The choreography Alter Ego, which was created for a two-part ballet evening and premiered in Dresden in October 2019, will be further developed and presented in Frankfurt am Main as a full-length ballet.
In Alter Ego, Godani once more pursues his artistic passion: the endless possibilities of metamorphosis in his choreographic work. It is a creation in which choreographic language has been set free, beyond known parameters: it is the opening to a new mode of perception. Human bodies manifesting animalistic characteristics create a universe of strange creatures: animals, half human and half insect, interacting and communicating with each other. But not stopping on all these transformations the choreographer continues on, enhancing the human body with angular shapes, thereby expanding aesthetic boundaries. This wide variety of animalistic beings inhabits the stage in Alter Ego while an innovative form of communication is established between the performers, who are discovering and engineering the space through the choreography. A choreographic conversation happens when the disturbing gaze, gestures, stops, pauses and non-achieved actions create a communal language between the creatures. Silence and stops are present during this general dislocated feeling: not only is space brought out of joint, so is time.
Godani’s choreographic practice emphasizes a reflective self-aware approach to actions, and that is the beauty of the presence: the commitment to the actions. The choreographer makes clear to the dancers the visual identity in his choreographic work and what is important is the inside vision when you see the space surrounding you. Not to imagine, just observe the reality.
Dancers establish internal and external relationships between the different parts of their bodies. It is the building of a geometrical, almost kaleidoscopic, Meccano-like construct between them and their own limbs. The performers’ bodies affect their surroundings with the creation of meaning, and characters emerge out of the choreography – recalling images and a richness of associations, while emphasizing the theatrical ideas of a mental image.
In Alter Ego, all artistic elements become expressions of an inner dialogue. They are not inhabited; they are transparent and pure. Their sobriety is an intended search for their ultimate nature: a gleaming memory, a narrative without any dramatic involvement.
In this Dresden program, Godani’s physical expressions are simultaneously revealing and public, yet internal and deeply private. Each gesture, each choreographic accomplishment, becomes a destiny in itself, one with the eloquence and beauty of abstract poetry. The performers grow into mercurial figures that trace, together with the choreographer, a magic circle in which they try to evoke impetuously what is slipping through humanity’s fingers forever: the indecipherability of life.
ALTER EGO
BY JACOPO GODANI
Choreography Jacopo Godani
Stage, Light, Costumes Jacopo Godani
Music 48nord
Length approx. 55 min without break / 16 Dancers
World Premiere 10 October 2019, Dresden Frankfurt Dance Company, HELLERAU-European Centre for the Arts, Dresden
