Compagnia Zappalà Dana & String Ensemble of the Massimo Bellini Theater in Catania

concept, direction and choreography Roberto Zappalà

musical coordination Alessandro Cortese

Salvo Noto sound carpet

music: Samuel Barber /Adagio for strings op. 11 – Antonio Vivaldi /The Four Seasons – Johann Sebastian Bach /Symphony in G minor BWV 797

Scenario Pubblico/Compagnia Zappalà Danza, as a National Choreographic Centre recognized of Relevant Interest by the MiC – Ministry of Culture, alongside its intense international activity, has always been committed locally to carrying out initiatives aimed at involving and bringing the audience closer, with renewed curiosity, to contemporary dance and, in general, to artistic practices, identifying new and different ways to give cultural life to the territory.

From this commitment was born body teaches, a project by Roberto Zappalà which aims to raise awareness on contemporary dance, a discipline that lends itself well to young people and a heterogeneous audience, both for the social and current issues covered in the performances, both for a use of the body based on a dynamic, athletic and reflective ‘expressive code’.

The protagonist is the MoDem language that Roberto Zappalà and his company have been developing for over 20 years. A language which, if adequately presented and followed with the correct approach, is easily understandable and lends itself well to comparison and reflection.

This performance, which debuted as part of the FIC Festival, determines the start of the collaboration between Scenario Pubblico and the Teatro Massimo Bellini, a synergy sanctioned by the signing of an important three-year protocol. Body teaches was musically reworked for the occasion by Alessandro Cortese and the music was performed live by a 13-piece string ensemble from the Massimo Bellini Theater Orchestra of Catania for the interpretation of 7 dancers from the Zappalà Danza Company.

The formation thus composed will bring the project into the schools of Catania next season, for an educational, widespread and immersive work of dissemination of the contemporary language of dance linked to live music.

Develop in the city of Catania a more incisive artistic line in the field of contemporary dance: it is to give concrete implementation to this ambitious vision that two structures of excellence in the different fields of music and dance – the city’s opera body, namely the Teatro Massimo Bellini, and Scenario Pubblico/Compagnia Zappalà Danza – are starting to implement a synergistic and profound collaboration, based on what the parties have most authoritatively to propose: resources, projects, spaces, ideas.