Rome, 23th January 2025
Final Event Report
ERM Final Event took place in Rome on January 23rd 2025 in the space of Spazio45 Testaccio, in the heart of the artistic district of the city.
Skill Up had started advertising for the event during the third week of January, creating leaflets and online materials that invited stakeholders and the public to participate. A paper leaflet and a roll-up, completed with the Co-funded logo, the visual identity of the project and QR codes to the project’s social media and website, were created for the night. The 45 participants included activists for female rights, trainers and educators, artists, and people close to Skill Up’s network; the number of participants was collected through an online registration operated on Google Forms.
The event opened with the performance by actor Barbara Lalle and singer Loredana Margheriti. The performance was called “Dressed By You”: Lalle walked into the scene stripped of her clothing and in her underwear, while Margheriti, covered by a black veil, encouraged the audience to think of the most painful insult they had ever received and to metaphorically pass the weight of those words onto the artist by writing it down on her skin. The performance required absolute vulnerability from both the artist on the scene and the audience, and asked participants to connect through the shared experience of pain and shame. At the end of the performance, Margheriti sang a rendition of Schubert’s “Ave Maria” to highlight the cathartic nature of the moment.
The performance was moving and the participants showed great respect, empathy and connection. The shared vulnerability was freeing and set the right atmosphere for the whole event.
Soon after, Lalle presented another personal project, “Buck up and cry”. In this performance, Lalle involved some male actors or personal friends, put make up on them, and then applied a special gel to simulate tears. Pictures of the actors with smeared make up running down their faces were edited in a video accompanied by readings from selected passages from the Iliad and the Odyssey where male characters (Ulysses, Achilless and Priamus) are recounted crying. The project served as a reflection on how even classical heroes openly cry, an act that is almost forbidden to contemporary men, and on how volatile gender rules can be, since until the 18th century make up, wigs and high heels were common elements of a man’s appearance in the royal courts all around Europe.
Finally, Project Manager Maria Chiara Di Francesco from Skill Up properly introduced the project, its aims and its results, drawing conclusions and showing the project’s website where all the available materials have been collected. The night ended on the notes of live music played by the band Quelli del Giovedì.
