GRAND JETÉ
with: Silvia Gribaudi and the MM Contemporary Dance Company: Filippo Begnozzi, Lorenzo Fiorito, Mario Genovese, Matilde Gherardi, Fabiana Lonardo, Giorgia Raffetto, Alice Ruspaggiari, Rossana Samele, Nicola Stasi, Giuseppe Villarosa
music: Matteo Franceschini
light design: Luca Serafini
styling: Ettore Lombardi
assistant choreographer: Paolo Lauri
rehearsal director: Enrico Morelli
dramaturgical consultant: Annette Van Zwoll
artistic collaboration: Matteo Maffesanti
technical advice: Leonardo Benetollo
creative producer: Mauro Danesi
produced by: Associazione Culturale Zebra (IT)
co-produced by: MM Contemporary Dance Company (IT), La Biennale de Lyon (FR), Théâtre de la Ville (FR), Rum för Dans (SE), National Theatre Brno within Theatre World Festival Brno (CZ), BPDA - Big Pulse Dance Alliance: Torinodanza Festival (IT), International Dance Festival TANEC PRAHA (CZ), Zodiak - Side Step Festival (FI) artistic residency Centro di Residenza Emilia-Romagna (L’Arboreto-Teatro Dimora | La Corte Ospitale) with the support of MiC – Ministero della Cultura, Italian Ministry of Cultural Affairs
GRAND JETÉ is a co-production of Big Pulse Dance Alliance, supported by the EU program Creative Europe.
duration: 60’
premiere: Tanec Praha, 2023.
In light of the grand jeté or otherwise the big split in the air, one of the most impressive and virtuosic steps in ballet’s artistry, Silvia Gribaudi together with MM Contemporary Dance Company directed by Michele Merola, explore endings as a source for new beginnings. As an attempt to escape from gravity, grand jeté is a transitioning step of a momentary suspension and a “throwing” of one’s self in the air. Exploring the metaphoric meaning of this virtuosic step in everyday life, the performance becomes an opportunity to challenge and revolt against the irreversibility of any end. How much effort does this take-off towards the unknown require and what kind of adventures a landing may bring? Considering this explosive leap, how do we confront failure and take-off anew?
Silvia Gribaudi is an Italian choreographer who also specializes in performing arts in general. Since 2004 she has focused her research on the social impact of bodies, having set at the center of her choreographic language the comic element and the relationship between audience and performers. For her creations, Gribaudi has received numerous important awards and prizes in Italy and abroad. Gribaudi is associate artist at CDCN Roubaix in France for the three-year period 2024-2026 and associate artist at Teatro Stabile di Torino for period from 2025-2027. Her creations “R.OSA” and “Graces” were presented with great success at the Belgrade Dance Festival.
Based in Reggio Emilia MM Contemporary Dance Company was created in 1999 by choreographer Michele Merola. The company repertoire includes a range of styles: Merola’s works, and those of international and Italian choreographers such as Maguy Marin, Mats Ek, Mauro Bigonzetti, Thomas Noone, Gustavo Ramirez Sansano, Karl Alfred Schreiner, Eugenio Scigliano, Emanuele Soavi, Enrico Morelli, Daniele Ninarello, Ginevra Panzetti ed Enrico Ticconi, Roberto Tedesco, Camilla Monga, Adriano Bolognino, Silvia Gribaudi… In 2010 Company won the Danza&Danza Award as the Best Emerging Italian Dance Company and in 2017 the Europaindanza - Merit Award to Choreography for the performance “Bolero” by Michele Merola. Today, it is an outstanding ensemble of Italian dance talents, performing all over the Italy and abroad. In 2021 and 2022 the Company was presented on TV RAI 1 as part of the program “Dance with me” by Roberto Bolle. In 2023, the company has received the Danza&Danza Award for the production “Ballad”. The MM Contemporary Dance Company is supported by the Italian Ministry of Culture, the Region of Emilia-Romagna and the Municipality of Reggio Emilia.
The Turinese choreographer, who loves to skewer the stereotypes of the perfect body, returns here to plumb - with a subtle touch of irony and a robust contemporary physical writing - the language of classical-academic ballet, focusing on the most striking step of virtuosity: the grand jeté, the explosive leap in which the dancer's body rises from the ground, cleaving the air with the legs in a split. More than a technical prodigy, a state of existence, a prelude, a new beginning, according to Gribaudi.
© Il Corriere della Sera
Expressive flair, mastery of communication, vis comica intertwined with virtuosic carambole... This dancer and choreographer, who with intelligence and imagination has enjoyed dismantling the glamorous concept of beauty in her creations in order to overturn from the inside what the human being can tell us about surprising normality, loves to have fun with classical codes.
© Il Manifesto
A massive ensemble piece!
© Altrevelocità
note: smoke machine and flashing lights are present in some scenes
