Torinodanza festival eng

Torinodanza 2010 feels like a distant memory, like Alain Platel’s dance theatre with its artists that embody human imperfection but always find solidarity and beauty. We were still in a world of keen yet bearable pain, we witnessed the possibility of moral and social reconciliation. Perhaps Pina Bausch, with her women and men who are so close to us, was not yet completely dead. Today we are almost overwhelmed by social dissolution, our concern for our status as citizens will surpass our individual concerns. All rational projections appear groundless, any calculation might dissolve into the fog of the present. What ethical and aesthetic centre of gravity can be found for a festival in 2011? Despite keeping Torinodanza within a mindful analysis of dance styles, we have embarked on our most visionary programming of these last 10 years of the festival’s history: we imagined that through dream-like, quasi-lunar inventions, art might regain its evocative function, for instance that of another dimension of reality. It is actually politics that should provide for this function, but in today’s time-frame it is a primary need only artists are aware of. This is why efforts were made to bring Bartabas back to Italy with his Le centaure et l’animal. An original encounter between the mythical creator of Gypsy equestrian theatre and Ko Murobushi, the greatest Japanese Butoh artist. We also struck up renewed collaboration between Torino and Philippe Decouflé: in Octopus the choreographer seems to draw every possible enchantment from his dancers’ silhouettes and from the images issued from his boundless imagination. Emio Greco closes with his Dantean trilogy, La Commedia, extolling yet again his range of achingly aesthetic and dynamically insatiable movement. Another awaited comeback is Maguy Marin who with Salves forces instants of life out of the darkness of the senses and, as usual, tells a tale at once unconstrained, political and visionary.

In an edition like this one we felt it appropriate that a suitable role be given to the incredibly creative range of contemporary circus, a workshop for a visionary expressive dimension. It can rouse fantasy and emotions starting from the physical limits of an artist or providing a concrete setting for truly magical virtual and three-dimensional spaces. The festival will end its exploration with Karine Saporta’s (La Princesse de Milan, based on Shakespeare’s The Tempest) fascinating nineties music and dance theatre, and with the, delightful, dense and abstract style of Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker’s, truly a prototype of pure dance, perhaps the best of these recent years. Together with this suite of dreams and visions we have also decided  to appraise the real conditions of this difficult year for our country and attempt to find appropriate responses. The Italian Dance Platform (13 – 16 October) is not only an extraordinary opportunity for our audience to become acquainted with our contemporary choreography, it is also a federative venture joining the forces of  Torinodanza, Festival Interplay/11, Lavanderia a Vapore – Centro di eccellenza per la danza (Collegno), a group of Piedmont companies, and another important festival like Reggio Emilia’s Aperto too. It is an attempt to provide an important visibility opportunity to emerging and already acclaimed Italian artists, like Virgilio Sieni. Between the lines, Torinodanza’s guidelines have not changed: to extend reflection about dance towards the repertory, allegiance to artists we are supporting, a questioning interest for a diversity of styles. What still remains to be said is that we are convinced that collaboration nourishes the spirit and optimises budgets. Our association with the Teatro Stabile di Torino is now a fully integrated project, and this year we have created significant meeting opportunities with Esperienza Italia 150°, 2011 Itinerari – I luoghi del Risorgimento in Provincia di Torino, Festival Interplay/11, Fondazione Circuito Teatrale del Piemonte, Unione Musicale, CRUD Centro Regionale Universitario per la Danza Bella Hutter, FranceDance, PRIX Italia, GAI – Associazione per il Circuito dei Giovani Artisti Italiani, Festival Architettura in Città, Piemonte dal Vivo, Centro Internazionale del Cavallo “La Venaria Reale”. Without forgetting our organic ongoing collaborative projects with MiBAC – Ministero per i Beni e le Attività Culturali, la Città di Torino, la Provincia di Torino, Prospettiva, Teatro Regio e MITO SettembreMusica. It has been a difficult year for everyone involved, but we are sailing through it thanks to our well structured and staunch partnership with the Compagnia di San Paolo and the Regione Piemonte.

Gigi Cristoforetti