The title of the performance is 14.610, a number that hints at something never explicitly mentioned. But it is a key, like the code to a hotel room, that allows easy entry into the show. It is a small and sophisticated puzzle to solve. The latest work by Claudia Catarzi has something intimate and shameless.
Open rehearsal Monday, November 4 – 6:00 PM
Show Tuesday, November 5 – 8:30 PM
by and with Claudia Catarzi
music by Julien Desprez
scenography by Fabio Giommarelli
co-produced by Company Blu, La Manufacture – Centre de Développement Chorégraphique National Bordeaux Nouvelle-Aquitaine, Armunia/Festival Inequilibrio/Centro di residenze artistiche Castiglioncello, with the support of the Regione Toscana and the MiC
created in 2023
It’s hard to describe the feeling of dancing almost three meters high on a surface so narrow it seems more like a pedestal than a platform. From the ground, that is, from the stage of the Teatro Rosignano Solvay, where the show debuted for the Inequilibrio festival, the latest work by Claudia Catarzi has something intimate and shameless. Shameless because the spectator, compelled to keep their eyes upwards, admires the technical skill, explicit and evident, of a figure that doesn’t perform acrobatics, but nonetheless constructs a tense and sculptural choreography, made of plastic poses, clear and defined gestures, even jumps. Although the tone is far from baroque – a certain austerity prevails, though never frigid – there is something triumphant in this construction that resembles the base for a Renaissance equestrian statue. Indeed, in the dramatic arc of the show, the satisfaction of reaching the top is palpable. As if we were in the mountains. Looking down from above is satisfying, but it also gives you chills. Not only because it’s easy to fall, but perhaps because at some point from this peak, the only thing left to do is descend.
And this is the other intimate dimension that runs through the entire show and speaks to us of fragility and strength, of change and resistance. The title of the show is 14.610, a number that hints at something never explicitly mentioned. But it is a key, like the code to a hotel room, that allows easy entry into the show. It’s a small and sophisticated puzzle to solve. Not too difficult, to be honest, but we want to leave it unresolved, so as not to spoil the pleasure of discovery. In the second part of the work, the pedestal reveals itself as a steep slide, and the descent becomes a sort of struggle; the muscular body strains to defeat the weight of gravity, as in the whirls of some Giambologna statue. Even though the aesthetics are tied to a sober normality, which makes the image even more intimate and common. About ten years ago, Catarzi debuted in her solo 40,000 Square Centimeters, again a number for a title, striking for presence and power in the small space drawn on the stage of only four square meters. Ten years later, this space has shrunk but has risen into the air. Not a diving board to jump from, but a mountain – like life – to embrace and climb.
(Rodolfo Sacchettini – July 18, 2023)
After training at the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence, she began her career working with the Micha Van Hoecke Ensemble. She later danced with companies such as Dorky Park Constanza Macras (Berlin), Compagnia Virgilio Sieni, Aldes/Roberto Castello, Company Blu/Alessandro Certini and Charlotte Zerbey, En-Knap Group/Iztok Kovač (Ljubljana), László Hudi (J. Nadj – Budapest), among others. In 2009, she was part of Choreoroam, a research project by the Israeli choreographer Yasmeen Godder (Tel Aviv). She was later invited to follow the work of the Batsheva Dance Company by Ohad Naharin. She has collaborated with choreographer Ambra Senatore since the beginning of her company’s research work between Italy and France, participating in all her early works. Since 2011, she has been working on personal creations. The solo Arrivò senza colore won the co-production Sosta Palmizi, and Un giorno, a duo in collaboration with Mariano Nieddù, was a finalist at the “Premio Equilibrio 2010” (directed by Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui). Her two latest creations see her sharing the stage for the first time with two female figures: Michal Mualem, a historical dancer in Sasha Waltz’s company, in A set of timings, and Claudia Caldarano, a former dancer of Virgilio Sieni, in Posare il tempo. The live presence of musician Gianni Maestrucci in Posare il tempo – percussionist of the renowned group Tetraktis – transforms the danced duet into a trio. Claudia Catarzi is currently an associate artist at CDCN of Bordeaux, La Manufacture | Bordeaux-Nouvelle Aquitaine.
