Legends are stories that, by definition, elude the brightest reasoning. Their strength arises where facts are lost in the splendor of events, and the Link in Bologna, concerning performing arts and music, is one of these. Carlo Antonelli, a frequent visitor, recounts for STORIA VERA the accuracy, the sensational, and the future that was happening at the Link.

A flash in the dark. I almost fall to the ground. In that moment, a figure lights up, not emerging from the contemporary world, but coming from forests and alpine pastures untouched by time. Very tall, very slender, with opalescent skin, eyes that resemble (which, to tell the truth, we can’t see now because we are in darkness) underground oceans of alpine water finally discovered by a small group of geologists in whom no one had trusted for years. Shapes of light emerge within a huge room, full of pillars. The body-line takes shape (a very clever arrow-like body that has learned to follow the bassline in drum and bass, not the fluttering of rhythmic shards): it is a body that contorts in a furious dance, also following unexpected sequences of ancient folk rounds from South Tyrol. It’s Andrea Lissoni, one of the central cultural souls of this wonderful free cultural circus that has no equal – in terms of programming, precision, and relaxed atmosphere – in Europe, forget about Amsterdam’s Paradiso.

Lissoni has spontaneously hit upon a performance within performances (Michele Di Stefano of MK, who premiered their new show here, is watching him and is incredulous): specially generated productions for the evening that run parallel to “Arte Fiera.” Norma Jeane has just been here – a genius, as always – whom connected a sensor to the beat of her heart, making it resonate everywhere in all the shabby spaces of the large structure, once abandoned, not far from the train station (which is somehow chic), behind it. You can find it in about ten minutes, turning to the left on the bridge and going straight ahead. Cesare Viel has finished in the smallest room singing Vanoni. He gave it his all but without any emphasis, dressed normally (not cross-dressed), reaching an impossible point within the heterosexual limit: remaining masculine but as if attached with spit. Apparently nonsense, but actually a stroke of genius. Cesare is here because artist Luca Vitone brought him, another accomplice of the collective, with whom he shares this very Genoese way (they come from there) of producing truisms with minimal effort. Vitone is short, looks like an Indian, dressed like a priest, but is the most cunning mandrill you have ever seen on the face of the earth. He is the macho man I wished would possess me along the train tracks right there, in a state of drunkenness, but dressed and fluted like a clergyman. “Eyes Wide Shut” (I found it and watched it on DVD yesterday, it’s a bomb).

Vitone was a university classmate of Daniele Gasparinetti at DAMS, whose thesis was the design of a large “alternative” cultural center where the best of contemporary cultural expression could converge. It was Link, he imagined it and made it happen. That’s why Daniele is his King, even though it’s a collective... of course, of course. An indescribable figure, also coming from ancient worlds and capable at the same time of inhabiting the future with a naturalness that none of the cyberpunk “Shake” in Milan could ever dream of. Physical features that mix Friulian-hardcore peasant origins with the most extreme South American communities, with the same neck diadems worn together with the legendary grandmother’s pearls on the earlobes. Very slim himself, he oversees everything so that Link becomes what it is: a space for the dissemination of knowledge for all the senses where – if you could – you should come every evening and find something sensational. Daniele is with Silvia Fanti, the prickly and irritating curator of everything related to the performing arts here, with “premieres” that have circulated in all the international festivals, an incredible talent scout who has a special relationship with Romeo Castellucci and the Societas Raffaello Sanzio, a fragment of which can be seen these days: an audience of stuffed black rabbits watching an improbable show in a small theatre behind Piazza Maggiore. In short, all this to say that during this weekend of art in Bologna, what I have told you may also be cerebral, but then if you do as Vitone and go to Link, one way or another, in the end, you’ll get laid.