Two well-known choreographers Angelin Preljocaj and Rachid Ouramdane, each with their own precise style, deal in a creation for the National Choreographic Centre of Reggio Emilia with some extraordinarily interesting themes, and not only artistic ones. The transformation of the body with age, the concepts of beauty and virtuosity, the self-representation by each of us of our own age.

Ageing is not a problem for the actor, the writer or the visual artist: on the contrary, we often see expressive palettes enriched. But in dance, which is an artistic and universal language, are we perhaps anchored (and limited) by the same conception of performativity as in sport?

Senior performers (dancers and non-dancers): this is the artistic heart of a broad project that addresses a theme from the point of view of dance. To the proposal to create beyond certain boundaries, the two choreographers responded with their own generosity, curiosity and intellectual energy. Unlike other important experiences, which have extended their careers to nuclei of dancers, in this project the objective is poetic, and crystallises truly universal questions. The central one is suggested to us precisely by Preljocaj: what is the age of a body?

The performance is an international co-production, and opens up to the dimension of research, workshops and meetings dedicated to the theme, thanks to its scientific partner: the Fondazione Ravasi Garzanti in Milan.

Un jour nouveau | Birthday Party
(OVER DANCE)
Choreographies Rachid Ouramdane | Angelin Preljocaj

Production: Fondazione Nazionale della Danza / Aterballetto (Reggio Emilia)
Supporter and scientific partner: Fondazione Ravasi Garzanti (Milan)
Coproduction: Ballet Preljocaj (Aix-en-Provence), Chaillot – Théâtre national de la Danse (Paris), Emilia Romagna Teatro ERT / Teatro Nazionale (Modena), Festival Aperto / Fondazione I Teatri (Reggio Emilia), Centro Servizi Culturali Santa Chiara (Trento)

In partnership with Comune di Reggio Emilia and Farmacie Comunali Riunite

with the support of Nuovi Mecenati – Fondazione franco-italiana di sostegno alla creazione contemporanea and Institut français

World-première: 15 February 2023, Chaillot – Théâtre national de la Danse, Paris (F)
(performances on 16-17-18-21-22-23/02)
2-3-4 March 2023, Pavillon Noir, Aix-en-Provence (F)
12 March 2023, Arena del Sole, Bologna (I)
4 November 2023, Reggio Emilia (I)
5-6 December 2023, Milan, (I)
14-17 March 2024, Trento (I)
21-24 March 2024, Bolzano (I)

Nominee FEDORA – VAN CLEEF & ARPELS DANCE PRIZE 2022
Co-funded by CREATIVE EUROPE Programme of the European Union

Choreography: Rachid Ouramdane
Original music: Jean-Baptiste Julien
Additional music: Sam Cooke (Everybody loves to Cha Cha Cha), Stephen Sondheim (lyrics from Send in the Clowns)
Lighting design: Stéphane Graillot
Choreographer’s assistant: Mayalen Otondo
Dancers: Darryl E. Woods and Herma Vos

15’

There is no dance without a body, and there is no body that does not age. Aging of the body is often perceived as regression, yet many dancers have reinvented themselves as they age. For example, Kazuo Ohno’s butō reminds us that aging does not necessarily mean surrendering or weakening physically. It does not feel like an end but rather a beginning, like an echo of a song by Etienne Daho, Le premier jour du reste de ta vie, which evokes the passing of time and the beginning of things.
I perceived this antagonism in my meeting with Herma Vos and Darryl E. Woods, who already have long artistic careers. Talking with them, seeing them dance, evoked many resilience skills in the face of life events. Surprisingly, as we were working on a piece that probes the passage of time, they suggested I suspend it.

Rachid Ouramdane

Choreography: Angelin Preljocaj
Music: 79D
Additional music: Anton Bruckner, Józef Plawiński, Paul Williams, Lee Hazlewood, Johann-Sebastian Bach, Maxime Loaëc, Craig Armstrong, Stinky Toys
Lighting design: Eric Soyer
Costume design: Eleonora Peronetti
Choreographer’s assistants: Claudia De Smet, Macha Daudel
Dancers: Mario Barzaghi, Sabina Cesaroni, Patricia Dedieu, Roberto Maria Macchi, Elli Medeiros, Thierry Parmentier, Marie-Thérèse Priou, Bruce Taylor

50’

Every year, on a fixed day, our birthday adds a unit to the score of our existence.
But what is the age of a body? Is it the biological age or the age associated with the practice of its activity? Is it the age that others ascribe to it or the age that the being in this body feels?
I wanted to share this question with people who have had the privilege, and in a sense the opportunity, to go through different ages of life.
In this project, the eight performers, ranging in age from 67 to 80, try to answer it, and could well echo Spinoza’s phrase “the soul is a thought of the body…”
What thought do these bodies generate? How can they move us away from preconceived ideas, how can we develop specific choreographic writing and thus try to approach the limits of these aging bodies?…but mostly by having fun with them, as at a birthday party that takes the form of an exorcism that takes us into the interstices of time of a human life.

Angelin Preljocaj

Creating by looking at life – and especially the real lives, those of the performers – is not for everyone. One has to start with a great awareness of one’s own expressive means, a choreographic talent, and then arrive at the desire to tell us something.

Rachid Ouramdane does this by imbuing with subtle nostalgia the awareness that we are always waiting, perpetually waiting, for something to come. Maybe.

Angelin Preljocaj enters the lives of his performers with irresistible irony, mixed with a radical affirmation of beauty. Dancers or non-dancers, their story is made up of relationships, encounters and the strength that arises from them. Which is projected into the future and not the past.

(Gigi Cristoforetti – director FND/Aterballetto)

“C’è voluto del talento per invecchiare senza diventare adulti” (It took talent to grow old without becoming an adult) sang Brel/Battiato.

Perhaps it takes talent just to grow old. To make the most of physical resources that fade away, but which can still hold returns or even unusual new projects (Over Dance), to build weavings of relationships as if they were light laces after a lifetime of interlocking.

The theme is that all this should not be considered as an individual miracle within a disintegrating mush, difficult even to support – from the economic, to the symbolic, to the relational – but requires becoming a great – and certainly in some ways new – collective story. Collective and global.

(Felice Scalvini – director Fondazione Ravasi Garzanti)

PATRICIA DEDIEU (Chateauroux - France, 1952)
The performance was an exceptional opportunity to ask myself: can I go all the way?
SABINA CESARONI (Naples - Italy, 1955)
This adventure means for me riding even more deeply the energy of a body that is memory, wisdom, awareness of a time that flows by but continues to nourish.
ELLI MEDEIROS (Montevideo - Uruguay, 1956)
This project sounded magical, daring and liberating to me. The beginning of an incredible journey that we share.... I found my body and dance.... I accepted my body and the changes due to the passage of time, but that's not enough! The fun, the pleasure and the joy... it's all worth it!
MARIO BARZAGHI (Milan - Italy, 1954)
It is a project that contained a kind of balancing act between ethics and aesthetics from the very beginning. The language, the style, the poetics, the rigour, the precision, the geometry, the mathematics, I would say the relationship that Angelin Preljocaj has with the compositional parameters, imply a certain degree of adherence. You have to commit yourself, literally: pledge yourself. At the same time, Preljocaj asked a lot of us, of us personally.
ROBERTO MARIA MACCHI (Milan - Italy, 1951)
I am a doctor, an anatomical pathologist, and about 10 years ago I got to know clowning, which made me realise that there is more to life than my own experience. This was a new experience, a challenge to myself. I rejoined the mind and the body and vice versa into one whole.
THIERRY PARMENTIER (Brussels - Belgium, 1952)
I don't have to think about anything: my only concern is to give it my all and to offer what I am with my heart and all my previous experiences. The suitcase is packed and off we go again: how wonderful! Life is full of surprises: thank you.
BRUCE TAYLOR (New York - USA, 1950)
What I retain from this experience, this human adventure, are the encounters and exchanges with Angelin and the other performers of my generation. The project, the rehearsals and the stage allowed me to give and receive again.
MAÏ-THÉ PRIOU (Hanoi – Vietnam, 1943)
Physically I can resist, thanks to Tai Chi, but remembering all the dance steps at the age of eighty? Thanks to the mutual support of the whole group and the perfect understanding among us dancers, it is an incredible and unique experience for me.
HERMA VOS (Amsterdam - Netherlands, 1956)
I am Herma, I am Dutch, I am 66 years old. I arrived in Paris in 1975: I danced for six years at the Lido and at Paradis Latin. Then I sang for 15 years with the Splendid orchestra. I have made several films and played in the theatre, but being on stage is what I like best!
DARRYL WOODS (Elsworth – Tennesee, 1959)
I needed a job and of course I wanted the chance to work with Rachid Ouramdane!!!
The prodcution is within the OVER DANCE PROJECT

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