Aterballetto, the two faces of dance

The program with which Aterballetto (Fondazione Nazionale della Danza) opened its season at the Teatro Valli in Reggio Emilia during the Open Festival is an American diptych “Double side”.

The director Gigi Cristoforetti called the Cuban choreographer Norge Cedeno Raffo and the Canadian Danièle Desnoyers who presented respectively “Stabat Mater” (music by Arvo Part) and “With Drooping Wings” on an “English Suite” by Federico Gon by Henry Purcell. Live music because the project was born with the collaboration of the Toscanini Foundation

Doing contemporary dance in cuba is not a walk in the park. The country has long been, for well-known political reasons, cut off from the innovative currents that were developing in the North, in the USA. Great merit, therefore, is that of Cedeno Raffo for taking himself out of the shallows of the classic (Alicia Alonso forever) and the temptations of folk. And also of Aterballetto to confront himself with the Cuban choreographic universe.

“Stabat Mater” is based on the mystical formula of three: three musicians, three singers and three dancers who share the stage space over which there are air chambers of bicycles tied to each other to form ropes. In this environment the dancers (one boy and two girls) move according to a language that is a koiné of gestures and styles: falls, abandonments, holds, lifts. The boy often collapses in the arms of one of the two Marys, like a pity. The Three wear dark costumes sometimes covered by hooded capes. The lights also dimly illuminate only parts of the stage. The “Stabat Mater” project arrives, as often happens now, with more than a year delay: the work had been blocked by the pandemic.

From the Baltic religiosity of Part to the English Baroque of Purcell, with music chosen by Denoyers, and revisited by Federico Gon to form An English Suite, a definition that also sounds very Bachiana.

The title of the song is borrowed from the final chorus of “Dido and Aeneas” and the broken wings of the title, Denoyers explains, are those of a part of society that is witnessing social upheaval. If this is the assumption then dance is not at all punitive, quite the contrary. Here, too, musicians and dancers on stage divide the space which, on the left side, is delimited by a dense network of white rubber bands that form a triangular space.

The dance kicks off with the unison scoring of the heels of the group of 8 dancers. Then the whole comes to an end, here are other formations, here is the creation of four couples which then turns into a roundabout race for the whole scene.

Beautiful proof of the company that demonstrates versatility and ability to adapt to atmospheres and styles.

Ready for a long tour, while on November 6 there is a virtual reality show “Cosmogony” with three dancers who are filmed in the Swiss headquarters of the choreographer Gilles Jobin and screened in real time for the public in Reggio Emilia, Bologna and Turin.

Meanwhile, another project is advancing: “Over Dance”, a show with dancers over 60 coordinated by the French choreographers Angelin Preljocaj and Rachid Ouramdane who, after the premiere in Paris, will be in Reggio Emilia in the autumn of 2023.