SIERRAS - Atmospheric dances
SIERRAS - Atmospheric dances
With 22 dancers of the CCN - Ballet de Lorraine
Duration : 30 minutes
Premiere on November 8, 2023 at the Opéra national de Lorraine (Nancy)
SIERRAS is a place more than a choreography, an ambient whose existence and evolution is made possible by the choices of the performers, taken as a collective body with a very sharp peripheral view. I believe dance has this amazing capability to transform the surroundings, to give space to different qualities of proximity, to open conversations in order to shift from an ordinary state to an explorative one. Yes we dance to explore the world, don’t we?
Starting from defined and refined articulations of phrases built by the performer themselves, SIERRAS concentrates on the possibility to set them in place, according to the surroundings, to the resounding quality of each bodily presence. The continuous shift, the constant decision-making that the dancers are asked to perform in real time, slowly transform the design of the phrases into a meteorological kind of pattern, ruled by a mysterious sense of belonging. This is all I ask, to be on time for the rendez vous with the probability.
I call these dances ‘atmospheric’ because they need a very precise bodily state to be performed, which is not related to a mere improvisational skill: it’s a state that transforms the essence of anatomy in such a way that inner and outer space start to coincide and inform the dynamics of the body. This coincidence is also the best definition of intimacy I can come up with, and intimacy is always a very good ingredient for an atmosphere.
Michele Di Stefano
Michele Di Stefano. Born in Milan (I) in 1963, he lives in Rome at present.
Formerly singer in a new wave band that performed almost everywhere in Italy during the 80's, he approached choreography with a DIY attitude, to investigate the displacement of a singing body on stage. He graduated 1990 at the University of Salerno on German expressionist theatre. Starting right after the graduation, he's been carrying out a personal research into movement techniques, setting up his own creative methodology.
He established the contemporary dance group mk in 2000.
Mk focuses on body research, choreography and sound making. The group has developed over the years an inquiry into the ambiguity of bodily states and their alterations, the exotic and the abstract, through different formats and collaborations; it is now considered as one of the most interesting research ensemble of the Italian scene.
The group tours regularly in Italy and abroad. Bermudas, a recent creation on perpetual motion and pure movement, received the Danza&Danza 2018 prize and the 2019 Ubu Prize as best Italian production.
Touring of performances is complemented by an intense activity of conferences, workshops and experimental proposals, including the Platform of Balinese Dance at the Santarcangelo International Festival (2014 and 2015), projects for the 2013-15 BiennaleDanza and BiennaleTeatro 2019, an ongoing dialogue with the Scuola Paolo Grassi in Milan, IUAV University in Venice and USI Architecture Academy in Mendrisio (2024).
He received choreographic commissions from Aterballetto, Korean National Contemporary Dance Company, Nuovo Balletto di Toscana and the CCN - Ballet de Lorraine for a new creation in 2023. He’s been consultant for the contemporary dance program (GRANDI PIANURE 2018-22) at Teatro di Roma-National Theatre, was co-curator with Francesca Corona of the Giacimenta project for Matera 2019 and creator of the performance cycles TROPICI (Angelo Mai, Rome) and BUFFALO (Palazzo delle Esposizioni, MACRO Museum Rome and Museo Nazionale Romano 2019-24). In 2018 he curated the Outdoor section of the BolzanoDanza-Tanz Bozen Festival.
In 2014 he received the Silver Lion for Innovation in Dance at the Venice Biennale and in 2018 the Nico Garrone Award. He is an associate artist at the Milan Triennale for the three-year period 2022-24. In 2012, Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems, by Michele Di Stefano and Margherita Morgantin, a text of choreographic instructions and weather reports, was published by Quodlibet. Since 2010, the group has received a Ministry of Culture grant.