Artemis Danza and the “Shadows” of Dante's Inferno
To commemorate the 700th anniversary of Dante Alighieri's death Monica Casadei and her dance company Artemis Danza have created Ombre (Shadows) - a video-dance project dedicated to the Sommo Poeta that is now presented on the occasion of the 21st Week of the Italian Language in the World.
Ombre is composed of three videos with choreographies by Monica Casadei and directions by Fabio Fiandrini and Alessandro Ceci. The dancers are the protagonists of several choreographic scenes dedicated to famous lost souls met by Dante on his infernal journey. Charon, Minos, Francesca da Rimini, Pier Della Vigna, Ulysses, are some of the are characters chosen by Monica Casadei to investigate the human soul and compose a poetic and, at the same time, disturbing picture, in which every archetype of the collective unconscious finds its own carnal and earthly manifestation.
Dissipating, as Dante did, the darkness that surrounds these famous souls and bringing them to light, literally in the spotlight, Monica Casadei follows them along a path of sin, awareness, acceptance and prayer, where the point of arrival is no longer the punishment but the expressive force of the self, in all its fullness and truth.
The locations of the three videos act as additional protagonists in each short film: from the dark woods of the first segment, to places rich in symbolism such as the Basilica of Sant’Apollinare in Classe, Dante's tomb and the Mausoleum of Theodoric in Ravenna (filming made thanks to the permission and collaboration of the Ministry of Culture and the Regional Directorate of the Emilia-Romagna Museums and the Municipality of Ravenna).
The soundtrack alternates original music composed by Luca Vianini and pieces of Giuseppe Verdi's sacred music, interspersed with Dante's verses.
The project was made thanks to the support of the Italian Ministry of Culture (MiC) and of Emilia-Romagna Region Culture Dept. and in co-operation with the Italian Cultural Institutes in Chicago, Jakarta, Lima, Mumbai, Prague, Tunis, and Washington.
The peculiarity that makes the project unique in each country it is proposed to, is the bilingualism of the tercets: they are recited both in Italian and English, Indonesian, Spanish, Czech, Arabic, as the MAECI made available excerpts from the audiobook Dalla Selva Oscura al Paradiso.
Ombre is part of the programs of the Week of the Italian Language in the World organized by the Italian Cultural Institutes in Chicago (October 18- November 18), Jakarta (October 21), Mumbai (October 18-November 1), Tunis (October 22-31).
Following programming is foreseen by the other Institutes partners of the project.
