chance as performer was given to me through a friend: she had asked me to escort her to a casting, but in the end, incredibly, I got the role. It was an episode of educational movies for schools. I was the bad girl in the first episode, and the good girl in the one after. I think I was impressed by the understanding that can derive from experiencing different personalities. But my very first memory of theatre was when I was very young, in an adaptation of Alice in the Wonderland, playing the Queen of Hearts. The night of the premiere, I locked myself inside the toilette and refused to come out. I was terrified. My little fellows actors had to come home and drag me out. My queen was unexpectedly comical, the public started laughing. I understood there was something powerful in that.
-I always felt a strong contact with something somewhere else than our daily life. I was all the time expecting to be visited by divine creatures, angels, aliens and I loved animals very much. I never dreamt of being like someone from the show business. But my teachers have been very important to me and still are. TV-wise, mostly I was raised though all my childhood on Japanese animations from the ’80 a truly incredible variated, immaginative, visually e narratively rich production. So, despite being an Italian child, I truly saw the world through Japanese eyes.
-I was then formed in physical theatre and storytelling, firstly with great masters of French Mime and Italian Commedia dell’Arte, but also with more underground and experimental like Grotowsky’s school. It was very important approaching the figure of clown, I studied that in Paris, in a language that was not mine, and thanks to this challenge I could understand that our fragilities are a gift, a present we offer to the public. Parallel to this I was studying Fine Arts, in Italy, France and England, and in the end all this experiences merged into my practice as director and producer.
-I don’t see success in geographical terms but I rather think of it on a time-based approach: I want to create something that stay in the hearts of people, something that endures the laws of market and fashion.I always look beyond circumstances, chronicles are not interesting to me. Sometimes this attitude leads me to get ahead time, and it take a little for my work to become relevant. I made peace with that.
-I must say, I never had to face any blockage due to my gender, except for me being not ready for the challenge at some particular moment. Confidence doesn’t come from faith in your personal talent or what you are, but rather in the trust on what you have to say, in the respect for the art you are representing, in something within that push you towards your goals.
-I recently moved to Italy after a years abroad. I really enjoyed the opportunities given me by big cities, in which after my studies, I could really put into practice my ideas and my dreams with no bonders. Now, in Italy, I certainly see the benefits of not being a foreigner, but my confidence comes mostly because I had already the chance to prove myself that anything can be done.
-Now we are facing something unexpected, at the moment Italy and the world are undergoing a dramatic change. Creativity is being call more than ever, because is creative solutions and vision that will help us seeing through for a better time to come.
-I adore challenges, I love serving creativity of others. I like to switch into empathy and understanding exactly what my partner in art want to achieve. I ave been assisting to direction and art direction, and every work is a challenge. But what excites me is the sparkle coming out from different personalities and visions. Tuning is very important, going deep into the creative process, not finding shortcuts being honest with yourself and your collaborators.
-I like solitude, I need it to study, to read, to prepare for my projects, to nourish my soul. So the equilibrium for me comes from balancing solitude and collaborative moments. Now , forced inside our houses for security reasons, I am plunging into meditation, researching and writing.
-I am creating music and videoclips as usual with Motoretta and the Princess of the Airport. It is a musicvisual project in which I can express ideas in a very compact way, Next song will be a tribute to John Lennon and Yoko Ono. After Diva senza Tempo (2017) and Crema Caserta (2019), released in 2019 and directed by Jonathan Gottesmann, a new independent feature is on its way, currently undergoing the writing phase and pre-production.
