FEDORA - Augusto

Presentation

For the past 3 years Alessandro Sciarroni worked on a long-term project named TURNING and focused on the action of spinning, producing a creation for the Ballet of Lyon Opera. Recently Alessandro started a new research exploring the use of voice on stage and how you can turn this aural element into a body. The process will lead to a creation named AUGUSTO. The focus of the work is how to physically embody voice, vocalisations and laughs. The soundscape will be a big part of the project, as sounds emitted by bodies and manipulated by composers, link the dancer’s space to spectators in a powerful and intimate way, creating a shared experience of present in time and space, a feeling of empathy. The lenght of the performance aims to an expanded temporal dimension, through the work on loop and repetition. Spectators are invited to the expanded temporal frame that creates space for unexpected epiphanies: the appearance of the human being and its fragility. The 1st spark of this research happened during a 2-week workshop within Camping project at the CND, in collaboration with IRCAM, in Paris. The artist worked with 18 dancers (professionals and students) and 4 contemporary composers, on how laughs and voice can be embodied. The workshop’s final sharing was composed by 2 sequences. In the 1st one, the dancers using their voice, worked to create an acoustic space characterized by strong sound vibration. The vocal exercises created by the choreographer produced a hypnotic atmosphere of reverberations, which moved some of the audience to tears.
In the 2nd sequence, the dancers using their voice to the fullness, explored the action of laughing: at 1st with the effect of becoming contagious for the performers on stage and the audience, later transformed into physical vibration, ecstatic bacchanal, obsessive search for a state of euphoria.
The result of this 1st research was so powerful that Alessandro felt the urgency to go on exploring these materials and the idea of AUGUSTO was born.
The focus of the work is how to physically embody voice, vocalisations and laughs, how they can generate movement.

Artistic Team

Alessandro will work with some historical collaborators and involve new ones. We think this is the best balance between an already close-knit crew that gives all the comfort and safe feeling of past projects shared and the new inspirations of new encounters. A very precious part of the process is the selection of the casting, where skills and virtuosity are important, but the creation of a real group and human qualities even more. The selection process lasts 5 months, it developed through 2 open calls, in France and Italy. Almost 500 proposals have been studied, to arrive to 2 auditions and a final casting of 10 days happening in January 18. We are in the middle of the casting process and there will be an average of 70% new artists. Marta and Elena are both two of the best Italian dancers at the moment. They've been selected for their artistic and human qualities, perfect to work on group creations. Yes Soeur and Sébastien did and excellent work on sound/lights for Alessandro's piece Turning.