Gustavo Gomes,
Felix Berning,
movements.
In Meguri (Circular Movement) the
scenery is once again breathtakingly beau-
tiful: the dancers walk on a vast blue ex-
panse, similar to a lake, while the cream col-
oured wall at the back has fossil reliefs of
marine life. It is within this context of deep
serenity that the eight dancers perform.
Meguri opens with Ushio Amagatsu him-
self in a solo which demonstrates, at its
highest level, the art of astonishing with a
sole gesture. The whole body is animated
by barely perceptible movement and con-
trasting forces that are conveyed via facial
expression.
The six sequences that follow all possess
the same intensity because the gestural lexi-
con of the group dances is often reduced
to arm movements, contortions on the ground
or slow rotating. But one is mesmerised by
the spiritual atmosphere created by Ushio
Amagatsu who is also a great wizard of light-
ing and is able to organise nature so as to
make it look perfect to us here.
To appreciate the ritual we need to al-
low ourselves to get involved in the show,
otherwise it is all too easy (if one looks in
with detachment from the outside) to view
the simplicity of movement and conviction
of the dancers performing as being some-
what grotesque. But very often it is the
buy-in of the public that allows the voy- dance, has been entrusted to artistic director
age of the choreography to set sail. And
that is precisely what the Sankai Juku pro-
pose each time and even if their shows al-
ways resemble the previous ones, they have
the same effect as a religious ceremony has
on devotees.
Sonia Schoonejans
Dresden Frankfurt Dance
Company
Godani x 4
Chor. Jacopo Godani: The Primate Trilogy
mus. 48nord (Ulrich Mller & Siegfried
Rssert); Metamorphers mus. Bla Bartk;
Echoes from a Restless Soul mus. Maurice
Ravel; Postgenoma mus. 48nord; Moto Per-
petuo mus. 48nord
Rome, Auditorium Parco della Musica, Festival
Equilibrio.
A company based at the Hellerau (Dresden,
Germany), subsidised by the Cities of Dres-
den and Frankfurt, heir to the prestigious
Forsythe Dance Company (which the famous
American choreographer decided to leave in
2015) and entrusted to an Italian choreogra-
pher, Jacopo Godani, is of unique interest on
the contemporary ballet scene: a vibrant bridge
between past and present, with a considerable
potential of bearing on the future.
A performance by the Dresden Frankfurt
Dance Company opened the new Festival
Equilibrio at Romes Parco della Musica. This
festival, no longer dedicated solely to new
Roger Salas who given it a thematic character,
dedicating this years edition to Germany.
The company proposed two different pro-
grammes, both entirely by Godani: an inter-
esting selection of works by this choreogra-
pher (who is better known abroad than in his
native country) and which exemplify his legacy
36
Ulysse Zangs
Dresden Frankfurt
Dance Company:
Metamorphers,
c. Jacopo Godani
(ph. R. Irace)
and future potential.
The first programme in-
cluded The Primate Trilogy,
a creation in three sections
and set to a score by Ulrich
Mller and Siegfried Rssert
who have been collaborating
closely with Godani for
years. Strong, expressive and
always intensely dynamic,
Godanis idiom can, without
hesitation, be described (to
use his own words) as
dancing dance, one that is
particularly suited to con-
structing ensembles, some-
what weaker albeit with
some beautiful passages
when it comes to composing for a few danc-
ers as they alternate with the group scenes. It
is a homogenous oeuvre from the point of view
of style; however, it does not go beyond the
Forsythian achievements of the past twenty
years to which Godani forcefully claims to
have contributed.
The second programme, Metamorphers, to the
String Quartet No. 4 by Bla Bartk played live
by the Kubus Quartett, was more varied. It
presents ideas that are already different though
not quite innovative yet vis--vis the past,
certainly and clearly more personal. Echoes from
a Restless Soul is a little overpowered by the
beauty of Ravels music, played by pianist
Ruslan Bezbrozh, but nevertheless further re-
veals the choreographers compositional breadth.
The big surprise is Postgenoma: a really
lovely double duet that provides a glimpse of
the possible direction in which Godanis idiom
could develop. In this work finally, over and
beyond the (albeit) basic Forsythe template,
and over and beyond the amalgamation of classic
ballet and Laban dynamics, we witness the
emergence of moments of fusion between the
dynamics of the idiom and the pure dynamic
liquidity of the execution/interpretation which
almost seems of Humphrey-Limn derivation.
Therefore, whether consciously or not, in the
direction of a further amalgamation and new
mixture of the various 19th-century legacies that
hinge on a conception of dance as the art of
movement and not as a combination of forms.
Reproposing Moto Perpetuo (a section of the
Trilogy of the first programme) as the fi-
nale, accentuates the sensation that Godani has
convincingly mastered his idiom and is strongly
determined to use it freely and coherently.
Donatella Bertozzi