Cantieri

This work, created in spring 2002, was inspired by Palermo, where the Company spent two months in residence. It represents “a project focusing on memory and utopia” echoing the Mediterranean Basin.

“Cantieri” – “projects (in progress)” in Italian – Catherine Diverrès’ first work abroad since she created “Instance” in Japan in 1983, was initiated during a residence in Palermo in spring 2002 (April-May) at the Cantieri alla Siza warehouses, an artistic expanse accommodated in former industrial workshops on the outskirts of the city. The creative process continued at the National Choreographic Centre (CCN) of Rennes in June the same year, and the work premiered at the Théâtre National de Chaillot in October 2002.

Catherine Diverrès instigated this residence abroad to disconnect her Company from the Choreographic Centre in Rennes and to challenge its members to “a new work experience” focusing on encounters and exchange: “this means embracing a city, living there on a daily basis, meeting the artists who work there, apprehending new spaces, frequenting other places. (…) What do we do today with the experience of physically encountering a space, a culture, a person? What acts connect us together, what happens to the dimension of work and of exchange? What sort of links and involvements bring us closer or distance us?” By choosing Palermo, Catherine Diverrès chooses the Mediterranean Basin, where she sees the cradle of humanistic culture and a myriad of values of European civilization.

“Cantieri” showcases twelve dancers from different countries: France, Italy, Spain, Brazil and Japan. Four of them are from Catherine Diverrès’ Company. The title of the work, in addition to explicitly referring to the Sicilian site where it was created, aims to highlight two other ideas covered by the term “project”: a process in progress over time, the beginning of contemplation, in this case, on the Mediterranean Basin, “a project focusing on memory and utopia” just as much as on current relevance.

Inspired by preliminary historical and literary readings (the choreographer mentions Vittorino and Sciascia), as well as visits and encounters, the work juxtaposes scenes reproducing the Sicilian experience as a travel diary, yet makes sure it does not “drift towards too much incarnation, in the manner in which the being on the stage would be identical to the being in the street”, but makes the choice to conjure up through the emotional and abstraction: “I cannot resign myself. No matter how incarnate, tangible, sensitive and sensual s/he is, s/he [the being] must be a shadow, an artifice, at that moment even more so when s/he dances”. [1]

Whilst the force of the elements (water, earth, air, fire), the “telluric energy”, which the choreographer says she experiences physically “simply by walking on Sicilian soil”, are used as objects for research and improvisation work undertaken in the studio, different themes are brought together to evoke the island: family, religion, clans, violence, war, the separation of men and women, the gestuality of the Sicilian language, gestures related to the traditional art of the puppi (Sicilian puppets), the tragic. To “find connections between the various themes of reflection and choreographic writing” [2], the choreographer says that she drew inspiration from a text by the philosopher Empedocles “which talks about atoms and about love-hate conflicts” and develops a theory according to which “hatred brings about dispersion and demystification, whereas love means unity and immobility” [3]. “The work is structured around this dichotomy between a space that is shattered, scattered and a space where the group becomes as one” [4].

As regards the production, right from her statement of intent, Catherine Diverrès makes it clear that she wishes to reconnect with the great theatrical machinery. She is helped in this endeavour by her usual work companions, the stage designer Laurent Peduzzi and the lighting designer Marie-Christine Soma, accustomed since the end of the 1990s to more ascetic demands: “I wish to explore (…] the world of theatrical machinery that can be enchanting. In contrast to the demanding, sophisticated and somewhat “ascetic” work on the pared down lighting and stage design that prevailed over the last few years, I would like to attempt a “shot” at the world of theatrical illusion, in a playful way, yet without sacrificing the abstraction of choreographic writing, the marvellous tension that it is able to sustain and the emotion that emanates from it”. [5]

The resulting set-up is “an abandoned urban space, which is in turn emptied, shaped – even saturated – by materials, images, dance and lights”, as the critic Irène Filiberti describes it, where the hard, golden floor draws its inspiration from the place used for the residence: “By laying on all the pomp and ceremony of theatrical illusion, the stage design (…) captures [elusive, ghostly beings] in the midst of action, like this angel hanging from the rigging or these shadow puppets scheming behind the screen with the greatest voices of Italian cinema” [6]. Reviews equate this work, in which dance confronts Baroque and abstract spaces, with the research embarked on in “L’Arbitre des élégances” that the choreographer created in 1986.

The sound design created by Denis Gambiez reproduces the same spirit and weaves together Sicilian music and chanting, voices from Italian cinema and concrete noises (aircraft humming, wind tunnels, bells, bird sounds, ambient noises (street, hall echoes), etc.), all immersed in the Italian and Sicilian language.

By choosing to conjure up the sensitive, “Cantieri” also intends to embrace resistance faced with the delicate political situation which artistic creation was experiencing in Italy. Like the work, which aims to be a space for exchanging and for movement, the residence led to “training courses focusing on elements related to her technique and evocative of her choreographic writing” and to discussion/reflection on the subject “Standing”, which accompanied a presentation of Sicilian choreographers encountered (Emma Scialfa, Cinzia Scordia, Pucci Romeo, Alessandra Fazziono): “Through this working period in Sicily, links have also been patiently created with mainland Italy so that exchanges may be initiated not only around the work to come, but also with artists, critics, through workshops and debates. In this period that is politically difficult in Italy for culture and artistic creation, we believe it is important to put our energies to use in reflection and in practice based on singularities, differences and the inherent coherence that unites those who work artistically. Give this cultural Europe faces, bodies, voices, not just through ideas but also through physical, concrete, sensitive links and places” [7].

Claire Delcroix

[1] C. Diverrès, “Cantieri, un processus”, in “Cantieri”, Rennes: Centre chorégraphique national de Rennes et de Bretagne, [2002], p. 63.
[2] ibid, p. 49
[3] ibid.
[4] Claudia Palazzolo, ““Cantieri”, la matière, le temps, les traces. Un témoignage”, in I. Filiberti, “Catherine Diverrès : mémoires passantes”, Pantin; Paris: Centre national de la danse; L’œil d’or, 2010, p. 132-139.
[5] Catherine Diverrès, “Cantieri”, Company website, February 2014.
[6] Irène Filiberti, “Cantieri”, TNB magazine, November-February 2003, p.
[7] Catherine Diverrès, Cantieri alla Zisa programme for “Cantieri aperti”: encounters, debate and presentation of work”, 23-26 May 2002.

PROGRAMME EXTRACT

“Cantieri, means “projects (in progress)” in Italian, but it also means this area of abandoned warehouses close to the centre of Palermo where Catherine Diverrès and her Company worked for two months creating a masterful work. “Cantieri” because the work goes through all the states, highlights the current topics of a Sicily in crisis, rediscovers the fabulous memory of an architectural past that is now abandoned, exacerbates feelings to the point of theatricality, but also the violence of the dichotomy between men and women inherited from archaic social and family structures. “And it is for this reason that the choreography begins with two groups, one comprising women, the other comprising men. They put on shoes and they walk. How, in reality, do we move on from the notion of family to the notion of clan. How can these clans exist whenever they are not noticeable in everyday life. Their presence impacts space and attitudes diffusely, imperceptibly”. With twelve dancers of different nationalities, Catherine Diverrès succeeds in setting a world in motion on the stage of the Corum [of Montpellier], on a floor as hard as concrete, that has the quality, the telluric energy of Sicilian soil where “simply be walking you can feel the force of the elements”. The dance can be felt through its decelerations which have the power of the tragic, yet by no means shrinks away from making a few nods to Fellini, consequently Sicily opens up to the rest of Italy, and it is a people moving together that Catherine Diverrès generous choreography embraces”.

Montpellier-Danse 2003 season brochure.

Updating: March 2014