Aterballeto Italy's Foremost Contemporary Dance Company
Compagnia Aterballetto is called Italy's foremost contemporary dance company, and surely it is competitive with elite contemporary dance anywhere judging from its November 5, 2005, performance at the George Mason University Center in northern Virginia.
Founded in 1979, Aterballeto is Italy's first permanent ballet company apart from those associated with opera houses. In 1991 it became the Company of the Centro Regionale della Danza, the officially recognized association formed by the City of Reggio Emilia, the Region of Emilia-Romagna and ATER (Association of Theatres of Emilia Romagna).
Artistic director Mauro Bigonzetti is an imaginative, intellectual choreographer who uses well the talents of his technically bold, ballet-trained, athletic dancers. They come mostly from Italy, but also from Australia, Belgium, Colombia, France and Yugoslavia. Dancers have eleven-month contracts and more than 100 performances a year. Bigonzetti's dancers perform unique, edgy, captivatingly fast-paced, sharp movements as they create powerful, compelling images. A pirouette crumples, a barrel turn descends into a somersault, a writhing transforms into a contortionist spring, lifts are passionate or mechanical. Bigonzetti designs a shifting interplay of his astonishingly choreographed movement within Fabrizio Montecchi designed set and Kristopher Millar's and Lois Swandale's lighting.
Born in Rome, Bigonzetti graduated from the Teatro dell' Opera School and immediately joined its company. Ten years later he joined Aterballeto. A further decade later, he left Aterballetto and became a freelance choreographer working with major dance companies around the world. In 1997 he returned to Aterballetto as Artistic Director and Principal Choreographer.
Under the dramaturgic supervision of Nicola Lusuardi, Bigonzetti created his own versions of two Stravinsky-Diaghilev signature collaborations for the Ballet Russe, "Les Noces" ("The Wedding"), choreographed by Bronislava Nijinska in 1923, and "Petrouchka" choreographed by Michele Fokine in1911. Both classics draw upon the theme of Russian traditions and are about a kind of ambivalent love that risks violence. Both dances speak of how as it becomes more intense, love tends to mutate and catalyze a deeper tension. Bigonzetti's own choreography and thematic portrayals lay claim to Igor Stravinsky's familiar music, which is linked to specific characters and action.
In the original version of "Les Noces," the rites include preparing the bride, combing and binding her hair, readying the bridegroom, lamenting the parents' loss of a child, neighbors extending congratulations on the marriage, the wedding and ensuing feast, instructions to the couple, warming of the marriage bed and retiring of the newlyweds.
In Bigonzetti's 27-minute piece, he investigates "Les Noces" allegorical depth for modern times. He explains, "Love duly accepts the wager to eternalize itself (embodied by "'til death do us part'), in turn accepting the risk buried within the ultimate acceptance of this wager. What risk? That matrimony suffocates the strength of love, fixing this love into the rigorous restrictions of society. Only by becoming 'husband' and 'wife' do the lovers place themselves beyond the indissoluble limits of this union. But they do this by way of an institution which from that moment onwards 'obliges' them to confront every paradox of this indissoluble state: including the petrifaction of the sentiments regarding one's duty or in the habitual way of living alongside a terrible frustration, regarding the ever pos-sible ending of this love. In short, 'Les Noces' tells of the belief ...that eternal love exists and the forced ambiguity of being duty-bound to tell it to others by getting married." Bigonzetti continues, "What can we living now in the 21st century find to say regarding 'weddings'? Can we say that still today in our society this is 'the' unique rite that administers and sanctions the perfect union between two lovers? The reality is that all around us largely conflicts this affirmation. And for ourselves, we do not believe that it is like this either."
Against a stark black set offset by splashes of silver, red and white, the dance begins with seven women dressed in black tops and full-length skirts, the eighth woman, the bride, is in white. They are seated in a row of silver abstractly-designed chairs on one side of the stage, and men are similarly placed at the other. At the outset, the only sound comes from the tilted chair legs rhythmically striking the floor as the dancers rock frenetically and maneuver in uniform and sometimes diverse patterns. Then they fling the chairs every which way and move acrobatically as they leap on and off the narrow banquet table sitting center stage.
In a depiction of a traditional society that strictly regulates the sexual impulses of its members, the men move first, but the women seem more inflamed. A man emerges from the group. He cocks one arm in a bird-like shape, suggestive of the desire to hover or flee. A woman moves to the men's side and lying on her back lifts her legs provocatively. Symbolic of resentment are repetitive claw-hand gestures and limbs pedaling the air. A man lifts a woman and then lets her fall to the ground.
Two principal couples, Macha Daudel and Roberto Zamorano (in black) and Ashen Ataljanc and Walter Matteini (in white and black) share the spotlight normally reserved for the Bride and Groom. The more lively Daudel and Zamorano appear to symbolize the erotic fantasies of the couple about to wed, or perhaps the actual consummation of the marriage, during the famous bell tones of the finale.
Whereas "Les Noces" investigates the ambivalence of the culminating moment of a loving relationship, the wedding and pledge of eternal love, "Petrouchka," tells us of the moment before any love affair begins. The orig-inal ballet takes place in the 1830s at Shrovetide Fair in St. Petersburg, Russia, and features a show with three puppets, a Ballerina, a Moor in fancy dress and Petrouchka, a sad-faced clown. The males vie over the female who prefers the Moore. Petrouchka becomes violently jealous. The Moor strikes Petrouchka down with his scimitar. Petrouchka's ghost appears atop the theater and laments that no one realized he had a human heart, had suffered human anguish and had truly died.
Bigonzetti explains that his version of Petrouchka portrays "the moment in which a mysterious affinity primes into action a mechanism of fascination (the object of desire fascinates the observer that is desirous of it), or by seduction (the desiring person tries to become the object of desire of the one he desires, that is to find payment)." The story is told in a violent manner, "showing us also how much the fascination that is exerted on us by an object, is an ambivalent jumble of erotic and overwhelming pulsations. How much that we desire, that which makes us desirable, sparking in us vital pulsations." Violence occurs when the kindled desire cannot find its satisfaction; therefore the only way out is by death. The simple fortunes of Petrouchka, the Ballerina and the Moor, all puppets, illuminate the eroticism and violence we live with. The 35-minute ballet personifies disorder, revolt and attempted suppression of the free-thinker.
Bigonzetti's "Petrouchka" takes place in a clothing store with racks on wheels bearing brightly colored garments in every shade of red, crimson, scarlet and orange. Rails are jammed with blue violet, and sapphire garments that jostle with green, jade and emerald clothing. Yellows are interspersed. The racks cover the stage and are shunted about as the drama unfolds. Shoppers peek out from behind racks of clothes to watch the most dramatic moments.
Petrouchka appears as a hardscrabble man clad in ragged camouflage army pants and a black t-shirt. He's in love with the ballerina, a towering fashion model dressed in a white dress with disco boots, who prefers the Moor. Petrouchka spectacularly expresses desire, jealousy and pain through defiant gestures and violently throwing his body.
He is transformed into a shoplifter. Four caricatures of fascist police (one is a woman), follow Petrouchka, beat him, even stamping on his fingertips as he slides along the ground in an effort to avoid them, and they drag him. Under their blows, he dreams of love with the woman and yearning for a new wardrobe. He is still Everyman, since at some point everyone shares his loose-jointed, puppet gestures. The model interacts with him, perhaps it's only in his dream. Amidst the dramatic, there is comic relief.
Classic dances are often performed. Sometimes the performances are efforts to recreate the originals. At other times the dances are reimaged for the contemporary period as is the case in Bigonzetti's cogently updated "Les Noces" and "Petrouchka." Whether familiar with the original and able to compare, or only seeing the modern version, the performance challenged mind and emotion.