In 1917, Filippo Tommaso Martinetti promulgated the Manifesto of Futurist Dance, a text that, in addition to collecting the author's careful comments on key figures in early 20th-century choreography like Isadora Duncan and Vaslav Nijinsky, emphasized the necessity of imitating the movements of machines with the art of gesture to merge with the ideal "multiplied body" of the motor. "Disharmonic, awkward, ungraceful, asymmetric, synthetic, dynamic, word-free": these were the characteristics of Futurist dance, a dance that was intended to "magnify heroism, dominator of metals and fused with the divine machines of speed and war." The Manifesto concludes with the description of three dances inspired by as many war mechanisms: the shrapnel, the machine gun, and the airplane.
It was in the late 1970s that Silvana Barbarini, choreographer and founder of the Italian company Vera Stasi, became interested in Futurism, partly due to her training in Voghera at the school of Martinetti's muse, Giannina Censi. Siio Vlummia-Torrente n.3, a show dedicated to Censi, derives its title from a word-free poem by Fortunato Depero. It consists of about thirty scenes based on poems by Giacomo Balla, music by Russolo, programmatic declarations from the manifestos, and onomatopoeic dances inspired by airplane flight, war, and modern life in line with the Futurist theorization of the body-machine. Among the most evocative pieces is the solo Decollaggio, an aerodance set to Martinetti's voice, created by Barbarini together with Censi in 1979, also performed in the afternoon at the Depero Museum during the Danzare il Futurismo exhibition.
