She enters the stage as a playground, exploring the combination of dance and sign movements, creating an entirely new form of visual poetry. She interweaves the rules of sign language - such as handshapes, facial expressions, and everyday gestures - with movement studies from Laban, ballet, and Visual Vernacular - an art form of sign language that is highly popular within the Deaf community. Several moments of the solo performance are also inspired by works of Deaf poets from the 1980s, such as Dandelion by Clayton Valli and the poem On His Deafness by Robert Panara.

Concept + Choreography + Performance: Rita Mazza | Light Design: Raquel Rosildete

Drawing from the history and culture of the Deaf community, Rita Mazza and Anne Zander explore new artistic forms in sign language through a visually driven sign-language performance.

The Milan Congress of 1880 marked a major rupture for the Deaf community: hearing educators banned the use of sign language from European educational systems and significantly devalued Deaf culture. It was not until 2002 that German Sign Language was officially recognised in Germany as a fully fledged language, equal to spoken and written German. Yet even today, equal access to the arts remains difficult for most Deaf people — a gap that Space 1880 aims to highlight.

Together, choreographer and performer Rita Mazza and actress Anne Zander research new forms of artistic expression that move beyond the existing — and often male-dominated — traditions of sign-language poetry and Visual Vernacular. Through a movement language specially created for this work, blending sign-language poetry, body language, dance and abstract improvisation, they confront the pain carried by their Deaf ancestors and search for pathways toward healing.

Part of SPACE 1880 was also presented in the exhibition Queering the Crip, Cripping the Queer, curated by Kenny Fries at the Schwules Museum (2022–2023).

Artistic Direction + Choreography + Performance: Rita Mazza | Creative Performance: Anne Zander | Light Design: Michelle Piazzi  | Sound Engineering: Tim Schwerdter | Movement + Artistic Mentoring: Gal Naor, Matan Zamir | Video Editing: Barbara Toraldo | Photography: Mayra Wallraff | Special Thanks: Anne Riegler and Noa Winter | Audio Description: Gerald Pirnen, Gina Jeske

Music moves in waves. It travels through space and time. Light also travels in waves and needs a body to reflect. Light and body, moving together through space and time, continuously create a choreography of visual frequencies. In Matters of Rhythm, Rita Mazza explores this composition of visual sound, driven by the rhythms of sign language.Together with lighting artist Hanna Kritten Tangsoo, Mazza develops movement and light choreographies that focus on the relationship between the performer’s body and light as a source of movement. Inspired by Henri Lefebvre’s essay collection Rhythmanalysis and the work of visual artist Christine Sun Kim, Mazza and Kritten Tangsoo examine how the dichotomies between nature and capitalism, between circular and linear rhythms, shape our movements. They explore how light and movement merge, communicate, interact, and build a relationship – creating music for the eyes. Every sound becomes a movement. And movements – organized in various shapes, patterns, and tempos – become music.

The artist Rita Mazza takes over the festival centre for a week. A black dance floor has been laid out for her there. Visual poetry is an art form that originated in the Deaf community and refers to poetry in Sign languages. Since Sign languages consist of a system of movements and expressions that are communicated physically, the comparison between visual poetry and contemporary dance techniques may seem obvious. However, choreography and Sign languages are subject to different codes and systems whose rules and structures are not directly comparable. What emerges when choreographic means such as rhythm and repetition come into contact with signs from the system of Sign languages? What traces of choreography can be found in the signs?

During this residency, Rita Mazza developed a choreographic variation on the Italian sign for “once upon a time.” The resulting video was presented as part of the festival.

The way we sound and the noises we make are often judged and regulated by society. From the perspective of someone who grew up with Italian Sign Language as a first language, choreographer Rita Mazza deconstructs the labels imposed on the various uses of “voice” - including their own. In this new performance of the same title, Mazza explores the intimate relationships between identity, sexuality, and vocal articulation, while questioning control, solidarity, and shame. Developed through an artistic process that considers accessibility from the outset, The Voice is a powerful challenge to the dominant culture that frames hearing as the norm.

Deaf Standard Time (DST) is a new choreographic research exploring how Deaf culture’s perception of time can be embodied and translated into movement. The concept reflects how Deaf individuals often experience and prioritize time differently—valuing meaningful communication and visual presence over punctuality and linear scheduling. Sed a suscipit tortor. Pellentesque volutpat metus a odio sollicitudin pulvinar. In finibus metus at eros faucibus consequat. Ut posuere interdum leo id pharetra. Vivamus pellentesque, lectus elementum hendrerit convallis, sapien massa porta mauris, ac malesuada quam felis in felis. Fusce id vehicula ipsum. Duis lacinia porttitor justo, ac interdum leo sollicitudin quis.Within Deaf Standard Time, conversations in Sign Language naturally unfold with more depth and detail, often extending beyond traditional time constraints. This project reimagines these temporal and communicative patterns through choreography, giving them both physical and poetic form.

Together with dancer Panos Paraschou, Rita Mazza explored choreographic “scores” based on sign compositions and everyday Deaf gestures such as: extended goodbyes (“Deaf goodbyes”), shifting eye focus and attention taps, spatial crossings and interruptions, following light and rhythmical pauses.

Created + Direction: Rita Mazza (Visual Sign Choreographer) I In Collaboration with: Panos Paraschou (Dancer) I Residency Support: Riksteatern Crea +Skånes Dansteater I First Showing:July 31, 2025 – Maskinhuset Grängesberg, Sweden.