Emanuel Gat in Milan: Tuesday, March 20, 2012
Emanuel Gat in Milan, Space body and power, at Spazio Tadini
THE ISRAELI CHOREOGRAPHER IN MILAN, AT SPAZIO TADINI, WHITIN THE PROJECT SPACE, BODY AND POWER
The Israeli choreographer Emanuel Gat, one of the most important in the international scene, will be host of the cycle of live interviews “Space, body and power”.Emanuel Gat is considered a purist of dancing, in which the sensuality and physical aspects of movement comes forward, and he is, at present, one of the biggest choreographers in the world. His last show, Brilliant Corners, which investigates the ephemeral art of dancing which is born, dies and always renovates in the circumscribed space of a gesture, has been presented in worldwide premiere in Venice at the Teatro Piccolo Arsenale, in Montpellier at the Festival Montpellier Danse 2011, in Paris at the Quartier d’Eté Festival, in Berlin at Tanz im August and in many other international events.
On Tuesday, March 20, he will be the protagonist of the new meet-up of the cycle of interviews “Space, body and power”. Through his art, his reflections and his words, many aspects of space, body and power will be explored. The interview stems from the thematic research path of the festival “Coreografia d’Arte – the research and the planning of human space”, and from questions such as:
Today, what is the body? What is it becoming? Which place does it have in the world? What does space/body mean? In which way does man stand in space? What is space? Which spaces do exist? Does the space of man exist? Do body and space hold a close relationship with power? What does this all mean in art, in thought, in theatre, in choreography, in society, in politics? The body speaks, tells, changes – and changes events in signs -, it articulates space and language; it is the place, as Michel Foucault puts it, in which power is inscribed. The body exposes and incarnates a never-ending series of signs. It is a place of writing, of knowledge. Bodies live, it is not things that live in bodies. The body occupies some space. But what does this mean? Is it delimited with regards to space? Where does the body end? Is the body both limit and surpassing of the limit? Both border and crossing of the border? Do we find ourselves placed before a disused body and an exceeding space? Given the stature of the protagonist the conversation will go on exploring the specific themes of choreography and of dancing, and of the role they have nowadays, opening with Emanuel Gat new reflections on space, and of dancing in space, born from a man who is both a choreographer and a thinker, who in choreographic writing reveals his own aesthetics and Weltanschaung (vision of the world).
Emanuel Gat Dance Brilliant Corners
These are only some of the starting points we will begin from to generate reflections, questions, ideas, traces and paths.
“I strongly desired Emanuel Gat’s presence because I greatly esteem him as a choreographer, obviously. The alternance of music and silence, both involvement and emotion, rarely happens on stage. It rarely happens to be captivated and to be entangled in a choreography from the beginning to the end, without noticing time passing by. He is an artist with a marvelous sense of movement, lines that are elegant but also alive, real. He looks for new ways to understand things through rules and mechanisms that get more and more complex to exalt pure dancing. He contrasts silence and sonority, he travels in a choreographic structure dedicated to stillness and movement. His choreographic process marks, to me, fascinating stages of the energy of the body which is full of potentials to explore, again and again. His is pure movement. And what a pure movement it is! I love his pure acts of creation and composition. The manifest mechanism of experimentation, research, composition and creation of pure movement. His wonderful exercises of style, his virtuosity, and maybe also his self-indulgence… what’s wrong with that? And then… who says there are not pathos and themes in that? To start from what we are, from the body, his potential, development and mechanisms, to discover movement step by step instead of inventing it, is it not also a way to investigate, for example, contemporary conflicts and contradictions? Economy, politics, war, society… it is what we are. And we are first and foremost a body.
Emanuel Gat Dance Brilliant Corners
In the specific of “Space, body and power”, to talk about space and body, I will begin from Brilliant Corners, in which Emanuel Gat brings to life a choreography that is a continuous and virtuous invention, a questioning, reworking and rethinking of the relationship between the dancers, of the dynamics in space and in every single gesture/sign, and development or consequence of it. A sensuous, voluptuous and captivating investigation of the individual/body, flesh and bones, in space and in the relationship with the theatrical space throughout the sounding – inner, also – of weight, gravity, rhythm.
I will be very happy, then, to follow him in every territory he decides to explore, as a choreographer, as an artist and as a man. I don’t deny the interest I feel in the fact that a new language of contemporary dancing comes from Israel, a land of fights and tensions that, so it seems, or maybe precisely because of this, have not prevented the exploding of a choreographic creativity that is much looked for and valued in the Western world. Among the most important names of contemporary Israeli dancing also are Hofesh Shechter, Yuval Pick and Ohad Naharin. I will ask him why the majority of these artists tends to leave their homeland, which are the reasons, originated, maybe, by the difficult situation of Israel. For “Space, body and power” I will surely ask him if he’s willing to talk about the Israel/Palestine situation. He is an authentic choreographer and therefore, I imagine, an authentic man as well. It will no doubt be an important evening.” Federicapaola Capecchi, choreographer and dancer
Space, body and power
An Idea of: Federicapaola Capecchi e Francesco Tadini
Interviews by : Federicapaola Capecchi
Organization & 
: Spazio Tadini
For the project Space, body and power – series of interviews and live performances – See press release annex.
READ THE ARTICLE IN ITALIAN – Here –
Le traduzioni dei testi in inglese sono di: Beatrice Pozzi e Valeria Fornara
