That's Life
– Directed by Sara Pizzi
That's life
Dedicated to mental health awareness.
I’m just
sadder and happier
than you
it is like having a nail
in my brain
that I cannot take it out
having mental disorders
is not painful,
more painful is the label
that people put on us
“That’s Life” is a 8 min long dance movie directed, choreographed, videographed and written by Sara Pizzi and performed by Aika Takeshima. In the duration of the movie, we see the dancer going through different emotions, we feel the duration of time, we meet scenes full of dance movements and symbolism. This dance movie has been created in honor of spreading awareness about mental health and mental disorders. This dance is a social action to normalize mental health care and awaken the spirit of the audience in a theme sometimes forgotten by society. The script is based on interviews, materials, images, art projects and diaries collected personally by the creator during her incubation time of research inside mental health care institutions. This to meet the director’s artistic mission of normalizing art and empowering minorities with a non-activist documentary of this world to space of reflection.
イタリア人コンセプチュアルダンスアーティスト、サラ・ピッチによる作・演出・振付・撮影と、武島アイカのパフォーマンスによる９分にわたるショートダンス映画。
「なぜ人々の気分のムラは許されるに、それが長期間の鬱状態とハイ状態に影響されている人だと許されず、敬遠されるのか？」
作中、ダンサーは異なる感情を行き来し、見ている人は流れ続く時の経過を感じ、ダンサーによる非常に多くの身体表現や象徴的なシーンを目にする。気分のムラ（感情の起伏）と 言われるものと、双極性障害とされるものに敬意を表して創られた作品であり、メンタルヘルスケアのノーマライゼーション、そして社会から時に忘れ去られるテーマに人々の関心を呼び起させるという社会活動を目的に作られた。これは、アーティストとしての監督のミッション、「アートのノーマライゼーションを目指し、マイノリティの立場の人々の社会での活躍を支えて力を与える。」から来ている。すべては、非アクティビストとしての形でこの世界のドキュメンタリーを作品にし、この世界では何が変わるべきかなのを説明し、それらは変わることが出来るという可能性を与え、それを社会が深く考える場を与えるために。
process/
thoughts
During the period of incubation caused by the covid-19 pandemic, my(Sara Pizzi) attention fell into deepening my awareness of my mental health.
Mood swings, emotional outbursts, moments of extreme tiredness were following me during the day affecting my normal actions and emotions. More and more as I was digging into these sensations I discovered how much this affects not only my day and thoughts, but also people close to me. How powerful the mind is to be able to determine our day and relationships, becoming part of our life, something that we have to care of, but it is considered normal.
Soon, I reflected on a similar subject which is not considered normal by some people that have crossed my path. Five years ago, I had a chance to work in a mental health care house dealing everyday with people affected by mental disorders, and it was absurd sometimes to hear comments that were undervaluing the importance of mental health or mocking a serious condition of mental disorders that was deeply impacting some individuals I was working with. This was really painful to hear, most of all to acknowledge that was the common sense of some people regarding individuals affected by mental disorders.
Coming back to my primary thought, while I was thinking what could be associated to my interpretation of “mood swings”, I reconnected my memories to some people I worked with affected by Bipolar Mental Disorder, a disease characterized by periods of depression and periods of abnormally elevated mood that last from days to weeks each. Of course, I’m aware that for many reasons these two elements cannot be associated, like the length of these extreme emotional states: mood swings are characterized by quick change of mood, while bipolar disorder defines a mental condition for a long period of time.
But in both cases, we are speaking about a condition that affects our daily actions and thoughts, but this does not change the status of humanity and social cohesion. Starting from it, I recovered my old notes and journal of patients affected by bipolar disease who I worked with. Few sentences I found interesting that were agreeing with my thoughts were:
It is like having a nail in my brain that I cannot take it out.
Having bipolar disorder is not painful, more painful is the label that people put on us.
I’m just sadder and happier than you.
This was my starting point for my research. I decided to make a dance movie using quick transitions, music and movement to be able to make people feel a different range of emotions in a few minutes to underline the density of each emotion and how they can change drastically during the day. Rawness of the camera work to elevate the private contest of life and daily life. In this, I wanted to honor the words and people that inspired me, including some elements that patients shared with me.
I wanted to create a movie using my dance voice as medium, to empower the equal voices and conditions of all the people who are suffering from mental disorders and to elevate the importance of the care and awareness of mental health.
Director’s thoughts in symbols.
Symbolism
01 T-shirt
The t-shirt is used as a metaphor of the label that society places in situations of unknown without being aware of the consequences and the actual “normality” of some behaviors.
02 Nails
The nails highlight how a mental state or condition can affect each individual and the state of acceptance.
03 Shadow
All the work with shadow and dissociation of frames are made to emphasize that all of this defines us as individuals, and we have to deal every day with ourselves to understand who we want to be at the end of the day.
Openness, listening and acceptance of yourself and others are going to make this path easier for everyone.
