Silvia Calderoni and Ilenia Caleo present backroom 1, a performance conceived specifically for the space.

“Meteorologies, affective states that trigger climate changes and vice versa, atmospheres that take the shape of spatialized feelings. Reality is broken, shattered. Unease, agitation, disturbances–turmoil–perturbations. From the research material of temporale {a lesbian tragedy}, other rooms emerge, backrooms that repeat endlessly, spaces saturated with melancholy, boredom, and desolation as if they were dense matter.”

The event will take place in the first-floor room dedicated to UNAROMA LIVE. 
Free admission until capacity is reached. 

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CALDERONI–CALEO met in 2012 at the Teatro Valle Occupato during Motus’ Animale politico project and began a shared path through artistic residencies, research ateliers, and performances. Since 2017 they have been lecturers at IUAV University of Venice in the Visual Arts Laboratory. Starting with the Biennale College Teatro workshop in 2018, they created KISS (2019), a performance project with 23 performers, produced by Santarcangelo Festival, CSS Udine, and Motus Vague. For the Queering Platform at Freespace West Kowloon in Hong Kong they conceived the nomadic project SO IT IS. In 2021 they took part in Flu水o, a cross-disciplinary project that won the Italian Council Award (9th Edition, 2020), for which they created the performative action thefutureisNOW? (Milan, Seoul, Shanghai). In 2022 they created the installation Pick Pocket Paradise for the exhibition Espressioni con frazioni at Castello di Rivoli – Museum of Contemporary Art, Turin. They were associated artists of the Italian Pavilion at the 2023 Architecture Biennale. In 2023 they presented the performance The present is not enough in Hamburg, now on tour, and in summer 2025 their latest work Temporale {a lesbian tragedy} premiered in Santarcangelo. For the 2025–2028 three-year period they will be co-curators of Short Theatre (Rome) together with Silvia Bottiroli and Michele Di Stefano. Beyond their artistic projects, they truly share almost everything.

SILVIA CALDERONI (Lugo, 1981) is an actor and performer. She trained at a very young age with Teatro della Valdoca, performing in several productions including Paesaggio con fratello rotto. Since 2006 she has been an active member of Motus, performing in works such as Rumore Rosa, A place, ICS – racconti crudeli della giovinezza, Crac, Let the Sunshine In, Too-late, Iovadovia, Tre atti pubblici, Alexis. Una tragedia greca, Nella tempesta, Caliban Cannibal, King Arthur, Tutto brucia, and Frankenstein. A Love Story, presented at national and international festivals. She starred in The Plot Is the Revolution alongside Judith Malina, founding figure of the Living Theatre. Since 2015 she has toured internationally with the solo MDLSX, which she also co-wrote with Daniela Nicolò. In 2022 she performed again with Valdoca in Enigma. Requiem per Pinocchio and in La mano sinistra by Industria Indipendente (2023). Winner of the 2009 Ubu Award as Best Actress Under 30, in cinema she starred as Kaspar in The Legend of Kaspar Hauser (2012) by Davide Manuli, and later in Last Words (2020) by Jonathan Nossiter, in the Sky series Romulus directed by Matteo Rovere, and in Non mi uccidere (2021) by Andrea De Sica. She appeared in the miniseries Ouverture of Something That Never Ended (2020) directed by Gus Van Sant and Alessandro Michele, and in the film/video opera Moonbird (2022) by Rä di Martino. She was an associated artist of the Queering Platform at the Kowloon Cultural District in Hong Kong (2020–23) and artistic advisor of Sherocco Festival (Ostuni).

ILENIA CALEO (Livorno, 1974) is a performer, activist, and researcher. Since 2000 she has worked as an actress, performer, and dramaturg within the contemporary scene, collaborating with numerous companies and directors. She curated the dramaturgy of Tutto brucia (2021) and Frankenstein (a love story) (2023) by Motus, and Exinction / les Phalènes (2022) by choreographer Alexandre Roccoli. Trained as a philosopher, she works on embodiment, feminist epistemologies, experimentation in the performing arts, new institutions, and forms of cultural labor. She teaches at IUAV University of Venice, where she leads the course “Performance, Gender and Sexuality Studies,” and is co-founder of the Master’s Program in Gender Studies and Policies at Roma Tre University. She authored Performance, materia, affetti. Una cartografia femminista (Bulzoni, 2021) and co-edited In fiamme. La performance nello spazio delle lotte 1967/1979 (b-r-u-n-o, 2021). She is among the invited authors of Choreographies of the Impossible, the catalogue of the 35th São Paulo Biennial. An activist of Teatro Valle Occupato and within the commons and queer-feminist movements, she grew politically and artistically within countercultural and social center scenes.