An Ideal City is an international project that explores different ways of experiencing dance, at the crossroads of various places and languages.

Conceived and coordinated by the Fondazione Nazionale della Danza / Aterballetto- Reggio Emilia – in partnership with Les Halles de Schaerbeek – Brussels – and the Ballet of the Greek National Opera – Athens, it designs a path in stages in which, for 22 months, 21 performances signed by some of the most significant contemporary choreographers, unfold between institutional and public spaces of the three cities involved.

The project, co-financed by the European Union’s Creative Europe Program, has a twofold objective. From one side, the search for a direct and immediate relationship between dance and its audience (outside its traditional places). From the other, the proposal of a dynamic and fluid experience of the city by its inhabitants, thanks to the encounter with art.

The scientific committee of the project is composed of Nadja Argyropoulou, Pauline De La Boulaye, Costanza Meli.

The artistic centerpiece of the project An Ideal City revolves around MicroDances, short choreographic creations commissioned from international choreographers, who intend to create an original piece starting from the concept of “micro”, through the exploration of a precise limit of time and space (six to eight minutes, to be danced within a small space).

Each choreographer has freely imagined his own space, of different shapes and sizes: in some cases, delimited by a closed perimeter, in others open to the surrounding environment; with a central or lateral perspective; leaning against a wall or unconstrained. What emerges is a landscape of infinite variables and the design of a movement that takes place in a conceptual environment, which can therefore be used in a non-traditional way, outside the theatre setting, escaping the dynamics of the stage and the distance that separates the spectator from the performer. In this way, a continuum is created between those who watch and those who are watched, an emotional and aesthetic experience that is as varied as it is original.

The concept of MicroDances was conceived by Gigi Cristoforetti at the invitation of the Palazzo Magnani Foundation of Reggio Emilia.

Two linked but independent versions, two diverging paths of research, two modes of presentation in pursuit of encounter with the visual arts.