The International Study Conference ‘Dante Performatico: Diffraction readings between literature and performing arts’ is starting in Rome, scheduled for 24 and 25 May, with a remote connection that can be followed live on the Youtube Channel of the National Academy of Dance. The scholars present, coming from Italian and foreign universities, will propose interventions aimed at declining the binomial literature-performing arts starting from general questions of a poetic, aesthetic and methodological nature, deepening above all the relationships between music, dance, theater and Dante issues.
In this way, panoramic visions on choreographic, musical and theatrical reinterpretations of Dante’s texts, in the past and in the contemporary world, will find a place, as well as studies on particular Dante motifs revisited in a performative key. In the encounter between these different cultural practices, a complex network of borrowings, references and misrepresentations takes shape, thanks to which one can think ‘by diffraction’ of the becoming underlying the life, and vitality, of art.
Numerous appointments on the calendar. It starts with “Nihl Aliud … Quam Actio Completa ‘, the performatic sources of narrative, poetic, literary subjects, edited by Fabrizio Deriu of the University of Teramo, continues with Elena Cervellati (Alma Mater Studiorum University of Bologna) with The ‘poetry of the arms and legs’, or rather of the irreducibility of dance, and then with Roberto Fratini who, in connection with the Center de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona, brings his contribution entitled’ Vacabimus. Notes for a Dante’s Kinesiology ‘. The morning ends with Dante in the dance librettos’, a study by Stefano Tomassini, professor at the Iuav University of Venice.
Also from Venice, but from the Ca ‘Foscari University, he brings his own contribution to the studies between the performing arts and the Supreme Poet, Pier Mario Vescovo with an intervention entitled’ Dante and the genus dragmaticum ‘. In this second session coordinated by Francesco Deriu, the Neapolitan panorama is the subject of investigation by Francesco Cotticelli (University of Naples ‘Federico II’) with Dante and the Neapolitan scene. Notes for a reception, and of Maria Venuso (Suor Orsola Benincasa Institute of Naples) with Dante and the theatrical dance in Naples in the nineteenth century.
The last in-depth analysis of the day (5 pm), which sees Elena Cervellati in the role of Chair, opens with Laura Sciortino who, from the National Dance Academy, brings a study entitled Jia Ruskaja between performing arts and literature: the Dante case in the ‘Unique Numbers’ of the And. The cycle of interventions continues with Giulia Taddeo (University of Genoa) and the ‘Trilogy of the Tricolore: Comoedia’ by Mauro Bigonzetti, and with Philippe Goudard (Université Paul-Valéry Montpellier III), who closes the first day of Studies with ‘ Entre enfer et paradis, les cercles du cirque ‘.
On 25 May, the day opens with a four-handed study entitled ‘Risonavan for the air without stars’ by Giulia Addazi and Christian Raimo, for Treccani, Ludens Association, it continues with’ Dante antiromantico. Dante’s vocal polyphony at the end of the nineteenth century ‘by Antonio Rostagno from La Sapienza University of Rome and then, again from the National Academy of Dance, Gianluca Bocchino, presents the intervention’ The Ballad of Dante by Paolo Fresu: Dante’s musical suggestions in the 21st century’.
The first session continues with another tandem, that of Gianluca Alfonso Gucciardo and Francesco Mecorio who, from the Université Paul-Valéry Montpellier III, present the Dante study in the musical. An attempt at an analytical approach in the light of performing arts medicine. The first session ends with ‘A riveder le Albe’: the Dante’s call by Marco Martinelli by Roberto Cuppone of the University of Genoa.
Giulia Taddeo conducts the second block of interventions that open, again from And, with Roberta Albano and her ‘The Dante’s project Ades / McGregor: a reading hypothesis’. ‘Dramaturgie sonore dell’Inferno’, on the other hand, is the title of the speech by Mauro Petruzziello, professor of the University of Tuscia Viterbo, the penultimate study of the session that ends with ‘The journey of Durante, the space, the geography of Tau ‘through San Francesco d’Assisi, by another teacher of the National Academy of Dance, Marco Schaufelberger.
The last study session, conducted by Roberta Albano, involves Leonardo Mancini (University of Verona) with Carmelo Bene’s “chosen engineers” and the Lectura Dantis of Bologna (1981). In memory of Rino Maenza, Paologiovanni Maione (in collaboration with the Department of Electronic Music Conservatory of State Music “San Pietro a Majella” of Naples) with Bene “sings” Dante and Monica Marziota of the Dante Alighieri Society Havana – Cuba with an intervention by title For a history of Dante’s reception and the performing arts in Havana.
The International Conference of the National Dance Academy of Rome is part of the larger Scenes of a Hell in the 21st century project, sponsored and financed by the National Committee – Ministry of Culture. Eight months of initiatives (from March to November 2021) including performances, experiential events, video installations and practices to trace a unique cultural, creative and social journey inspired by Dante’s Hell.