WHAT IS DANCE-THEATRE

DANCE-THEATRE FOR ADULTS, CHILDREN OR FOR EVERYONE?

What is dance-theatre in Europe, Italy or in the world, is still nowadays known just by fans, supporters and experts. Common people just think it is a kind of spectacular hybrid in which different genres converge: dance, of course (otherwise it would be difficult to justify this name), together with a bit of everything, music, acting, gesture, singing, mime and much more. The result is sometimes not clearly understood, because too complex as well as too little characterized. Dance theatre was born in the Thirties from the German Expressionism, it consolidates during the 19th century, especially in Germany (with the great Pina Bausch for example), arrives in Italy, first thanks to Susanna Egri, and later on thanks to Sosta Palmizi and the Bertone/Abbondanza company and spreads throughout Europe thanks to Lindsay Kemp, Alwin Nikolais and Carolyn Carlson, just to sum up in the most concise way.

At the moment we are still speaking of dance-theatre for an adult public. How many times, especially at the beginning, I heard someone sceptical, wary or ironical asking me what I meant by theatre dance-theatre for children.

Let’s make it clear: theatre dance is not a dance in the common meaning of the word. It is neither academic, neoclassic, modern, contemporary, nor jazz; it is not just a choreography with some additions of mime, cabaret, body expression. It is all this together with an relationship of expressive comparison and creativity with the word, the use of voice and of gesture. It is a way of telling a story in the theatre, using a strong symbolic connotation, together with the addition of the strong visual impact of figurative art, painting, not just décor, but a much more comprehensive use of musical and verbal features.
It is already quite complicated like that: imagine how complicated could it be with children and young people. On the contrary it is much easier that it could seem: the symbolic world fully belongs to them, much more then to us, and the mixture and fusion of more expressive means is naturally part of their way of communicating. The game itself, in its most accomplished way, puts together story, imagination and reality, time travels, a different use of the materials and of the space, use of sounds and voices. Adults should keep from participating, children instead can do better than our most advanced fantasy.

In my peculiar concept of theatre dance for children, I think that adults and educators should take their part in what children should learn: they should organize, coordinate, harmonize and teach new things in a light way, which does not mean that it has to be done always in a playful and undemanding way. Children should learn new languages (poetry, singing), new techniques (different dance genres, but also be introduced to some concept of stagecraft and theatre architecture in order to understand the volumetric relationship between themselves, other people, the stage elements, the space available in the width, height, length, weight), new explorations (in the artistic field: painting, sculpture, plastic art; in the musical field: unusual genres like contemporary, symphonic classic; and in the literary field). In all this, theatre dance is the perfect context. It helps to grow up, amuses, creates bonds, consolidates relationships, creates new situations, filters and transmits new knowledge, intrigues and the so-called adults, parents and teachers, are also happy about it and share this experience with them, which is not a small thing!