Dance, Don Juan signed by Johan Inger for Aterballetto makes his debut in Rome

Dance returns to the Roman Philharmonic Academy after the forced breaks caused by the covid emergency. The first, eagerly awaited, event of the season is at the Olympic Theater from 4 to 7 November (9 pm, except 7 am 6 pm) with ‘Don Juan’, the new production, for the first time in Rome, by the Fondazione Nazionale della Danza / Aterballetto , signed by the Swedish choreographer Johan Inger who sees on stage the sixteen dancers of the Reggio Emilia company, among the excellences of today’s Italian dance. The choreography stems from Inger’s desire to confront Don Giovanni, an ancient and still contemporary paradigmatic myth. The original comedy by Tirso de Molina, Molière, Bertold Brecht and the play by Suzanne Lilar are just some of the sources of inspiration. Inger and playwright Gregor Acuña-Pohl consulted 25 texts inspired by the character. In the choreography we find all the characters of the story, from Donna Elvira to Donna Anna to Zerlina and Masetto. Don Juan can be considered a Kammerspiel, capable of underlining nuances and emotions: and in the case of this creation the dance becomes a magnifying glass of the individual characters, and reveals in a subtle but evident way the inner world of the men and women on stage. Even more important is the connection with contemporaneity, drawing a world inhabited by a character who crosses the path of his own solitude without escaping the superficiality that seems to characterize our days. And in the background, relevant themes light up, including the complexity of the dialogue between genres. Inger plays especially Leporello and the Commendatore in an original way. Leporello is no longer Don Giovanni’s servant, but represents the other aspect of his person by staging the dichotomy of freedom / sense of guilt, enhanced by the lighting design by Fabiana Piccioli. Through an innovative psychoanalytic reading, Don Giovanni’s relationship with the Commendatore is rewritten. The latter is replaced by the introduction of a ‘Mother’. And Don Giovanni becomes a human being who probably suffered the great trauma of maternal abandonment. And that is the figure that hangs over the protagonist. In every encounter with the other, the serial lover looks for the mother and therefore cannot engage in any relationship. On the original score by Marc Álvarez, created for the occasion, and orchestrated by Manuel Busto, the 16 dancers of Aterballetto tell the story of Don Juan in a single act, immersed in a stage space, curated by Curt Allen Wilmer, without connotations defined by the point geographically or historically. A labyrinth of structures moved on sight by the dancers. Unlike the costumes that are very connotated, thanks to the visual invention of Bregje van Balen. The show is part of the review ‘Chamber music from baroque to contemporary’ supported by the Lazio Region with the 2021 Single Fund on Live Entertainment.