Double Repertoire:
Thursday, April 18th – 9:00 PM
Friday, April 19th – 9:00 PM
The protagonists of the evening are the dancers of Agora Coaching Project, a high-level training project promoted and supported by MM Contemporary Dance Company and A.S.D Progetto Danza of Reggio Emilia under the artistic direction of Michele Merola and Enrico Morelli. Initiated in 2010, the course is gaining full recognition in the European dance world and boasts collaborations with internationally renowned teachers and choreographers.
ALLEGRO by Maša Kolar
Allegro is a choreography focused on the character of Leonard Bernstein, presented through the environment in which he excelled best, namely music in all its forms. Hence, one of his most significant interpretations has been chosen, namely the orchestral direction of Beethoven’s nine symphonies. In addition to the music, the choreography focuses on Bernstein’s live performance and observes his conducting gesture: since the specificity of this gesture is individual and authentic for each conductor, Bernstein’s cheerful and joyful character takes center stage, marked in music by the term Allegro.
These two key concepts, ‘allegro’ tempo and the conductor’s gesture, have become the backbone of this work: it has led to five separate units but united by these concepts. The conductor’s gestures range from very abstract ones transferred to the entire body to very concrete gestures, such as using the conductor’s baton with which the dancers communicate and/or manipulate other people.
The very form of the stage through the set design (white chairs) and costumes (black uniforms) suggests an orchestra. It is this form that has allowed structuring five different scenes while maintaining a sense of unity and integrity. Through their dance, gestures, mutual manipulations, and the play of chairs, the dancers dissolve and reconstruct each scene, establishing a constantly changing idea of the orchestra’s hierarchy.
The working experience that young dancers gather within the Agora Coaching Project, in encountering the various choreographic languages of authors who have built these same or similar choreographies with professionals, is very intense, exciting, and also very precious. This is the moment when these young dance talents, still under the protection of the Agora project, appear before their future audience, dancing choreographies with an ever-new aesthetic of an unknown choreographer. The dynamics created in facing the artistic uncertainty of this project are an important educational tool. For me, it has been a great pleasure to be part of this significant moment of transformation for young dancers. – Maša Kolar
LAST MOVEMENT OF HOPE – I CHAPTER by Adriano Bolognino
“In this historical moment that unites us all, marked by fear, instability, and the unknown, it seems to us that our lives cannot follow the paths we had imagined. Every brick of our constructions seems to crumble with each new shock. Wars, environmental phenomena, our world is collapsing on us, and we are increasingly defenseless, waiting, because often we do not have the opportunity to have power, or positions that allow us to react or decide. We are all in the same condition, but isn’t it true that we all have the same possibilities of action, whether of thought or physical? We do not act or escape.
Escaping from all this evil, even if it costs us so much, would seem the most serene path; and we struggle tremendously to continue searching for that glimmer of hope that can make us still believe in this life. Hoping for a new place perhaps, made of security and love. We are an army of nothing, finding ourselves fighting against unbeatable monsters, crushed by forces we cannot confront, destroyed by our own wars. And like fearless knights, driven by great dreams, we encounter this tortuous path, unaware, or perhaps forced to fight for ideals that are not our own. Like a mother carrying her precious creature in her womb, adding and not destroying those bricks that each of us is slowly placing in our own path.
I would like to create a dance that could be a soundtrack of what we are experiencing through intersecting relationships with ourselves and others; experienced all in the same space, a place of the past, present, and a different future. The same fears, the same difficulties, the same last movement of hope. An adventure, a journey into weakness, perhaps futility, of the human being, which, however, always carries with it the great strength of those who rise when everything seems to give nothing more than demolition. A moment of reflection also regarding our relationship with the planet that hosts us, and that perhaps we are no longer able to care for and manage. A dialogue with nature, not only enlightening of how small we are compared to it but also of how ungrateful we have been and still are in killing life in its entirety. Almost as if to overturn the famous Dialogue between Nature and an Islander by Giacomo Leopardi. Bringing it back to our reality, where we ourselves harm, striking all nature, to which we foolishly still assign blame. A last movement, that is one of renewed energy and awareness. Running together towards a less shadowy future.” – Adriano Bolognino
I want, I will — if not here,
in another place that I do not yet know.
I have lost nothing. I will be everything.
Fernando Pessoa
DANCERS
April 18th
Giulia Lusetti, Corrado Azzollini, Federico Musumeci, Filippo Penco, Gennaro Todisco, Laura Dell’Agnese, Lucrezia Maggiore, Martina Procacci, Maya Maselli, Nicole Forni, Susanna Russing, Elisa Bocconi, Gabriele Scarcia, Gaia Zorilla, Giada Piccinini, Jasmine Begici, Sara Ferrentino, Giorgia Raffetto, Carlotta Maucioni
April 19th
Aurora Lattanzi, Jacopo Bellani, Alessia Russo, Anna Dal Maso, Chiara Barrile, Diletta Suman, Giovanni Karol Borriello, Gioele Marcante, Giulia Boccarossa , Laura Miotti, Lucrezia Capuzzelli, Luna Lefebvre, Martina Pagliari, Salvatore Bruno, Vittoria Facci
