MIME

MCB-DV-4936

Solo Goldberg Improvisation

SOLO GOLDBERG VARIATIONS has become a manifesto of Virgilio Sieni’s choreographic art, an emblem of his experimentation with the body and the languages of dance, always aiming to go beyond formal safe havens and codifications. In this work, the music of Bach, performed live, defines a metric and an immaterial architecture into which Virgilio Sieni inserts himself, setting in motion a continuous re-thinking of the dancing body, developing a routine that incorporates an entire human, figurative, choreographic experience. Through three formally distinct sections, the body is fragmented and articulated, traversed by currents of energy and continuous figurations within an arc of time marked off by the succession of 30 variations on the initial aria.

"There is no path in Bach’s Goldberg Variations. At the same time I use the term improvisation to describe the work which is based not on improvisation but on recognition and renewal. Certainly I improvise, choosing from that which is an imperceptible ‘becoming’ in the act of ‘being’ rather than a surprise. I try to strip my body of those practices that in any case appear in the form of the dance and in the sacred canon of the music. The aim is to construct a golden city, a real dream, a true reality. I rigorously lacerate my body , fixing myself only through effort and pain each time, yet at the same time with lightness and a desire for a passing through. It is about the sensation of disappearance: to move oneself in order to disappear, to make the body heavy in order to leave only imprints and traces. For me The Goldberg Variations are not an invitation to dance but an act of reflection and introspection where nothing but a ‘skinned’ body appears. I have performed this work in different variations, for me it is a manifesto, an enactment of the weaknesses, the imperfections, the strain, the folds, and the dust. Something that cuts through the body to give it to the figure, something that shows today’s tragicomic clown body."

Virgilio Sieni

/ CREDITS /

CHOREOGRAPHY AND INTERPRETATION: Virgilio Sieni

MUSIC: The Goldberg Variations – J. S. BACH

PERFORMED LIVE BY: Andrea Rebaudengo

DURATION: 60′

PRODUCTION: Compagnia Virgilio Sieni

CO-PRODUCTION: Ponchielli Cremona Theatre Foundation

// ITALIANO //

Questo solo è emblematico della ricerca sviluppata da Virgilio Sieni sui linguaggi del corpo e della danza in continua relazione con la pittura italiana dal 1300 al 1600. La musica di Bach definisce una metrica e un’architettura immateriale in cui la danza fa affiorare memorie figurative mai citate direttamente, piuttosto affettuosamente evocate in un percorso intimo che chiede condivisione.

“Penso che le Variazioni Goldberg non siano un invito alla danza, ma un atto di riflessione e introspezione dove niente appare se non un corpo “spellato”. Ecco che questo lavoro mi appare come un manifesto, qualcosa di più di un vocabolario di percorso, un atto sulle debolezze, le imperfezioni, lo sforzo, le pieghe e le polveri, qualcosa che vuol trapassare il corpo per donarsi alla figura, qualcosa che rende il corpo pagliaccio tragicomico dell’oggi.”

Virgilio Sieni