Just a few steps and you’re connected to the cosmos
Dunja Jocić, Philippe Kratz, Ina Lesnakowski, Francesca Lattuada, Angelin Preljocaj and Diego Tortelli present their own choreographic worlds through solos, duets and short group pieces lasting a few minutes
When, five years ago, on 9 October 2021, Aterballetto’s ‘Microdanze’ were staged for the first time at the Acropolis Museum and in other museums and archaeological sites in Athens, the director who had conceived them, Gigi Cristoforetti, could not have imagined the enormous success the format would enjoy in the years that followed, with repeat performances and new productions in numerous European cities.
This success was undoubtedly due to the quality and variety of these ‘dances in two bars’, to paraphrase the ingenious Campanile, but also to the fact that the Microdances – solos, duets, and small ensembles lasting just a few minutes – established a novel and creative relationship between urban spaces, the audience and the performers.
To mark its first five years, the city of Parma, in collaboration with the Verdi Festival, will host a special edition of ‘Microdanze’, culminating in the world premiere at the Ridotto of the Teatro Regio on 9 October (with a repeat performance on Sunday 11), of *The Great Silence* by choreographer Dunja Jocić, who was born in Belgrade but has lived in Amsterdam for many years. In keeping with the Festival’s theme, ‘Distant Worlds’, Jocić explores the ideas of distance, silence and connection between different universes, transforming concepts that belong as much to the cosmos as to the inner self into gesture and movement.
Drawing inspiration from Enrico Fermi’s paradox – the contrast between the awe-inspiring silence of the cosmos and the certainty that it is, in fact, inhabited by countless creatures – the choreographer guides the dancers Matteo Fogli and Luigi Civitarese in exploring various possibilities of communication, positing that the body is the medium entrusted with conveying memory, myth and emotion through gestures that take the place of verbal language.
*The Great Silence* will mark the culmination of a route winding its way through Palazzo Marchi, the San Giovanni Library, the Stuard Art Gallery and the Chiostro della Fontana, along which the public will be able to experience five further *Microdanze*: Soft P. by Diego Tortelli, Near Life Experience by Angelin Preljocaj, Afterimage by Philippe Kratz, Platform02 by Ina Lesnakowski and Eppur si muove by Francesca Lattuada.
