Source: press office Operaestate
Thursday 22 July at 21.20 at the Teatro al Castello Tito Gobbi
National premiere of the creations of the project Swans Never Die six different swans for a single historic solo
Six artists called upon to recount and reinterpret in a contemporary key the solo The Death of the Swan created at the beginning of the twentieth century for the legendary ballerina Anna
Pavlova.
(Bassano del Grappa – VI) Operaestate Festival, hosts the premiere of Swans, on 22nd July at the Teatro al Castello “Tito Gobbi” in Bassano del Grappa, when the prima ballerina of the Teatro
alla Scala Virna Toppi will perform the repertoire piece La morte del cigno, and the original creations inspired by it by Chiara Bersani, Collettivo MINE, Silvia Gribaudi,
Philippe Kratz and Camilla Monga. The initiatives dedicated to an in-depth study of Fokine’s solo, and its influence on the history of dance, begin in the morning and accompany the
public right up to the evening’s première.
A unique occasion to see on stage for the first time all the six creations of the project Swans Never Die, promoted by a network of Italian cultural organizations, which sees involved, besides
Operaestate Festival also Lavanderia a Vapore, Triennale Milano Teatro, Fondazione Teatro Grande di Brescia, Festival Bolzano Danza / Fondazione Haydn, Il Cassero LGBTI Center/ Gender Bender
Festival, Mnemedance and Università degli Studi di Torino/DAMS degree course, with the aim of inviting the audience and the artists to re-think of The Death of the Swan, a milestone in the history
of 20th century dance, choreographed by Michel Fokine for Anna Pavlova in 1905, as a field of experimentation. A research project between history and memory, which investigates how a
choreographic work of the past survives, who takes up its legacy, how it confronts the themes of identity, diversity and authorship, in a changing landscape.
For this reason, the opportunities for in-depth study begin in the morning: at 10 a.m. in the Giardino Parolini in Bassano, there will be a special Dance Well class, as always
open to all, with special guest Virna Toppi, prima ballerina of the Teatro alla Scala, who will guide participants in the discovery of some basic movements of the original choreography: a
work on lightness and strength, which seeks to reproduce the beauty of a swan in a human figure that does not want to abandon itself to death.
In the evening, at 8 p.m. on the terrace of the Teatro al Castello, a free meeting (limited number of people, reservation required at the box office) open to the public to discover the project, the
solo from which it takes inspiration and the creative process of the choreographers over the months, with the participation of Prof. Susanne Franco, University Ca’ Foscari Venice, and some
partners of the project, who will tell the genesis, the stages and the next developments of a path that will continue in 2022. An intersection between history and future, tradition and creativity,
which introduces the evening’s programme.
The evening, entitled Swans, a title chosen by the artists to underline the plurality of the swans on stage, and to enclose through a single image choreographies with a strong personal identity
(and each with its own title), is constructed in dialogue with the artists involved, from the most technical aspects to the final dramaturgy.
The evening opens with Swaën by Camilla Monga, who invites two musicians to reinterpret the same score, creating a composition that is partly written and partly improvised: the same
principle that guides the choreographic structure, and which recalls the interpretative freedom of Anna Pavlova.
Collective MINE, on the other hand, in Living like I know I’m gonna die, creates a dance for five bodies: two couples and a single, a single body of arms linked in a network of lightning
encounters: a real fight against death, which finds in the swan a symbol of the transience of existence.
In L’Animale, Chiara Bersani investigates the soul as a place of movement and transformation, and in order to approach the swan she decides to pass through a question: what happens when,
looking at the deep night, we are able to recognise ourselves through song?
Philippe Kratz instead creates a piece for two performers, Open Drift, in which he attempts to capture every transition and transformation, every single moment of passage.
Silvia Gribaudi in Peso Piuma searches for the intimacy of the body, the abandonment to it, the reconstruction of new movements, with fatigue and happiness, repeating those arms and that
broken neck typical of Pavlova.
The evening closes with a choreography by Fokine, with Virna Toppi, a dancer loved by the public who usually admires her in a duo with Roberto Bolle, and who here has focused her
research on the rich history of interpreters of the piece and on her personal approach to the figure of the swan in dance.
The death of the swan continues to intertwine past, present and future, and to nourish the imaginations of generations of artists, stimulating new reflections on what we inherit from history, on
how dance travels through time through the embedded, visual, emotional and kinaesthetic memory of dancers and spectators.
A journey through the past and future history of dance, to discover how a classic still inspires choreographers and manages to speak to the public: immortal, just like the Swans who “never die”.
In case of bad weather the performance will be held at Sala Da Ponte in Piazzale Cadorna.
Festival Box Office tel. 0424 524214
