Le Supplici extends the vocabulary of modern dance as inspired by cartography

The printed program of the Italian modern dance company Le Supplici for its presentation “Uninhabited Cartography” indicated translating dance into uninhabited geographic locations, thus making one wonder what to see at the CCP Little Theater.

Other printed advisories deepened one’s expectations and curiosity. Italian Ambassador Luca Fornari himself, also in the printed program, wondered how the performance would express “mythical events and mutations of the landscape.” One surmised further how choreographer Fabrizio Favale, inspired by the old maps done by Vincenzo Coronelli for Louis XIV, would interpret the “houses, men and even their actions and wanderings and then the animals, the trees.”

Further, he declares “This work goes into a hypothetical and imaginary ancient atlas where we meet the archipelagos of similar but different forms, and places of jagged multitudes and mutations of images.”

The actual translation into dance of the foregoing diverse explanations was the daunting task of choreographer Favale who did it through four highly pliant, graceful dancers: Jari Bolarini, Marta Capaccioli, Martha Danieli and Guilio Petrucci.

Dressed in everyday shirts, blouses and long pants, they engaged in movements that widened and virtually exhausted the vocabulary of modern dance. Their style hardly showed the influence of ballet except for rapid turns executed once by a woman dancer assisted by a male partner whose hands rotated her waist.

All movements were earth-bound, close to the ground except for the frequent raising of arms for long, arresting periods — to convey the rise of majestic mountains. There were no breath-taking leaps, jumps, or lifts.

Dance, whether classic or modern, is more comprehensible when choreographed to a storyline. For instance, the viewer quickly grasps the meaning of a dance that portrays a woman in rags begging for alms from a prince, or a maiden spurning the advances of a suitor.

However, the Le Supplici dancers made the human body a most expressive instrument, leaving the viewer to freely exercise his imagination or judgement. He could assume the dancers’ linking of arms and bodies as the joining of islands; the dancers’ falling abruptly to the ground as a devastating calamity; their rapid turning and twirling as “the mutation of the landscape.”

The performers danced mostly as a group, alternately there were solos, duets, and trios all to the accompanying sound of a whirring machine and, much later, to the dissonant strains from a cello. The movements were also open to interpretations as those of human beings or animals; poses represented objects of nature. Further, the movements would range from those of a rolling sea or ocean, to existing land masses, to a volcano erupting as suggested by unified convulsions.

To be duly noted, the dancers closely hewed to Favale’s intention that the original work, conceived for a group, would have each dancer’s choreographic routines strictly linked, intertwined and dependent on the movement of the others. Indeed, there was a dominant, overwhelming impression of very cohesive, closely coordinated dancing.

Favale’s intriguing experiment lasted for exactly an hour. Had it been longer than that, it would have bordered on tedium, owing to the inevitably repetitive, albeit descriptive, movements. As it was, the “hypothetical” turned into the real. Before the curtains closed, a tiny man, presumably Favale, took a bow along with his dancers. At one time during the performance, he was standing on one side of the stage pretending to give directions to the dancers.

Prefatory remarks were made by Chris Millado, CCP v-p/artistic director, and by Italian Ambassador Luca Fornari. A cocktail reception followed the presentation, with the Ambassador and his charming, effervescent wife Silvana as hosts.

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Several readers have inquired about my third and latest book “Turning Back the Pages” which was launched at the Instituto Cervantes. The book is available at the National Book Store and at the Solidaridad Book Shop in Ermita.