Professional dancers and amateurs from the local scene will take part in a temporary corps de ballet, made of people of every age and from various social and cultural backgrounds. They will become the characters and co-authors of Jérôme Bel’s work, the protagonists of a performance aiming at investigating the very concept of dance, in a non-professional collective celebration that questions the authority of “being a good dancer” to the benefit of the pure pleasure of performing.
In his show Compagnia Compagnia, Jérôme Bel has started a journey of deconstruction of the institutional representation of dance, in order to investigate the authentic passion not only of professional dancers, but also of those who are generally marginalised, the amateurs. In this way, he has managed to dismantle the usual dance hierarchies.
The show is a collective celebration that aims to praise diversity and the pure pleasure of performing, challenging the dogmas according to which dance should be inspired by an ideal of perfection. The stage looks bare and empty, but anyway ready to welcome dancers and amateurs, each wearing their party dresses. The imperfect figure of the dancers leads the audience through the discovery of their intuitive knowledge, as well as their improvisation skills, which blur the dividing line between success and failure.
People of all ages, with different lifestyles and an absolutely unconventional and inexperienced desire to express themselves, enliven the stage together with professional dancers. This temporary cast is formed each time in the place where the show will be staged.
Compagnia Compagnia is a social theatre performance, a democratic stage where the true protagonist is the attempt made by the dancers to build their own identity in the absence of superstructures.
Aware of the crisis affecting the individual in our contemporary society, Jérôme Bel seeks, through this collective universal learning mechanism, to bring dance back to its political and social application, which is linked to its ability to join different communities together. In this way, he challenges the tendency to conform, which is proper of academic education. According to the choreographer, dance proves to be capable of becoming storytelling and shaping communities. In this triumph of professionalism and amateurism, any form of judgement appears to be obviously prohibited.
Compagnia Compagnia is part of Ka art. Drawing the collective map of Basilicata and will be on stage at the Arena Sinni, an amphitheatre built on the shores of Lake Montecotugno in Senise. Compagnia Compagnia will take place on July 28th at 7.30pm.
The association was created in February 2008 with the aim of promoting the cultural growth of the territory of the Pollino National Park.
