choreography Michele Merola

direction Manuel Renga

music Pink Floyd

video direction Fabio Massimo Iaquone

dramaturgy Emanuele Aldrovandi

light designer Gessica Germini

costumes Nuvia Valestri

actor Jacopo Trebbi

dancers MM Contemporary Dance Company (11 dancers)

duration: 70 min.

production Fondazione Teatro Comunale di Ferrara, Fondazione I Teatri di Reggio Emilia, Ravenna Festival, MM Contemporary Dance Company

World Premiere: May 17, 2025, Teatro Comunale di Ferrara

The new production The Wall_Dance Tribute, featuring the dancers of the MM Contemporary Dance Company, performing the choreographies of Michele Merola, together with actor Jacopo Trebbi, is inspired by the historic concept album by Pink Floyd, released in 1979, and the namesake film directed by Alan Parker. The Wall is a manifesto, an act of protest against a world and a society that does not respect human beings as sentient and free individuals. It is a progressive work, born from the anger and frustration of the band’s leader, Roger Waters, aware of the growing detachment between artist and audience, between performance and its reception. The life of his alter ego, the rockstar Pink, unfolds through the tracks of the concept album: the death of his father in war, the abuse by a frustrated teacher, the suffocating attentions of an overprotective and insecure mother, a marriage to an absent and unfaithful wife, drugs, the pressures of show business - all of these represent the bricks that, one laid upon another, build the wall separating man from the rest of the world. In the performance, Pink (played by Jacopo Trebbi) is Roger Waters’ alter ego. At the height of his alienated and self-referential delirium, he nevertheless finds the will to break down the wall, to free himself from oppression and strip off his masks, to show himself as he truly is and open up to others: only through empathy, unity, and participation can a better future be built.

The languages of the stage intertwine to build a shifting performance where music, dance, acting, and video projections have no fixed or defined boundaries. Just as in the film adaptation, the story, flashbacks, and voices of the characters continuously overlap and merge to tell the story of Pink and his “mad confusion,” conveyed through the interplay of the arts in this multifaceted work, suspended between theatre, dance, and music.

PLOT

Pink presents himself to the audience protected by an emotional wall, the result of isolation, anger, and frustration. In an initial flashback, he recalls the childhood events that marked him most deeply - the first bricks at the base of the wall: his father’s death in war; the fears instilled by a mother who exaggerated her natural protective instincts; the humiliations of an educational system that mocked and suppressed every manifestation of individuality, embodied in a cruel teacher who vented his frustrations on his pupils.

The story then unfolds in an alternation of narrative and temporal planes, metaphorically representing the chaos that rules the protagonist’s mind. Pink is now an adult, a successful rock star, yet the ghosts of the past resurface to disturb an apparently enviable existence. The failure of his marriage is rooted in a past of instability: coldness and detachment, his first weapons of defense, only widen the gap between reality and hallucination. In a subdued voice, Pink bids farewell to the cruel world, safely hidden behind his wall.

Trapped in a cage of pain and repressed emotions, Pink tries to reconnect with the world outside. Thoughts chase each other, confusing past and present, reopening old wounds: his restless personality clashes with reality, and the only defense left is total, catatonic withdrawal into emotional impermeability.

But the show must go on, despite everything: Pink is back on stage, in front of an adoring crowd. At the peak of his self-referential delirium, he assumes the guise of a dictator - transforming from victim to executioner - returning to the world the injustices he believes he has suffered. Yet a residual glimmer of humanity leads him to question the reasons behind his isolation and alienation. In the prison of his mind, Pink is ready for trial: at the witness stand, the metaphorical bricks of the wall (the mother, the teacher, the wife), accused of having shown “feelings of a nearly human nature.” The jury’s verdict is final: to accept being part of the human community and relate to others.

The crash of the collapsing wall finally drowns out the noise of Pink’s thoughts: he is determined to face fear and pain and to overcome emotional barriers. Returning to life is a bold act of social maturity, whereas total disconnection from reality represents a futile attempt at escape - one that risks becoming not only a failure but a source of dangerous degeneration.

DIRECTOR’S NOTES by MANUEL RENGA

The Wall is a manifesto, an act of protest against a world and a society that do not respect human beings as sentient and free. The society in which Pink lives is post-industrial, one in which everyone has a role and must conform to it, at the expense of individuality. Bricks in a wall. The Wall is also one of the most important rock concept albums ever created. This is why, on stage, we have built a rich, multifaceted project capable of evoking the suggestions of Pink Floyd’s masterpiece through a contemporary and original reading. A company of dancers, an actor, video projections, all serving the profound and clear message of this album: let us try to break down that wall of loneliness and open ourselves to the world.

In our work, Pink (played by Jacopo Trebbi) is an alter ego of Roger Waters. For the dramaturgy, Emanuele Aldrovandi drew from Waters’ statements, diaries, stories, and interviews released during the making of The Wall to construct an “other” world in which Pink lives. A dimension in which this character is double, halfway between “living what happens” (Pink) and “remembering why he wrote it” (Waters). In this sense, he is both author and protagonist.

The languages intersect to build a shifting performance where acting, music, dance, and video projections have no fixed boundaries. Just as in the film adaptation, also curated by Waters, the story, flashbacks, and voices of the characters are in continuous interplay, overlapping to build the “mad confusion” in Pink’s head.

As Pink Floyd fans know well, the idea of The Wall was born out of ten years of touring, of rock shows held particularly between 1975 and 1977. The band played in front of huge crowds, made up of the “old guard” who came to listen to their music and a new audience who, according to Waters, attended the concerts only “for the beer, to shout, to make noise.” They played in large stadiums and, consequently, the concert experience became quite alienating. “I realized there was a wall between us and our audience, and so this record was born as an expression of those feelings,” said Roger Waters in a 1979 interview with Tommy Vance.