Dance, Alessandra Ferri celebrates 40 years of career with Beckett-Béjart’s ‘Happy Days’

With L’Heure Exquise, based on ‘Oh, les beaux jours’ (Happy Days), one of the high points of Samuel Beckett’s theater, Alessandra Ferri celebrates 40 years of career playing a meaningful, right and exciting role for the artist who is now, Winnie, the ‘âgée’ dancer imagined by Maurice Bejart in 1998 for Carla Fracci who in her melancholy solitude lives in the joyful memories of her happy days. The debut will be premiered on 4 June at 9.30 pm at the Alighieri Theater for the Ravenna Festival (repeats on Saturday 5 and Sunday 6). Later L’Heure Exquise will be staged on 13 and 14 September at the Teatro Carignano as part of Torinodanza, the very same festival for which 23 years ago it was created by the great Marsiglese master Willy, the Lui at the time played by Micha van Hoecke and now from Carsten Jung of John Neumeier’s Hamburg Ballet, he is an ex-partner of Lei, submerged not by the famous sand hill, but by a mountain of old pointe shoes. Another female character for Alessandra Ferri, such as Virginia Woolf, Eleonora Duse and Léa di Chéri, all exceptional women who belong to this chapter of her life. “I took the liberty of working on one of the most important plays of the twenty-first century, ‘Oh , les beaux jours! ‘ – Maurice Béjart had declared before his debut- In truth it is not a dance adaptation but a work of composition faithful to the spirit of the author and yet in the context of a purely abstract and choreographic creativity. The music is a montage on themes of Webern in the first place, but also by Mahler and Mozart. The few texts are words spoken by a dancer in the moment of dance or rest “. “In 2021 it is forty years since I entered the Royal Ballet in London, thus starting my artistic journey – recalled Alessandra Ferri – To celebrate and celebrate this milestone with the public, I was looking for a significant role, never played, right and exciting for the artist I am now. When I rearranged my archive I found a page that spoke of a work by Maurice Béjart based on an extraordinary text by Samuel Beckett, ‘Happy Days’ “. “A case? – continued the great international étoile – I like to think rather of a ‘sign’, a concatenation of dates, anniversaries, emotions. I discovered that in 2021 it will be sixty years since Beckett wrote the famous play.” The role of the protagonist, imagined by Béjart in 1998 for Carla Fracci is absolutely fantastic – continued Alessandra Ferri – her Winnie is a ‘âgée’ dancer who, in her melancholy solitude, lives in the joyful memories of her happy days. Her Willy, played by Micha van Hoecke at the time, is an ex-partner of hers and the famous sand hill that submerges her is a mountain of old pointe shoes. because he needs two interpreters who know how to be, as Carla and Micha were, dancers / actors with a long artistic experience.I had no doubts, I felt that this was the role I was looking for – he confessed – For me another female character, as were Virginia Woolf, Eleonora Duse and Léa di Chéri, extraordinary women who belong to this second chapter of my life “.