Valeria Zavattoni

Who killed the cat?

Handstand

Who Killed the Cat?  begins with a false start: a technician who should not be on stage, but who slowly becomes a voice. From a simple sound check, a story begins to unfold, only to quickly unravel, as if the show were starting too early or too late.

The work follows a line of thought that falls apart while trying to explain itself: physics turns into imagination, Schrödinger’s cat becomes an open question, and the audience becomes part of imagination, Schrödinger’s cat becomes an open question, and the audience becomes part of what it sees. Every technical action becomes a story, every explanation becomes unstable.

A character dressed in white tries to stay offstage, but the stage draws them in. Language breaks and rebuilds reality, again and again. Welcome to the paradox.

Biography

Valeria Zavattoni is an Italian circus artist. October is her favourite month.

In October 2018, she graduates from Politecnico di Milano with a degree in nanotechnology. A year later, she is programming robots — until one of them leads her to the circus. In October 2020, she joins CADC Balthazar circus school in Montpellier. The summers that follow are spent experimenting, playing and exploring possibilities in the streets. In October 2023, she creates Welcome Man, a show for young audiences developed through Balthazar’s PEPS programme. The following year, she joins Circo Paniko. In October 2025, she enters the FOCON programme at ESACTO Lido to develop Who Killed the Cat?.

October 2026 remains an open threshold.