La Compagnia
The Image
An exotic, comfortable, outdoor space, with two women, one playing the flute, a dog, and in the background, some tamurè dancers… there is nature and there is music, there is dance in that painting by Gauguin that inspired us and also named our group: Arearea, which means playfulness, fun in Tahitian. In this microcosm, Arearea identifies itself, and play becomes a paradigm of its art, with the awareness that play is a serious thing.
Those who know how to play respect the rules, those who have fun use them up, leaving space for actions that shift the direction.
This is precisely our mission: to promote and produce contemporary dance in open and ever-new spaces, in unconventional ways, seeking that choreographic art that communicates a thought, that generates a state of mind, that entertains.
The Language
Space is configured as the starting point; before asking “what,” we always ask “where”: indoors or outdoors? Empty space or full space?
<< The text is nothing without context >> (G. Beatson)
Because it is the context that qualifies and details the text. And then there’s the music. Music is for us the driving force, the fundamental place of inspiration that needs space, like dance. There is an unprotected, unsafe, very dangerous dimension, which is silence.
Silence, as we perceive it, makes no concessions: if music has rhythm, silence has time, duration. Writing and improvisation are our macro realms: we keep open, dangerous spaces in our shows, and at the same time, we are capable of writing a lot and conveying our grammar rooted in dance theater. Improvisation makes presence on stage more tangible, volumetric.
Improvisation is the search for an instantaneous and context-integrated movement, it is the body’s response to action, it is our way of reacting to an impulse, motor or sensory. Often, we know the starting point but not the end point. In that uncertainty, all that matters is the relationship between us.
The Values
Dance for us is a practice, a repeated and concrete action, and thus a way to rethink the ethics of the body and our passage on earth: it is the manifestation of an “other” way of being in the world. We shun commercial dance and its vulgar beauties. We practice a dance that results from the fusion of many techniques in the name of ever-new creativity. We love technique as a rule to assimilate and then forget. But we love it. There is no dance without a group, we do not believe in disposable dancers… and from this conviction, the result: Arearea today confirms itself as one of the most numerous companies in the national scene. We work within a dialectic of group and languages that requires time, effort, dedication, care.
The Actions
Arearea keeps up with the rhythm of four creations a year, ranging from theatrical and urban productions to those for young generations with educational value. It invests in young dancers with talent and aims to foster the birth of new groups. In this context, since 2018, it has inaugurated an Advanced Training Course.
Teaching the practice of dance does not end for the teachers in a simple transmission of skills: teaching has a deep maieutic meaning. Arearea works in a dimension of reciprocity, creating experiences that can become a springboard for individual research activities, even for a life project if dancers live their roles with intensity and do not get tired of renewing themselves, in the search for ideas, resources, emotions.
The Company, after thirty years of activity and many good results, continues to establish itself in the regional context with the identity that distinguishes it and that it has matured and conquered over time: this is its freedom and its strength that motivates it to maintain the high quality of its production, confirming its value even on a national scale.