Queer unmaking: Monstrosity and dancing liberation in Percy Bertolini’s Da sola (2021)

Percy Bertolini’s Da sola (‘alone’) (2021) depicts a non-conforming, pink-furred, fluorescent-jumpsuit-wearing protagonist roaming the streets of a dystopian brutalist city in the course of a night. The narrative starts with the main character’s escape from a mental health facility, and it continues by depicting their constant attempt to avoid being institutionalized. Alongside the powerful images created by Bertolini, the graphic novel intermixes the panels with quotes from Vaslav Nijinsky’s diaries about his own mental health struggles. The article investigates how the graphic novel depicts the marginalization and loneliness of individuals who are excluded from the cisheteropatriarchal society in which they live through its representation of the graphic novel’s main character and Nijinsky. Furthermore, the article analyses how Da sola challenges this ostracization; through scenes of unruly dancing, the graphic novel creates a community between queer individuals, beyond the limits of time and space, to the point of including Bertolini as well. Finally, as this community supports Da sola ’s main character, the article argues that the graphic novel promotes a form of queer unmaking of normative societal structures, in order to liberate the main character and to foster a new society.