This publication proposes an alliance between dance and engineering which, however unlikely it might seem at first, becomes more and more convincing upon further reading. A report of a long research project, the publication recalls events, workshops, conversations, projects, poetry, illustrations, performances, exercises, scores, and reflections around the embodied experience of urban space. Stating that we need a different paradigm to make city planning more inclusive toward non-conforming bodies and otherness, Theatrum Mundi suggests that the discipline should open up to choreography and dance, studying for example how these performative practices can offer a new perspective on transport engineering, currently based on disembodied data and technologies that do not offer satisfactory answers to the current challenges of accessibility and environmental sustainability. In addition to showcasing the potential of collaboration between dancers and city planners, this research provides an extremely useful blueprint for a variety of interdisciplinary alliances, to devise methods for working together and fostering unexpected collaborations, as well as for presenting their hybrid results.
— Chiara Dorbolò, Curator of the Architecture Book Fair 2021
