Parole Sospese
Is it a possible challenge today, for a young choreographer, to dance with Ariosto and to translate the Satires and the Orlando Furioso, real world and fantastic projection of the Renaissance court, into movement? Certainly, there must be some degree of unconsciousness, a desire to confront the magnitude and a need to test ones talents.
One should not expect a narrative ballet, the subject is vast, nor a succession of episodes of anthological imprint, forms which are not so congenial to contemporary ballet; but should go back to the deep structures of Ariosto’s language. Nobody like him has been able to translate into adventure, travel, escape, movement, and flight, every feeling, every motion of the soul, every psychological condition. Certainly, this has not passed unnoticed to those who have made the translation of the soul’s motions into movement the subject of their research.
Modern dance may find other similarities with Ariosto’s octave, where musicality and rhythm are absolute protagonists, where the continuous shift from the stately language to the spoken language of Lombardy reveals the ironic detachment of the author from the excesses of chivalrous matters.
Thus, the great tradition of nineteenth century classical ballet, stately language of the body, becomes a point of departure for adventures which explore new possibilities of movement, a continuous transition between antique and new, between noble and popular.
In this context, the role of music is fundamental. It not only accompanies, but generates movement, it suggests the emotional climate and, subverting all coordinates of space and time, it flies to the moon in search of wisdom, now irretrievably lost.
Immodestly, we think that Ariosto would have appreciated...
Co-produced by FONDAZIONE NAZIONALE DELLA DANZA and FONDAZIONE I TEATRI - Committee for the Theatre’s 150th anniversary
World premiere:
Reggio Emilia, Teatro Valli
14 e 15 December 2007
Ballet for 11 dancers