The Fondazione Nazionale della Danza / Aterballetto premieres its new production Double Side in its hometown Reggio Emilia, in the framework of Festival Aperto.
Baroque music and contemporary dance are combined in the new programme of the Italian Fondazione Nazionale della Danza / Aterballetto, which features two choreographers from Canada and Cuba who are little known in Italy, Danièle Desnoyers and Norge Cedeño Raffo. In close collaboration with the Fondazione Arturo Toscanini from Parma, its orchestral counterpart from Emilia-Romagna Region, the renowned company brings along a musical ensemble of singers and string players, dancing to a baroque suite and a “Stabat Mater” by Arvo Pärt.
The Cuban Norge Cedeño Raffo creates to religious music, of all things. The young, up-and-coming choreographer was a soloist with Danza Contemporánea de Cuba, the most important contemporary company in Cuba. Arvo Pärt’s “Stabat Mater” becomes a painful farewell work for him. The Estonian composer set the medieval text about the pain of the Mother of God to music in his characteristic, reduced style. The moving effect of this music also characterises the expressive, free and, in the most beautiful sense, pure dance: how can one find hope again in a destroyed world and after such a great loss, how can one go on living, Norge Cedeño Raffo asks himself in his work.
Choreographer Danièle Desnoyers comes from Montréal, the metropolis of modern Canadian dance, where her light, fluid style and her own company make her a permanent fixture on the contemporary scene. In addition to a theatrical element, her pieces always have a strong relationship to music. Her creation for Aterballetto is based on a suite by the Italian composer Federico Gon; the specialist for baroque music was inspired by Henry Purcell.
STABAT MATER
(Creation for 3 dancers, 3 musicians, 3 singers)
Choreography Norge Cedeño Raffo
Set and lighting design Fabiana Piccioli
Music Stabat Mater by Arvo Pärt
Costume design Norge Cedeño Raffo and Fabiana Piccioli
Assistant to the choreographer Thais Suàrez Fernàndez
WITH DROOPING WINGS
(Creation for 8 dancers, 4 strings)
Choreography Danièle Desnoyers
Music An English Suite by Federico Gon after Henry Purcell
Set and lighting design Fabiana Piccioli
Costume design Danièle Desnoyers
With the support of Délégation du Québec à Rome and Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec
Co-design and co-production Fondazione Nazionale della Danza / Aterballetto and Fondazione Arturo Toscanini
Co-production Festspiele Ludwigshafen, Fondazione I Teatri di Reggio Emilia
World-premiere 23 October 2022, Reggio Emilia, Festival Aperto, Teatro Municipale Romolo Valli (I)
German premiere 9-10 December 2022, Ludwigshafen, Theater Im Pfalzbau (D)
Dancers Aterballetto Company
Quartetto Motus for La Toscanini: Giulia Soli, Agnese Rava violin, Dario Carrera viola, Margherita Curti cello
Soprano: Theodora Io Koutsothodoru
Countertenor: Nicolò Balducci
Tenor: Kim Bowoo
Musical coaching: Antonio De Lorenzi
Norge Cedeño Raffo’s creation Stabat Mater inspired Rai5 to make the docufilm Stabat Mater – Danzare oltre i confini (Dancing Beyond Borders).
The docufilm closely reports the artistic and human experience of the young talented choreographer, for the first time in Italy, and shows his creative process, in the setting of the Teatro Asioli in Correggio, a small Italian-style theatre immersed in the Po Valley, one of the most fascinating and evocative.
The filming of the docufilm (directed by Alessandro D’Onghia) began on 29 January 2021 (the choreographer’s first day of work with the three dancers) and ended on 6 March 2021 (the day of the closed-door preview at the Teatro Asioli in Correggio, with musicians and singers from the Istituto Superiore di Studi Musicali Achille Peri in Reggio Emilia). The airing of the docufilm on Rai5 was on 29 April 2021, on the occasion of the International Day of Dance.
MEDIA PARTNER
