The selections for the Arsenale della Danza of 2010 have taken place via two auditions: in Vienna, in collaboration with the ImPulsTanz Festival, and in Venice. The new formation includes 20 dancers aged between 18 and 29, seven of whom non-Italian, from France (Amandine Petit and Sandra Français), Austria (Marta Bozena Wallner), Slovakia (Ján Jamrich), Portugal (Teresa Santos), India (Hema Sundari Vellaluru), Russia (Pavel Zhukov). There are 12 Italians: Jessica Bova, Antonino Casile, Ariella Casu, Francesco Colaleo, Isabella Legato, Chiara Montalbani, Gioia Morisco, Andrea Orlandi, Stella Picariello, Claudio Pisa, plus Roberto Lazzari from Venice and Laura De Nicolao from Padua. Among the dancers who were noted in the last edition of the Arsenale della Danza was Ivelice Brown from Venezuela, who has been invited by Ivo to continue the programme of the Arsenale della Danza in 2010, joining the new formation; while Valeria Galluccio and Stefano Roveda, also from the Arsenale della Danza’s first year of activities, have been chosen to participate, together with the new group of dancers, in the final creation, Aria, under the guidance of Ismael Ivo.

 

“Engage yourself” is the concept around which the entire pedagogical architecture of the Arsenale della Danza is built. The flexibility, the richness and technical perfection of the dancer should not be separated from the poetry of the movement; for the purposes of training, it is important not only to offer a comprehensive view of dance through teachers from the international scene representing the increasingly wide spectrum of today’s techniques and styles, but also to stimulate and accompany the creative process, developing a dialogue with those arts that contribute to the creation of choreography, creating opportunities for verification with the public through demonstrations, improvised sessions, open lessons and shows. The artist today requires proficiency in his discipline but also the awareness of the best practices pertaining in other art forms.

 

From these premises arose the new features of the Arsenale della Danza, which this year sees the participation of 12 students from the Università IUAV of Venice, chosen through a selection process from those enrolled in the degree courses for Theatre Sciences and Techniques, Design and Production of the Visual Arts, Architecture by a commision comprising Walter Le Moli and Cristina Barbiani for the IUAV and Ismael Ivo for the Biennale.
Elena Punzi, Agnese Cesari, Elena Conti, Giacomo Giuntini, Elena Leonardi, Sabina Secli, Rajeev Badhan, Paola Bonino, Jacopo Franceschet, Nicoletta Vellar, Chiara Becciu, and Laura Lupieri – all students prevalently from the Veneto region – will follow a course divided into three parts: as both audience and active participants, they will be present in some of the masterclasses, with associated final public performances, and in some of the theoretical lessons to test the work with the body in direct manner. Subsequently, they will participate in the new choreographic creation by Ismael Ivo, concentrating on a precise aspect of the work identified in the preceding workshop phase (such as the use of materials and space of the stage, sets and drama of the performance, the composition of movement); only a group selected by the director himself will take part in the third phase, with the construction of the final performance, Aria.