COMPAGNIAZAPPALÀDANZA2
The compagniazappalàdanza2 is composed of dancers selected from the MoDem PRO program, a valuable pool from which the company itself has drawn over the years for its members.
From 2023, a new chapter begins for CZD2. The main goal will be to focus on preserving the repertoire of Compagnia Zappalà Danza.
The reflection that Roberto Zappalà has been carrying forward for some time will find concreteness in the learning, development, and finally in the staging of the great, medium, and small historical productions of the choreographer’s repertoire.
The importance of repertoire in the context of dance at a national and international level is a theme that Zappalà has been dedicated to for many years. This dedication concerns not only the preservation of his own works but is aimed at all contemporary choreography, which over time has proven to be a tool for research and authentic representation of the thought of each choreographer.
In recent years, CZD2 has demonstrated remarkable maturity and has been constantly enriched by the presence of dancers from the new generations, possessing excellent technical qualities as well as creative sensitivity, with a strong predisposition to the MoDem language, which represents the essence of Roberto Zappalà’s poetics. It is precisely these qualities that now lead CZD2 to take on the important task of preserving and keeping alive the choreographer’s repertoire.
Roberto Zappalà
Roberto Zappalà is the artistic director and choreographer of Compagnia Zappalà Danza, which he founded in 1990 in Catania. He has created over 80 productions exclusively for his company, mostly full-length works. His creations “A.semu tutti devoti tutti?” (2009, reprised in 2019) and “La Nona-dal caos, il corpo” (2015) received the Danza&Danza Italian Production of the Year Award.
Articulated projects have accompanied the creative journey of the Catania-born choreographer, from ‘re-mapping-sicily,’ an unpublished reinterpretation of Sicily through his personal language, to ‘Transiti Humanitatis,’ with which he continues to narrate humanity through gestures and the body, their history, their transformation over time and space, or conversely their immutable permanence.
He has collaborated with various companies, including Balletto di Toscana, the Ballet School of Teatro alla Scala in Milan, Norrdans (S), ArtEZ Arnhem (NL), Fondazione Theaterwerkplaats Generale Oost (NL), Goteborg Ballet/Opera di Goteborg (S). In 2011, he created the choreography for the opening ceremony of the Fencing World Championships. In 2016, he curated the project Insieme – Parata Urbana for Torinodanza and the Défilée of the Lyon Biennale.
He has collaborated with opera directors such as Federico Tiezzi, Daniele Abbado, and Giorgio Barberio Corsetti, and with international artists including Giovanni Sollima, Paolo Fresu, Fabio Vacchi, Puccio Castrogiovanni, Vincenzo Pirrotta, Luca Ballerini, Alfio Antico, Gianluigi Trovesi, Nello Toscano, and others.
With Christian Graupner (Humatic, Berlin), he created the interactive installation “MindBox,” which won second prize at the Guthman Musical Instrument Competition (Atlanta/USA 2011). La Malcor D’ published his book Omnia Corpora on the methodology of his work.
Roberto Zappalà is responsible for the recovery and conception of Scenario Pubblico in Catania, inaugurated in 2002, the headquarters of Compagnia Zappalà Danza and a rare example in Italy of a choreographic center. In 2015, Scenario Pubblico|Compagnia Zappalà Danza was recognized as a National Dance Production Center by MiC and in 2022 received an upgrade to C.R.I.D. (Center of Relevant Interest for Dance).
His choreographic style, after years of movement research with his dancers, has become a language with its own well-defined and unique identity called MoDem Democratic Movement. Every year, Roberto Zappalà selects a group of dancers from the MoDem Pro program who merge into CZD2 compagniazappalàdanza2.
Roberto Zappalà is an associated artist of the MilanOltre festival for the 2022-2024 triennium. Among the numerous awards received, he received the National Association of Theater Critics Award (2013) and the Hystrio Award ‘corpo a corpo’ (2022).
