THE MARGIN
The Margin is an evolving narrative about mental health.
Kelly Ardens, her chaotic storyteller, starts from her own experiences and life as a person functioning with borderline personality.
Evolving because it feeds on emotions and contradictions and poses questions that, perhaps, have no answer but remain vibrating in the air, sometimes light and fleeting, sometimes heavy as a boulder.
The Margin is the protagonist’s world and a new narrative for people who live, not a “disorder” or a “suffering”, but the condition of neurodivergent people.
That world that belongs to “crazy” people, so far from what is considered “normal”.
The audience will be invited to watch and listen, immersing themselves in the performer’s daily life: in her epic acts of pain, in her small and large gestures that make her feel good, and in her multifaceted art, including tarot cards, colored pencils, cigarettes, false eyelashes, and what’s hidden in her Hello Kitty bag.
Dedicating her favorite songs, reeling off the “Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders,” and laying herself bare while telling the truths of his spiritual journey, Kelly imagines The Margin as an open construction, where everything is still possible.
Or as bell hooks would say:
“A place capable of offering the possibility of a radical perspective from which to look, to imagine alternatives and new worlds […] A space of resistance. A space of my choice.”
Debut:
7 ottobre 2025 @ Sa Manifattura a Cagliari for Fuorimargine 2025
Residences:
- 27 agosto – 2 settembre 2024 @ Base Milano
- 6 – 12 febbraio 2025 | Fuorimargine
- 1-7 Luglio 2024 | Fuorimargine
- 26 maggio – 1 giugno 2025 @ Casa Anima Mundi (Isili, CA) accompanied by the choreographer Cristina Kristal Rizzo | Fuorimargine
Staged studies:
- 5 Ottobre 2024 @ BASE Milano – PRESENT! in FAR OUT Live Arts Festival 2024
- 12 Febbraio/13 Febbraio 2025 @ Sa Manifattura a Cagliari – SOLD OUT + replica straordinaria
STORIES FROM MY BODY BEFORE THE APOCALYPSE
What stories would a body tell if it could only speak? What would it say before being wiped out by artificial intelligence? What would be important for it to say now that reality can no longer be distinguished from fiction? What legacy does it leave for future generations regarding authenticity? What price would it pay by following increasingly dystopian and unattainable beauty standards? What meaning would humanity have if everything were just a copy of a copy?
Kelly Ardens, the creator and performer, poses these questions in “Stories from my Body before the apocalypse” and she gets naked, revealing through dance and performance the whispers, cries, and confidences of her physicality in the world. Her appearance becomes the central theme, starting from her personal experience to transform into something political and universal. Inspired by post-porn feminism, chaotic playlists, and studies in neuroscience and moral philosophy, this work confronts the frenetic and boundless world of social media and materializes in a love-hate relationship with reality, which, as we look around, becomes increasingly heavy and difficult.
“Stories from my Body before the apocalypse” tells of a relationship between matter and consciousness, between pain and self-determination, between heritage and contemporaneity, between rebellion and presence, between joy and beauty.
Because in these times, listening to one’s own body is an act of revolution and love.
The initial development of this work was made possible by Open Dialogo 3, the prestigious international competition that Kelly won in 2026.
Open Dialogo is a bilateral cultural exchange programme commissioned by Arts Council England, the Italian Ministry of Culture (Department of Performing Arts), the Italian Cultural Institute in London and the British Council.
Kelly was a guest from June 8 to 14 in Chisenhale Dance Space (London) at her first international residence.