Pieter C. Scholten

When the former – a dancer born in southern Italy – and the latter – a director of alternative theatre in the Netherlands – pooled their talent in the 1990s, they turned their creative partnership into a choreographic adventure.
 

Starting in 1995 from curiosity about the body and its inner motives, they created their first work, a solo entitled Bianco. This formed the first part of the « Fra Cervello e Movimento » (« Between Brain and Movement ») trilogy. It was accompanied by an artistic manifesto about the body and seven principles of the body’s logic. This manifesto formed the basis for the new language they went on to create.
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To describe their work and its originality combining rigour of research and imaginative power, a new term was coined: «extremalism». From the early days of their company named EG I PC, Emio Greco and Pieter C. Scholten have developed a universe and a writing forged out of tension and synchronicity, borrowing as much from classical vocabulary as from post-modern dance.
 

The strange theatricality impregnating the pieces and the high quality of the repetitive or exuberant dance of Emio Greco and his dancers are strictly framed by the choreographic score to construct enigmatic fictions of the flesh in each piece. The body, this stranger with its wealth of sensitive worlds, therefore appears reflected in it, as if it were the very author of these stories, absorbed, immersed in unexpected and mysterious spaces that the luminous set design, playing with colour or monochrome, helps reveal, in dialogue with the chosen music.
 

Their most recent creations include « La Commedia » (2011), « Rocco » (2011), « Passione in Due » (2012), « Addio alla fine » (2012), « Double Points: Verdi » (2013), « A Man without a Cause » (2013), « De Soprano’s » (2014), « Le Corps du Ballet National de Marseille », « Boléro », « Passione » and « Extremalism » (2015).
 

Emio Greco and Pieter C. Scholten have won numerous international awards for many of these shows, which are often co-produced by major festivals and performance venues and tour all over the world.
 

In 2009, they created ICKamsterdam, a multidisciplinary international platform for both up-and-coming and established artists. Appointed directors of the Ballet National de Marseille in 2014, their work focuses on the theme of the body from two perspectives: “the body in revolt” or the place of the artist in society and “the corps du ballet” or the search for a new form of contemporary ballet.

Source: Ballet National de Marseille ‘s website (France)

More information : ballet-de-marseille.com