Chapter 2
In: Sport and the European Avant-Garde (1900-1945)
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Abstract
What appears at first sight to be a complete contradiction to the Futurist cult of the machine is the profusion of references in Marinetti’s manifestos to the need of the Italian race to engage in gymnastics. However, this veneration of sport only demonstrates that the Futurist vision of humanity was a complex construct that had many different strands and operated on a variety of levels. Throughout Marinetti’s career, and in many of his works written between 1909 and 1944, we find a dedication to both technophilia and primitivism. The vision of a Futurist techno-civilization was very much the product of a group of ‘primitives of a new and completely transformed sensibility’. This New Sensibility expressed itself in a novel attitude towards the human body, summed up in the term fisicofollia, meaning ‘an aggressive optimism stemming from a passion for sport and the toning of muscles’. In this essay, I discuss the roles that were assigned to sport and gymnastics in Futurist manifestos. The second section examines the role of sports in the First World War and in Ardito-Futurism. This theory is subsequently applied to some practical experiments in the fields of sports theatre and dance.