from the project corpi incompiuti

 

choreography and direction Roberto Zappalà

lights and set Roberto Zappalà

costumes Leila Dato

 

dancers Daniela Bendini, Rohanna Halls , Giulia Mininel, Wei Meng Poon, Salvatore Romania, Raquel Gualtero Soriano , Paola Valenti

 

in video Carmelo Chiaramonte (chef), Mansur Gueye, Roberto Zappalà

 

 

 

 

The creation ‘Ragoût’ is part of a bigger project called “Corpi incompiuti” on sensory perception, which started in 2003 and will end in 2006. After analysing the awkwardness of the body in “OB/sol.um”, the silence and the world of deaf people in “Ascoltando i pesci”, the sense of sight in “Rifarsi gli occhi”, “Ragoût” explores the sense of taste. Roberto Zappalà has already dealt with this sensual, intriguing yet disgusting and elusive sense, when he worked with Swedish company Norrdans, for which he created the first part of the project – entitled “I’m a good cook. Spaghetti anybody?”. This project, which premiered in Sweden in February 2004, but was never presented in Italy, will be completed by the company ensemble as part of a new exciting show for 7 dancers.

 

A MATTER OF TASTE

In the project on sensory perception, Zappalà dance company deals with arguably the most elusive of the senses – taste. Taste – together with smell and touch – is considered a minor sense as compared to sight and hearing; however, it covers a wide spectrum of definitions, ranging from sensuality, like/dislike to kitsch.

Behind the sense of taste lies food and behind food lies hunger; food and hunger form a strict union that speaks of the modern world, of the differences and waste within our modern world.

The performance stimulates while ‘questioning’ the spectators’ buds, acknowledging that if Luis Buñuel is right when he says that the need to eat does not necessarily imply prostitution in arts, it is nonetheless true that the need to eat implies prostitution tout court.

Dance is never forceful – it hints at and raises questions, in its purest and most abstract form. The performance, far from being narrative, includes heterogeneous elements that question the wide spectrum of taste – the most personal and mysterious of the senses – as both a sense and concept.