THE NOGRAVITY DANCE
WORKSHOP
Mariana/P
&
Emiliano Pellisari
Over 20 YEARS of CREATIVITY and EXPERIMENTATION, the NoGravity Dance Company has developed an original CHOREOGRAPHIC technique and STAGE DIRECTION.
The NoGravity Dance Company Workshop
Over 18 years of creativity and experimentation, the NoGravity Dance Company has developed an original choreographic technique and stage direction. The Direction Through anamorphosis, a classic optical illusion, what occurs on the ground is only seen and understood through its vertical projection. This magic is achieved through a technological trick. The performer, utilizing the NoGravity technique, recreates on the horizontal plane the natural movements of a human being. Captured from above and projected onto a screen, they exist in a new, gravity-free reality. The inversion of physical space from horizontal to vertical completely revolutionizes the dynamics of body movement and transforms the theatrical scene. The rules of the theatrical scene are thus modified:
• Choreography: Choreographic movements follow dynamics on the ground.
• Direction: The viewer's perspectives are tripled: we have dancers on the stage, their reflection, and the combination of these two images that must always be managed simultaneously; and the choreographic image is always composed of these three viewpoints.
The Choreography
The nogravity technique, by inverting the horizontal plane onto the vertical, offers the opportunity to outline an aerial movement grammar and to discover a new choreographic dramaturgy where bodies act in the air, evolving into free and always different figures seamlessly. The movement is as free as a dance step on the ground, only the laws of physics change.
In classical dance, gravity is managed according to the vertical plane, with gravitational force passing through the feet and the center of gravity shifting in opposition to the downward vertical force. In the nogravity technique, gravity acts horizontally across the entire body, and the center of gravity is eliminated.
In the nogravity technique, the body does not seek vertical balance; there is no risk of falling.
The body moves through space initially slowly and laboriously, scraping along the floor, so refinement occurs on completely different movements: where walking was an art, now crawling becomes one. Where walking was easy, now it becomes a very difficult fiction. When the body assimilates the new nogravity dimension, it will then fly, magically. The grace and beauty of the movement do not lie in acting through diagonals or rotations, walking or jumping, nor in the verticality of man but in his suspension from natural physics and in his ideal of spiritual flight upwards and total freedom from the physics of reality that traps and anchors human movement to the ground. If classical dance represents the spirit of freedom, of man transcending the physics of reality, fighting gravity to rise and lighten, then the nogravity technique represents a new stage in research, a new piece in the grammar of dance. In the vertical plane, a page of dance opens where new choreographies can be transcribed. Exercise: Lying on the ground, move limbs synchronously, and the pelvis and shoulder, creating a movement that, reflected in the mirror, appears as a simple and natural walk. Exercise: Lying on the ground, move limbs, pelvis, shoulder, developing a rhythm that, reflected in the mirror, appears as an aerial flight towards the ceiling. Exercise: Development of images and figures through the union and disjunction of the bodies of the dancers where the reflection in the mirror is one with the bodies of the dancers on stage.
Technical Requirements
The workshop is both theoretical and practical. The theoretical part can be enhanced with images produced by a video projector connected to a computer that projects onto a white wall or a screen. The practical part of nogravity choreography is on dance floor and can be better through the use of a mirror placed at a 45-degree angle on the floor. Some dance halls have mirrors on wheels that can also be tilted. Normally, the workshop is followed by the show, so the dancers can then see their study realized in practice by watching the nogravity dancers on stage
ABOUT NOGRAVITY:
In 20 YEARS, critics have tried to interpret the NOGRAVITY COMPANY as a company of DANCERS who, however, did NOT DANCE. The PARADOX for operators has never coincided with the audience enjoying the SHOW and that's it. Isn't it dance, in the sense that it doesn't belong to history of dance. But we have the human body that moves on stage and this anthropologically belongs to dance. There is no escaping criticism and conceptual dissertations, however, 20 years after the first demonic work with an ultra-mundane theme (Daimon, Rome 2005), one can want to offer and reveal the studies and EXPERIMENTS that led to the creation of a unique style of its kind. NOGRAVITY wanted to take the choreographic choices that led to the creation of the scenic space and the choreographic technique of Nogravity to the EXTREME consequences. 20 years after the first CREATION, the theatrical space is increasingly synthesized, minimalist, where the physics of reality is canceled and everything APPERARS as an extraordinary and miraculous natural experiment, dreamed with open eyes.
The Nogravity DANCERS charge into the scenic space performing movements according to a choreographic grammar conceived by Emiliano Pellisari and implemented over the years together with Mariana Porceddu. Do dancers fulfill Gordon Craig's dream? They are the super PUPPETS used for their athletic abilities, their musical talent, the beauty of the gesture.