Cartografia Disabitata by Le Supplici and Fabrizio Favale

Giulio Petrucci, Jari Boldrini, Fabrizio Favale, Marta Capaccioli and Martina Danieli

The series of dance events with “Focus on European Contemporary Dance 2012” kicked off when Italian contemporary dance company, Le Supplici performed at the Cultural Center of the Philippines’ Tanghalang Aurelio Tolentino (CCP Little Theater) recently. The group composed of Jari Boldrini, Marta Capaccioli, Martina Danieli and Giulio Petrucci performed the work Discografia Disabitata (Uninhabited Cartography) choreographed by Fabrizio Favale  which was inspired by the works of Franciscan cartographer Vincenzo Coronelli.

Before the performance started, CCP Vice President/Artistic Director Chris B. Millado and Italian Ambassador Luca Fornari delivered opening remarks to a full house audience. Well, it was no surprise that the theater was filled to capacity since admission to the show was for free and one just had to reserve for tickets. Fortunately, I reserved mine very early through the Embassy of Italy which organized this event in cooperation with the CCP.

Fabrizio Favale

Like I've said before, contemporary dance requires a lot more from the audience compared to other types of dances like ballet and other mainstream forms like hiphop for example. And Cartografia Disabitata is one of those contemporary dances that even require a lot more concentration and attention since this work had no discernable storyline at all. Everything was simple starting with a bare stage and the four dancers wearing plain clothes that looked rather drab and muted. But it was their movements that could either leave the viewer mesmerized or bored to death. At some point, the four dancers moved fluidly and independently of each other, and then they joined and connected with each other looking as if they got tangled. Suddenly, Jari did a turn and immediately executed two more in the other direction this time. And this he did while being assisted in the waist by Giulio which was probably the only move done in the entire show which had shades of classical dance technique. There were also moments where they walked around in unison with their body lines matching as if they were a single unit. What all of these meant, I don't know but it felt like it was an exploration of what the body can do alone and with other bodies.

The music was mostly a constant droning, with occasional peaks and some dissonant strains of a cello, which could be noise to some. And the music didn't have any sense of time at all. The same could be made of the movements since one couldn’t decipher if there was any beat in the piece at all. But there were recognizable sequences that were repeated several times throughout the piece. One interesting section in this piece was towards the end when Fabrizio went on stage and called the dancers, either one by one or in pairs or groups of three. Once the dancers were called, he or she performed the same choreography he or she did earlier but it was either alone or with someone else. But it was never with all four of them. This highlighted the absence of the other dancers that the remaining one had to interact with in the previous section. For me, the latter section had the dancers interacting with the empty space around them and this gave me the impressions that the movements looked a lot softer and gentler without having anyone else around except for the emptiness surrounding them. Cartografia Disabitata was very short and it did not even clock an hour. But no one complained since it was a free show and there was so much food for everybody during the cocktails after the performance. I had the opportunity to have a chat and practice my Italian with Fabrizio and the dancers of Le Supplici during this time.

The Workshop

Fabrizio Favale giving out instructions

A few days later, I had the chance to see them at work during the last day of their three day workshop over at Myra Beltran’s Dance Forum where  a new work for the workshop participants was created by them. Fabrizio told me that this work is entitled Happiness but it’s not about being happy at all. He said that he incorporated Asian movements in the piece and had the dancers move around in serpentine patterns bookmarking  a middle portion wherein everybody connects as if they’re strands of a spider web. I thought that the piece is like a kaleidoscope of movement with the serpentines moving around the stage in a pattern that probably drove the dancers crazy. Happiness will have its premiere at the upcoming Wi-Fi Contemporary Dance Festival happening this July.