Sonate Bach, In front of others pain.

 

2007 production

 

Theater CANGO- Cantieri Goldonetta, Firenze

 

Coreography, regia, scene: Virgilio Sieni

with Jari Boldrini, Nicola Cisternino, Giulia Mureddu, Sara Sguotti

music J.S. Bach Sonaten für Viola da Gamba und Cembalo obbligato

lights  Virgilio Sieni

 

 

 

 

 

	Sonata No.1 G-dur BWV 1027
1	JENIN, 3 aprile 2002	Adagio
2	SARAJEVO, 5 febbraio 1994	Allegro ma non tanto
3	KABUL, 5 marzo 2007	Andante
4	TEL AVIV, 1 giugno 2001	Allegro moderato
		Sonata No.2 D-dur BWV 1028
5	SREBRENICA, 11 luglio 1995	Adagio
6	ISTANBUL, 15 novembre 2003	Allegro
7	GAZA, 6 luglio 2006	Andante
8	BESLAN, 1>3 settembre 2004	Allegro
I cani di Sarajevo (video, 1994) di Adriano Sofri     Sonata No.3 g-moll BWV 1029 9 BAGHDAD, 20 Marzo 2003 Vivace 10 BENTALHA, 23 settembre 1997 Adagio 11 RWANDA>KIGALI, 7 aprile 1994 Allegro       Sonate Bach, created by the Italian dancer and choreographer Virgilio Sieni, is a piece consisting of 11 choreographies, which remind us of some tragic historical events happened during recent conflicts all around the world: Sarajevo, Kigali in Rwanda, Srebrenica, Tel Aviv, Jenin, Baghdad, Istanbul, Beslan, Gaza, Andijan, Kabul. 11 emblematic and significant dates, gathered around the 11 pieces which compose the three Sonate of J.S.Bach.   It was 2007; I was so excited because I had just started my first classes of contemporary dance in my amateur dance school and, finally, I had the opportunity to go to my hometown theater with my dear young and passionate teacher, to understand for the first time and see with my own eyes what contemporary dance means. When the piece started, me and my dance mates immediately thought “what is that? This is not dance!”; for us was simply inconceivable  that such awkward movements in such awkward bodies that were not the exact prototypes of dancer's bodies, could be conceived as 'Dance': we couldn't find any aesthetic in that. I kept on watching these 4 dancers in their solos, duets, trios, quartets... I couldn't look away from them because there was something in their movements, a kind of endless flow in that unusual dance,  which was capturing me and intrigued me to the point that I finally found a way, a reason to be touched by the stories that their bodies were telling. I recently had the opportunity to watch it again on TV,and I took the chance, years later, to better understand a piece that intrigued me, but that I was to young to digest. I initially struggled with the fact that I couldn't really find the connection between the deep theme of the piece and the dance itself. In some of the combinations, the dancers were holding their hands creating a circle, while dancing something that appeared more like a 'Ballata'; other interactions between the dancers, seemed to aim for picturing a static image, that could be a photograph of that specific event, or even a famous painting, and than evolving it into that polite and fluid movement.. I couldn't get the reason why the quality of that movement stuck in that politeness and detachment without showing the tragedy and the pain in relation to such tragic events. It was during the projection of a video about the dogs in Sarajevo, displaced and abandoned in huge amount during the war in 1992-1995, that I got the choreographer's choice: he decided to deal with such a complex and deep theme, thinking that the theme itself, the wonderful music of Bach and the images represented by the dancers, were already enough for themselves to comment the injustice and the atrocity of all these deaths. The gesture instead...He chose to keep the pureness, the ethic and political value of the gesture, bringing it to an ideal beauty able to cleanse the human body from the complexity, the defection and the corruption of being human. Looking back, I realized that Sonate Bach was fundamental for my growth and my approach to contemporary dance. I would recommend  this piece to everybody, because it is a tribute to the memory of human pain, without any racial or social distinction, giving the same level of importance and compassion to all of the tragedies that mark our history, not as Europeans, not as Americans, not as Africans, not as West, not as East, but as Human Beings.