RITORNARE: Vasco Araújo

How does one begin a letter on the topic of "Ritornare," or rather, going back, perhaps by starting at the beginning, which in this case, isn't the verb, but the reason that led me to go back, to Ritornare.

I think that when we return to something we've already done, it is always a revisitation of the past, which contributes to an awareness, or even a clarification, of what we did, who we were, or who we are. In this sense, Ritornare is a return to who I truly was and still am, a return to my identity and its construction through voice, a return to the body, to the body of the past, present, and future. It is also about pretending, which helps imitate figures from the past that can provide greater awareness of our existence. Imitation is also a form of mourning through identification: we always imitate what we would like to be able to explain, or what helps us desire and expand our understanding of human beings and their complexities.

Ritornare is to reveal the lining of things, it is a work on revisitation motivated by the need to investigate the Self, in the sense of exploring unconscious roots, not individual, but whose existence is shaped in post-memory. These works, focused on the world of opera singers, on the myths of the Star System, on intimate life, artistic careers, non-binary identities, on what I am, what we are, what we were, what we would have liked to be, and perhaps already are, question the possibility of reinventing ourselves from what we had already built or pointed to. They also question the possibility of reconstructing our identity without restrictions, leading us to a place of greater freedom and learning. And in the end, the question always arises:

Who am I?

I could tell many things, narrate various stories about my career and journey, but that would perhaps be very boring. What I can say is that, at the end of this journey, there were moments when I looked in the mirror and felt that I was looking at someone else, someone who spontaneously represented or I represented in theaters... now, at times, I still cannot recognize myself. Who am I? Who? It seems to me perhaps that the artifice, the staging, have taken over my, our world, and we no longer live in another reality, or that this has become the reality, or even that reality is a great staging where we act, it is like singing. See, listen. Look, this is me singing, interpreting, and living in artifice within the reality that becomes my life, and we are all like this, there is nothing more... and, in the end, the question remains: who are we?

Since going back is not in vain, much less innocent, I hope that this new/old path will be revealing of what I would like to continue doing and practicing. And that this is a contribution to a process of transformation, of change, for a new exit that is increasingly free.

Ritornare to fly farther.