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Sophie EustacheProducer in Europe of the Isadora Duncan International Institute (IDII) in New York, has announced the calendar of the 2024 Italian tour of the important American terpsichorean institution, which has already pleasantly surprised and entertained the Italian public in recent years.
The theme of the year is the relationship between Isadora Duncan, the great American innovator (S. Francisco 1877 – Nice 1927) of dance, and the great innovator of prose theater Eleonora Duse (Vigevano 1858 – Pittsburgh 1924), of which this year marks the centenary of a merely material disappearance, because Duse’s message is everlasting and will remain so.
Always hovering between the two great women, their main trait-d’union, Gabriele D’Annunziowhose Vittoriale, a museum masterpiece of landscape aesthetics, already hosted the IDII tribute to the Pope’s friendship with the American woman last year.
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The opening evening of the tour will take place on Friday 24 May at 6.30 pm in the sumptuous setting of the Palladio Villa of Maserkindly made available by Vittorio Dalle Ore, enriched by the inauguration of the restoration dedicated to the Nymphaeum, designed by Marcantonio Barbaro.
The show, entitled «Isadora Duncan, Muse among Muses»takes place with a choreography inspired by the young Duncan, developed by the IDII Artistic Director Jeanne Bresciani, and proposes a return to the origins of his creativity.
Then on Sunday 26 May, at 6.30 pm at the Duse theater in Asolo (TV), the new IDII production created by Sophie Eustache will be performed in its national premiere, to celebrate the centenary of Eleonora Duse, entitled «Duse’s Embrace of Duncan».
The theme is not surprisingly recurring, and already on the 2022 tour a first dance theater show dedicated to these innovative artists, almost contemporary and very great, had been planned.
The event had in fact anticipated the commemorations of the centenary of Eleonora Duse’s death and brought the great actress closer to the figure of Duncan, csubtly connecting its poetics. From this research was born this further completely new representation, the epilogue of the theatrical season of the centenary of Eleonora Duse.
The new IDII 2024 production “Duse’s Embrace of Duncan” has an iconological testimony in a shot by the famous photographer Lois Greenfield, which represents a dance figure of Isadora Duncan. The image, immersed in a soft purple luminous atmosphere, evokes Duncan’s return to life supported by the embrace with which Eleonora Duse looked after her in 1913, when Isadora was desperate due to the sudden death of her two children.
Duse invited Duncan to Versilia, as soon as she learned that the dancer was wandering distraught through Italy, fleeing from what reminded her of the tragic loss of her children, even rejecting herself and her art. She welcomed her maternally, her true “supporting presence”, to help her repair her serious wounds and process her mourning, giving new meaning to her existence.
On this existential plot Jeanne Bresciani develops a theatrical narrative that evokes its complex dynamics, with choreography by Duncan and her own creations. Expressing the turn of the narrative sequences, songs by Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Scriabin, Chopin, Puccini, Bob Gluck enliven the dance.
For further iconological support, the photo taken by Orlando Sinibaldi during the show “Isadora Duncan and the daughters of Prometheus” on May 29, 2022 at the Duse Theater in Asolo, evokes the period spent in Versilia by Duncan, the walks on the beach and the conversations with Duse, who worked with affection to take care of her tragic injuries and to favor his return to dance, that is to life.
The new Duse-Duncan production will continue on stage with further performances: Tuesday 28 May at 6.00 pm in the Rainerum Theater in Bolzano, upon invitation of the Local Committee of the Dante Alighieri Society; Friday 31 May at 8.30pm in the famous Fraschini Theater in Pavia, built in 1773 to a prestigious project by Antonio Galli Bibiena.
To purchase tickets, please contact: for the Villa di Maser on the website www.villadimaser.it; for Asolo a www.mailticket.it clicking “Asolo”, then “May”, then “L’Embraccio della Duse alla Duncan”; for Bolzano, contact directly [email protected]entry is free but by reservation within the limit of available places.
