Rip it up and start again is a show-concert-karaoke-manifesto which digs in the recent past to look at the present through different eyes and build up dissent over the idea of a “generation whose every move was anticipated, tracked, bought and sold before it had even happened” (Mark Fisher). The work was devised with 15 actors from La Manufacture-Haute école des arts de la scène in Lausanne, all born in the ’90s – the decade when Kurt Cobain raised his last cry of alarm before ending his life. Its title is inspired by an influential book by Simon Reynolds on the Postpunk phenomenon of the early ’80s, an underground movement that made an extreme and brilliant attempt at a political and artistic recovery. With this timely work, Motus asks: will we carry on living nostalgically, or can our millennium imagine solutions, including utopic or sci-fi, to the dominant “no alternative” of neoliberalism?

Motus was founded in Rimini in 1991 by Enrico Casagrande and Daniela Nicolò. It became established in the ’90s with productions of great emotional and physical impact, anticipating and portraying some of the harshest contradictions of the present. From its inception, Motus has complemented the artistic production of theatre shows, performances and installation with a rich civic engagement programme of seminars, public events and debates, including through participation in interdisciplinary festivals both in Italy and abroad. The company has received several awards, including three Ubu prizes and prestigious special awards. Free thinkers, they perform around the world: Under the Radar (NYC), Festival TransAmériques (Montréal), PuSh Festival (Vancouver), Santiago a Mil (Chile), Fiba Festival (Buenos Aires), Adelaide Festival (Australia), Taipei Arts Festival (Taiwan) and all over Europe.