Stavoli / I Stai

I can’t really write much about Stavoli because I know little, very little, almost nothing about it. The only thing I know is that I reached it once, from Sella Dagna, and that the indications were given to me by Mr. Firmino from Illegio, while he gave me a lift in his Ape car. A ride made up mostly by a long, endless silence. “Firmino, like the Liverpool football player?” I asked him, to break the ice. “Over there,” he told me, dropping me off and then moving on towards other stavoli, probably Stavoli Pelons. 

I remember I didn’t cross anyone along the path. I remember the mountains on the left-hand side beyond Sella Dagna all crumbled in a succession of pine trees, landslides, gravel, and then other stretches of woods where instead everything seemed suspended in an enchanted harmony. And Stavoli too, on top of a turfy hill, seemed to be an intimate part of this great harmony, of this world of yesterday, and it seemed beautiful to me: there was an old mulattiera surrounded by two wonderful dry stone walls that made a slight uphill curve before entering the village plateau. On the plateau there were people making hay with rakes, and while they were making hay, they chatted in a language I didn't understand. Then there was the village, with the houses close to each other and a use of space that was ethical and aesthetic at once, because dictated by the only true muse, necessity. Lastly, there was a sign explaining that Stavoli had been founded centuries ago by German colonists consisting of two main families and that one of the two had the surname Franz. I don't even remember exactly why I went there, I was definitely looking for an abandoned village where to set a shooting for a performance, but I don't remember which shooting, with whom, why. But somehow, Stavoli has been a beginning, and coming back now that the performance is ready, to start this all adventure here, along the border, in search of Europe, seems to me like the right thing to do. 

So: “Sì, la Sirat al-Iskandar wa mā fihā min al-'Ajā'ib wa ‘l-Gharā’ib, ven a stâi La biografie di Alessandri e ce che di strani e di maraveôs al è dentri”, un test scrit tal secul XV di un autôr che o savìn dome che si firmave asSuri, il Sirian, e je pardabon alc di maraveôs, di straordenari: cjapant ispirazion di diviersis tradizions popolârs pal plui mediorientâls ma no dome...”