Three choreographers for Aterballetto

Philippe Kratz, Diego Tortelli, Norge Cedeño Raffo. These are the three choreographers who are the authors of the excitement that the Fonderia is experiencing in these months. Three artistic universes that put into play the versatility, technique and musicality of Aterballetto dancers.

Philippe and Diego together create Storie, an evening made up of four independent creations, linked by an engaging soundtrack that combines the unmistakable style of Nick Cave with the electronic music of Mark Pritchard, the famous songs of the English rock group Spiritualized with the afrobeat of Fela Kuti.

Choreographer Norge Cedeño Raffo, a charming and charismatic character who has come to Italy from Cuba for his first major production experience, deals with a famous and fascinating piece of music, Arvo Pärt’s Stabat Mater. And he literally stages not only three dancers, but also three musicians and three singers.

STORIE

The two choreographers – both in their early thirties – of the creation are Diego Tortelli, our resident choreographer who is also sought after abroad as a freelance, and Philippe Kratz, of German origin, for years company’s leading dancer, who in 2019, after winning the Hannover competition, was awarded the highest recognition in the sector: the Danza & Danza Award for choreography.

Storie is a small anthology of danced fragments. They are just an infinitesimal part of the very rich artistic and human universe of two thirty-year-olds of today: too young not to have curiosity and freshness, but already in a phase of creative maturity.
Tortelli creates two pieces: Preludio, opening the evening, is a love letter to the body for five dancers, Another story is a duo about the impossible gesture of these months, the hug.

FND/Aterballetto – Another story by Diego Tortelli – ph. Luca Condorelli

Between past and future the two creations by Kratz. The duo “O” offers us two human bodies / robots that force us to question ourselves on how the sense of physical contact might change: will it remain emotional and heartfelt, or will it become serial and alienated?
Alpha Grace, a creation for six dancers at the end of the bill, is a reflection on empathy, a form of gentle communication among people who feel on the same level. It too is severely stretched by the present times.

The choice of the title for the evening fell not on the English “stories”, nor on the French “histoires”, but on the Italian “storie”: in fact the production, conceived in particular for a foreign audience, already from the title should arouse in the spectator a relationship with Italy, as if these stories were snapshots – suggestive but not exhaustive – of the national choreographic scene. Tales that mix personal memories and experiences with globally shared events and that try to give a nuanced picture of the present from the perspective of a generation of artists in their thirties.

FND/Aterballetto – Alpha Grace by Philippe Kratz – ph. Celeste Lombardi

STABAT MATER

This is a co-production of the Fondazione Nazionale della Danza with the Fondazione Arturo Toscanini, a research and an adventure that the two institutions share, and not for the first time, with the aim of ” combining” choreographic and musical components in a new and significant way. The choreography will be created on Arvo Pärt’s Stabat Mater, a score for three singers and three musicians, which will feature three dancers from the Aterballetto company, musicians and singers from the Istituto Superiore di Studi Musicali “Achille Peri – Claudio Merulo” for the preview in Correggio, and from the Fondazione Toscanini for the world premiere in Ludwigshafen in autumn 2022. Three bodies, as many voices and instruments, in an innovative research on their scenic relationship.

The choreographer is the Cuban Norge Cedeño Raffo. Finalist in the 33rd International Choreography Competition in Hannover (2019), and winner on several occasions of the Ramiro Guerra Prize in Interpretación Masculina, awarded by the Hermanos Saíz Association (Cuba), in 2019 he was invited to create a short choreography for some dancers from Gauthier Dance // Dance Company Theaterhaus Stuttgart for the Meet the Talents showcase within the Colours Dance Festival. It was on this occasion that the Fondazione Nazionale della Danza / Aterballetto began to know and appreciate the artistic work of Norge Cedeño Raffo so much that they invested in his talent, commissioning him a new choreography to be included in their repertoire.

This is an artistic challenge with which the Fondazione Nazionale della Danza / Aterballetto, on the one hand, presents to the Italian and international scene an artist who is essentially unknown in Europe; on the other hand, it faces the Cuban choreographic universe for the first time.

Moreover, the research approach of Norge Cedeño Raffo fits perfectly with the assumptions of this new production, as he says:

“I like dance for the dialogue. I look for artists from other disciplines who can enhance the artistic act, the creative result or the staging itself; this seems more attractive to me than predetermining it to a concept or a physical form.”

The other player in the creation is Fabiana Piccioli, an artist who has worked all over Europe with major opera and choreographic productions, as well as the lighting designer of Johan Inger’s Don Juan. She is in charge of the visual concept, based on the use of special painted dance carpets, able to capture and transform the effect of the lights, and on the use of reused materials, in an interesting upcycling perspective.

FND/Aterballetto – Stabat Mater – Norge Cedenho Raffo and Fabiana Piccioli

THE IDEA OF A DOCUFILM

Stabat Mater stimulated Rai5 to make a very interesting docufilm, able to tell about characters, ideas and new visual and sound fascinations. To tell from close up the artistic and human experience of a young talented choreographer, for the first time in Italy, and to show the creative process of an ambitious and unusual new production, in the setting of the Teatro Asioli in Correggio, a small Italian-style theatre immersed in the Po Valley, one of the most fascinating and suggestive. The ideal set for filming.

A docufilm that for the Fondazione Nazionale della Danza / Aterballetto will be a further step towards the realisation of works in which all languages harmoniously merge, and all audiences can recognise themselves.

The filming of the docufilm (directed by Alessandro D’Onghia), started on 29 January 2021 (the first day of the choreographer’s work with the three dancers) ends on 6 March 2021 (the day of the preview). The broadcasting of the docufilm on Rai5 is scheduled for spring 2021.