Compagnia Zappalà Danza

new creation 2021 – worldpremière 29 September 2021 Politeama Theatre, Naples / Campania Teatro Festival

RIFARE BACH 

(Remaking Bach – the natural beauty of creation)

“Glorifying the cult of image and aesthetics is my goal, even more than its meaning”

(Charles Baudelaire)

choreography and direction: Roberto Zappalà | music:  Johann Sebastian Bach

project by Roberto Zappalà and Nello Calabrò | lights and set design Roberto Zappalà | costumes Veronica Cornacchini and Roberto Zappalà | set and costumes realization Theama for Dance

dancers: Corinne Cilia, Aya Degani, Filippo Domini, Anna Forzutti, Gaia Occhipinti, Delphina Parenti, Silvia Rossi, Joel Walsham, Valeria Zampardi, Erik Zarcone

choreographer’s assistant Fernando Roldan Ferrer | production assistant Federica Cincotti | management Vittorio Stasi | technical coordination Sammy Torrisi |  sound engineer Gaetano Leonardi | general manager Maria Inguscio

a production by Scenario Pubblico/Compagnia Zappalà Danza Centro Nazionale di Produzione della Danza | in coproduction with Belgrade Dance Festival (Belgrade), Fondazione Teatro Comunale di Modena, MilanOltre Festival (Milan) | coproduction and residency Centre Chorégraphique National de Rillieux-la-Pape (Lyon)

in collaboration with M1 Contact Contemporary Dance Festival (Singapore),  Hong Kong International Choreography Festival (Hong Kong), Teatro Massimo Bellini (Catania)

with the support of  Ministero della Cultura and Regione Siciliana Ass.to del Turismo dello Sport e dello Spettacolo

With this creation, Roberto Zappalà takes in depth care of the body’s aesthetics and language, and he does so by dedicating a whole night to Johann Sebastian Bach, who, according to the choreographer, represents the ideal of a pure and “honest” art with his beautiful and crystalline music.

At the centre of the creation is a choreographic universe that places the body, with its natural beauty and all its fragility, as a founding element and inevitable transit. The natural beauty of the dancers’ body and of Bach’s music has, in the creation, a collection of sounds from nature and from the animal kingdom, like mini-ouvertures introducing Bach’s notes. Bucolic images follow one another, a nature almost from the dawn of humanity where the sounds of today, of its violence and tragedy are still absent, a “futurist” alarm cry that creates spaces to reflect on and on the common feeling that is sometimes dormant .

Bringing to life in dance the admiration that Zappalà has always had for the great German musician was the main factor that allowed him to compose, among solos, duets, trios and ensembles, some of the choreographic pieces most dear to him throughout his thirty years of activity. The title ‘Rifare Bach’ (Remaking Bach) also wants to be a reference to the many musical reinterpretations that over time have been made of the works of the German composer. And some of these will be part of the choreographer’s research in the musical composition of the work.

Many years have passed since Roberto Zappalà was confronted with a creation without a strong dramaturgy, usually linked to social matters. In Rifare Bach (NdT “Remaking Bach”), there is no articulated dramaturgy, nor any intellectualism, only a close relationship between the more ethereal aesthetics of music and the more carnal aesthetics of dance for a journey dense of poetry.

Listening to nature and its “silences” to go back to a world where it is still possible to understand the “heartbreaking and wonderful beauty of the universe” (1).

1 (Pasolini “Che cosa sono le nuvole?”)

‘Human beings have always looked at nature to understand their existence here and their actions. Nature is common to all and the mother of all, taking nature into account is the same as considering the universality of things.

The etymological definition of the universe emphasizes the unity of body and purpose, so universality is equivalent to the will to unite everyone in a dimension of coexistence.

Bach’s music, as far as I am concerned, manages to unite every expression of art under a single umbrella and is an instrument of infinite creativity as is nature, even that which (in sound) is present in my work and has stimulated my cognitive capacity to create and invent and thus my process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought.

A space where silence, listening, perception and gesture will be present in a unified way while respecting the individual differences.’

Roberto Zappalà