NATURAL MOVEMENT DANCE
Hello, I am Giovanni Zappulla, choreographer and dancer, founder, artistic and teaching director of Espace Choreographic Center in Palermo, a collaboration between myself and Annachiara Trigili, dancer and teacher; Since June 2005, it is the residence of our company and training center for contemporary dance based on the Danzamovimentonaturale method, which is the result of the research that I have conducted from a personal study on the work of Isadora Duncan, that I consider a precious precursor of an important part of my work.
I write this text to describe in detail my approach and my ideas. Espace has responded so far to a necessity, it is no coincidence that it was born in Palermo, in this country quite old, to give something completely new and useful to everyone.
I think the time is propitious to share something very important for the future of dance. The Sicilian isolation, which until now has been a positive factor, now becomes a limit.
My method is created by the fusion of contemporary dance and music, where the human body is conceived as an orchestral instrument.
The method is built on the integration of Taijiquan Chen and Qigong (Zhineng Qigong), systems based on internal movement, consistent with human nature in the biomechanical, energy and psychic aspects.
In my opinion the Platonic and Aristotelian idea of existence today has generated a culture of splitting between body and its mental aspect, then a dance that increasingly moves away from the pleasure, the dancer is often compared to a trade that brings the body to wear out , which weakens him, often forcing the artist to an early withdrawal. In this regard, my purpose is to make the dancer strong through the dance itself. The dance can be natural, incredibly rich, our bodies can go far beyond the issues of techniques and styles: the movement has its own truth.
What contemporary dance has started again, for almost a century, to give is the opportunity to the body to make its natural history, to express his essential movement according to its real balance. In the merest gesture, extremely complex processes are involved; a considerable number of dynamic successive transmissions take place according to the laws of physics.
Our body follows the same laws, but are we really listening? Do we allow them voice themselves ...? Do we let our bodies express his own beat? How to follow its natural mechanisms to move really, regardless of the effect to be produced, the result to be achieved? How to move slowly or quickly, without imposing an artificial operation, without dissociating, without fragmenting our being? If technological progress and scientific advancement have helped to narrow the space-time in which we receive a countless amount of information, what about the individual space-time? Should the conquest of space not be that of the first personal microcosm, beginning with the discovery of our own body?
The individual is a single substance, view from two identical manners: mind and body. Losing the obsession to think and control the body, finding out what our body thinks, listening to the sensorial memory of its action and its language, will allow the dancer to express himself harmoniously and develop his skills.
Harmony is the consciousness of an organic functioning, which obeys its dynamic equilibrium, a fact that nowadays very few people express. This will be one of the important issues on which it's going to be directed the potential of the Danzamovimentonaturale method, that we can call Re-Unite, only a few examples: Re-Unite music and dance, performing arts and fine arts, Re- Unite Art and Science, Spirit and Body, Actor and Spectator, places and Urban Art spaces, East and West ...
The dancer can only listen to his own music. A double work, listening body and music, allows the dancer to tune gradually and so finely as a musical instrument, resolving all kind of tensions and distortions: the nature of the body is essentially harmonic.
This working method is based on a phased program of exercises that includes: the subtle perception of body, the solicitation of the antigravity muscles, analysis of the generating principle of the movement and the alternation of the discharge of the weight, the study of the connections between all parts of the body in dynamic concatenation without interruptions. A gradual discovery, step by step, according to a growing complexity, the phrasing of the movement can be as rich as music, to understand so many gestures as many combinations of musical notes.
So each dancer develops a sensitivity and accurate perception of himself and the others, by connecting to a shared partition with increased consistency and fluidity. The Dance is no longer tied to a relation of "sympathy" with the music, not making it only the narration, both can fully interacting, enabling the dialogue and the real exchange with musicians, but also think finally to a complete writing of dance in collaboration with the systems at our disposal today (Laban or Benesh) and that will be a source of collaboration with the various universities.
The new aesthetic of this dance makes evident the harmonically perfect geometry of the masses and volumes of the natural alignment of the body, both in static and in dynamic situation, gaining segmental and general control, rhythmic precision in the execution, tranquility in fast motion and pulsating fullness in slow motion. Resolving any "compensatory adjustment" of all revealing elements of a "node" that prevents the movement to be fully effective, intense, expressive, "true". This begins new opportunities for structuring a research program in collaboration with psychologists and analysts to the implications that this method has in restoring the balance through what I call Body-analysis. One hundred years from the work of Carl Gustav Jung's analytical psychology on my trails of work on the body could lead to extraordinary discoveries about the links between synapses and connections.
By this model of respect of the body, are made considerable savings (reduced fatigue, pushing your limits as well) and formidable development of energy, this topic is important to note that the practice of Qigong and Taijiquan are part of the training program of dancer and I would also make this practice available for musicians whom can benefit from all that to improve the relationship with their bodies and so their musical performances.
Dancing is to rediscover and involve all of our natural way of being in the world. Beyond the dance, is to live in harmony, to rediscover that progress can be harmonious. So, beyond the production of a performance, of an aesthetic pleasure, dance is an art of living, an essential life, which I think can flourish in extremely favorable conditions that a collaboration could offer. Only then, and without terms of comparison, dance can be quality show, new and original creation, beautiful of natural beauty.
The action of the show will generate a greater impact on the spectator so the actions of social awareness will be strengthened by recognizing dancer in his personal potential (human potential) and not a superman, capable of astonishing but unattainable in his virtuosity.
Adults will look through children's eyes and let children reach the art. The innovator effect of this dance is to be truly democratic, and the same dance will not suffer losses of an exclusive selection, created by an elitist meat grinder, victim of fashions and canons.
The lightness, the grace are a step towards a new world, a regenerated world, a without fixity area, essentially moving, in the heart of our civilization almost too urban.
