Abstract

The article explores the ways in which sensoriality is constructed and managed within the specific context of Mazurka Klandestina, a spontaneous community of dancers multi-situated in several of the main Italian cities, which uses social networks as a potential to organize performances of folk dances in public spaces. The main purpose of the paper is to track down the specific practices and cognitive actions that qualify the collective sensoriality of Mazurka Klandestina, using an ethnographic approach that enables the researcher to incorporate the «habitus klandestino». After a brief introduction to the phenomenon, the paper focuses on an analysis of the essential ingredients of this «collective sensoriality», grouped around two aspects: intimacy and sense of place. Thanks to the close physical contact generated by the dancing, the «klandestine» squares generate very different forms of sociability from those provided and accepted in public places, that is, scarcely «verbalized» and very intimate, focused on feelings and emotions. The performances of Mazurka Klandestina offer a space of radical intensification of sensuality in which «socio-sensual experiments» occur. Even the way the dancers relate to the squares in which Mazurka Klandestina takes place has specific sensorial connotations: of the various criteria that determine the suitability of the locations, the acoustics and type of pavement are crucially important, contributing to the drawing up of new maps, both mental and incorporated, which suggest new ways of inhabiting urban spaces.