Massimo Furlan
We are the Team

18th June 2002: An unforgettable date for Korean football, a fantastic 150-minutes long history.

We enter a huge and empty stadium. At its center, a big green rectangle. An epic memory. We can see two players on the field, the Korean n¡Æ19 and the Italian n¡Æ10. There is no ball, but all the gestures, runs, penalty shoots and falls are there. In front of our eyes, it is not the real players, but two performers who, in a mind-blowing effort, are replaying simultaneously, with an incredible precision, the whole South Korea-Italy match of the Football World Cup 2002.

We can hear the murmur of the crowd coming out from the stadium speakers and from the portable radios that we have been given at the entrance of the stadium. We can also hear the live commentary of a famous sport journalist who is describing what is happening on the field. He is telling us a story, an incredible story, made of unexpected turns of events, surprises, pain and joy. A story with a perfect dramaturgy. It is funny and moving at the same time.

The spectators are also replaying the game. They are slowly turning themselves into supporters. Whistling, howling and cheering. All the supporters¡¯ choreographies are instinctively being reinvented along with the story. In the end, there are no more real spectators in this re-enactment. Each of them has become a performer. An absurd celebration.

In this performance, Massimo Furlan is calling the collective memory of a whole country, embodied by a mythic football match. Gathered around this strange object, each spectator is finding his own place. Each of them can indeed tell with precision the experience he had on this night in 2002. It is about intimate memory, our little history. We are all connected to moments of history. This project questions in a funny and spectacular way the mechanisms that govern our link to collective memory.