26th November 2016, Rome - Inaugural Event, VESTRIS ITALIA

[Katharine Kanter]

Public demonstrations and master-classes

Amici di Auguste Vestris Italia
President, Francesca Falcone
Inaugural event

In collaboration with the Centro di Danza Mimma Testa

The Italian School of Classical Theatrical Dancing:
an Ideal Merger of Stagecraft & Technique


with
Anna Razzi
Claudio Jankowski
Betina Marcolin

Saturday November 26th 2016

Centro di Danza Mimma Testa
Via S. Francesco di Sales 14, Roma


At ten o’clock in the morning: Gesture speaks
Where does Pantomime in Ballet come from? Commedia dell’arte! with
Claudio Jankowski, stager, teacher and performing artist
Betina Marcolin, former soloist, Royal Opera, Stockholm
Specialist in 18th Century pantomime

In all theatrical history, the range and complexity of the Commedia dell’Arte stands almost without exemplar. From the 16th Century on, its players were masters of the word, gesture, movement – and of improvisation. By the 18th Century, their descendents amongst the Italian grottesco dancers, coupled vivid mime gesture to highly technical, even acrobatic dancing; they appeared in virtually every dance style, were celebrated throughout Europe until the very begining of the Twentieth Century, and even influenced the refined French ballet world.
In this, the 400th Anniversary of Shakespeare, Claudio Jankowski will present scenes from A Midsummer Night’s Dream in a style akin to that of the Commedia, whose players the Italianophile Shakespeare admired and mimicked, while Betina Marcolin will integrate improvised mime gesture to dancing – like the Commedianti.






At three-thirty in the afternoon: Movement speaks

What makes Italian Technique Italian? “Live” Re-enactment of a historical Ballet Class

with

Anna Razzi

Étoile, Teatro alla Scala
Honorary Chairman of the Scuola di Ballo del Teatro di San Carlo at Naples


Pianist: Tania Pallabazzer



A true representative of the Italian School, Anna Razzi will re-enact - in the studio with students - steps, enchaînements, attitudes and gestures typical of one of the very few great dancing schools: the Italian. Indeed, in October 2015, on presenting the new Russian translation of Enrico Cecchetti’s memoirs at Saint-Petersburg, Nikolai Tsiskaridze baldly stated that there exist two schools only in the world today: the Russian, founded by Agrippina Vaganova and the Italian of Enrico Cecchetti.
For the past fifty years though, we in Italy have almost entirely neglected our own School to seek greener grass elsewhere – although Cecchetti himself, like Nicola Guerra or Raffaele Grassi, remained world-famous until the 1950s.
Now, why is the Italian school stronger than that of Bournonville, more efficient than the French, for all the latter’s charm and elegance? What innovations have we Italians introduced, not only to technique, but to stagecraft?
Unique to our School is how, in a flash of lightning, the step or enchaînement combines the most powerful, expressive gesture, with virtuoso and sometimes almost acrobatic technique, especially in allegro passages, virtuoso turns and pointe work. The Italian masters succeeded in weaving the coreodramma’s expressive gestures, and the hirsute versatility of the Commedia dell’arte, into dance technique as such.
A School forgotten perhaps, but never surpassed!
In re-enacting a typical Italian School class, Anna Razzi will stress the theoretical and practical aspects that underly the teaching of Teresa and Placida Battaggi, her masters, who themselves studied with Enrico Cecchetti and Raffaele Grassi.

Admission to defray costs: 20 Euro (full day), 10 Euro (half-day)
Location: Centro di Danza Mimma Testa, Via San Francesco di Sales 14, Roma.
To register: tel. 06 686 9330; cell. 3394686769 (centrodanzamimmatesta@yahoo.it; fra.falcone@alice.it).

Event organised in cooperation with the Société Auguste Vestris (Paris)