CCN / ATERBALLETTO

The Centro Coreografico Nazionale (CCN)/Aterballetto is Italy’s first National Choreographic Centre, established in 2022 at the behest of the Ministry of Culture, evolving from the historic Aterballetto company active since 1977. Based in Reggio Emilia in northern Italy, the Centre is housed in the Fonderia, an early 20th-century industrial space formerly used as a foundry. This space has been repurposed into a creative crucible with five large multipurpose rooms, costume workshops, meeting rooms, and offices. It is a place designed for creation, hosting, and conceptualisation, encompassing all aspects of contemporary dance and its connection with other art forms.

Currently, CCN/Aterballetto comprises sixteen dancers working full seasons, focusing primarily on new productions by internationally renowned choreographers and performing a select repertoire of iconic works. The company strives to be cosmopolitan, curious, and dynamic. Their productions are highly sought after by major theatres and festivals in Italy and around the world. They now come to the Teatro Arriaga with a triple programme featuring choreographies by notable dance figures Crystal Pite, Iratxe Ansa and Igor Bacovich, and Diego Tortelli.

Love, loss, and acceptance lie at the heart of the first dance piece, Solo Echo by Canadian choreographer Crystal Pite. It is inspired by two cello and piano sonatas by Johannes Brahms and Mark Strand’s poem “Lines for Winter.” Like Strand’s poem, Solo Echo invokes winter, music, and the moving body to express something essential about acceptance and loss.

Rhapsody in Blue by Iratxe Ansa and Igor Bacovich continues the evening. This piece plays with Gershwin’s rhapsody. The dancers embody the music’s message, creating a powerful, fun, lively work filled with constant variations in form. It feels like traversing an enchanted forest where new magical elements emerge at every turn, surprising you continuously. The rhapsody provides a musical space where anything is possible, with new elements arising from every corner, prompting quick and ever-changing bodily reactions.

Finally, Glory Hall is the new creation by Diego Tortelli for the 16 dancers of Aterballetto, a sensorial and rebellious journey through an in-between space, suspended between light and darkness. Set in a black yet never truly dark space, the choreography unfolds like an ecstatic rite where sensuality and profane spirituality intertwine, creating a continuous interplay of pleasure, virtuosity, and the pursuit of a personal version of glory. The dance, defying narrative, constantly regenerates itself, allowing fleeting emotions to erupt, destined to fade and be reborn. In Glory Hall, anything is possible: the music leads in a crescendo of harmony and transgression, for an ecstasy without boundaries, blending rock sounds with symphonic melodies.