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Share via E-mailDate & Location of recording: 30-03-1999, Kaaitheater, Brussels (BE)
Dancers: Andy deNys and Emio Greco
Credits
Choreography, direction: Emio Greco | Pieter C. Scholten
Lighting, set and sound concept: Emio Greco | Pieter C. Scholten
Dance: Andy deNys and Emio Greco
Lighting design: Henk Danner
Costume design: Clifford Portier
Realization of sound collage: Wim Selles
Video producer/camera: Erik Lint
Production: ICKamsterdam – Emio Greco | PC
Coproduction: Kaaitheater, Brussels (BE), Tanzwerkstatt, Berlin (DE), Klapstuk Festival, Leuven (BE), Springdance, Utrecht (NL)
Premiere: 31-03-1999 Kaaitheater, Brussels (BE)
ICKamsterdam is supported by the Performing Arts Fund NL and the municipality of Amsterdam
Synopsis
In the energetic dance performance Extra Dry a dancer is joined by his double. His universe is invaded; the two bodies cross invisible boundaries, moving from the explosive to the exploratory in the search for oneness. The perfectly controlling mind, subjecting the body to the will of the dancer is confronted by the body’s resistance to obey.
Extra Dry is the third of a series called Fra Cervello e Movimento. Fra Cervello e Movimento is a set of three performances – Bianco, Rosso, Extra Dry that investigate the dyad brain (cervello) and movement (movimento); a mind that wishes to control and a body that is curious for new sensations. The motive is the interest towards the reactions that inner impulses impose on the body. How can the body surpass its limitations? How open can it be in its responses and what kind of transformations can it take on?
Web address:
www.ickamsterdam.com
A philosophical approach on Emio Greco | PC’s Trilogy In 2001 Emio Greco | PC collaborated with Flemish philosopher Antoon Van den Braembussche to produce the essay It’s life Jim, but not as we know it, in which he examines the various motifs and motivations of the trilogy Fra Cervello e Movimento. ”In the trilogy there is more at stake than the overt friction between mind and body: it embodies likewise the tension between order and disorder, control and chaos, conscious intention and unconscious desire. As such it is a statement on the essence of dance. It not only shows the tension between choreographic design and vicissitudes (constant changes, constant alternation, unpredictable changes or variations, shifting circumstances) of performance, but it also shows that, as soon as dance speaks the language of the body, its transparency is untenable and a thing of the past: it becomes visceral, instinctive, obstinate and unmastered.” Author: Antoon Van den Braembussche. Available in English and Dutch Published by Stichting Zwaanprodukties, 2001, 76 pages. ISBN 90 9015 1834
“An extraordinary exercise in stamina, control and concentration, Extra Dry created a primal force field around itself. Its two dancers, who moved in hypnotic synchrony, yet rarely touched, reacted to each other and to an imaginary environment as if their nerve ending were on the surface of their skin. Every twitch, every repetitive skittering frenzy, every sustained but highly alert stillness was filled with potent meaning and expectation.”
Hedy Weiss – Chicago Sun
“It is impossible not to be inspired by the Nietzschean attraction of Greco’s proposition, which has been the focus of attention of critics and philosophers in Europe for some time now. He is considered among the few dance artists who are changing the perception of dance composition. Not a single moment does he succumb to easy sensation in his equally passionate and skilful investigation: he respects only the rules of inherent conviction. Conscious that the gap between brains and movement, i.e. between choreography and dance – there where the tumult of the intestines and the insane yearning of the muscles originate – cannot be bridged, Greco is the embodiment of a tenacious metaphysical drive to transcend the boundaries of one’s own flesh.” Marinella Guatterini
Since 1995 Emio Greco and Pieter C. Scholten have worked together in their joint search for new dance forms. Emio Greco (IT) received his dance education at the Centre de Danse International Rosella Hightower in Cannes, and danced with the Ballet Antibes Cote d’Azur, directed by Patrick Tridon. From 1993 until 1996 Greco danced in works by visual artist and director Jan Fabre and from 1996 until 1998 he collaborated with Japanese choreographer Saburo Teshigawara in various productions. Pieter C. Scholten (NL) studied drama and initially directed theatre productions about historical characters like Oscar Wilde, Yukio Mishima and Pier Paolo Pasolini. He worked with several choreographers as a dance-dramaturge. In 1995 he developed the Dance Instants, short “work-in-progress” projects for choreographers and dancers. For both artists the search for a new dramaturgy of the body is an important motivating factor.
Out of curiosity for the body and its inner motives they created their first joint work in 1996: the solo Bianco, which became the first part of the trilogy Fra Cervello e Movimento (between brain and movement). In that same year they wrote a manifesto setting out 7 principles of dance and their impact on the body and the spectator. They founded dance company Emio Greco | PC in 1996. From the beginning it has been more than a dance company: it promotes a broader attitude towards the consciousness of the body. It initiated a series of Salons on Dance & Discourse, established a section devoted to research on recording and notation of body movement and developed an educational programme under the name of Accademia Mobile. Greco & Scholten regularly invite artists from their own and other disciplines to take part in a valuable dialogue.
Dance company Emio Greco | PC, organically, gave rise to the International Choreographic Arts Centre Amsterdam (ICKamsterdam), which was officially launched by Emio Greco & Pieter C. Scholten in 2009.
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This work is shown here with as courtesy of the artists with educational purposes.
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