Viareggio, 16 June 2024 – “Being in the blue“ gives her the impression of living and floating in the air and in the sky. To be able to create, with the lightness of that air and that sky, the movements and gestures of the choreography that she, Chiara Cinquini, “the girl in blue”, has taken, and takes, around the world. In Viareggio, as in London, Belgrade, or Milan.
Clear , she is a dancer, performer, teacher, choreographer. Identifying it with just one term is difficult. How would you define yourself?
“The term performer is perhaps the one that suits me the most, because I have always tried to do many things. I started with classical dance, I specialized in contemporary and then I opened up to the world of theatre, choreography and bodypainting Beyond the dance itself, I am interested in the theatrical, performative actions of Carnival and opera, which allow me to wander and work even with people who do not necessarily come from the world of dance”.
However, she was born into the world of dance, in her mother Barbara Tofani’s school …
“Yes, but I didn’t start right away. Because growing up with a mother who was a dancer and teacher, who never made me lack for anything, but who I saw little of, dance was something to avoid because it kept her away. But she was very good because she didn’t has he ever forced me.”
And then what happened?
“One summer, I was 8 years old, she told me that in September my classmates were going to try dance and asked me if I wanted to give it a try too. As a favor to her, I tried. Then, however, I never stopped. “.
She also went to study abroad.
“Having been born and raised in Viareggio, I felt it was restrictive. And being the daughter of a dancer, I felt the weight of it a bit. I wanted to be a dancer but I wondered if, outside the city, I was really capable of doing it. I was 18 years and I was studying in Florence with Simona Bucci, a colleague of Carolyn Carlson who then trained me in Paris, and I decided to try. My parents accompanied me to Paris to audition for an academy in London. After a month the letter arrived that I had been taken.”
Then why did she come back?
“After finishing my studies in Paris, where dance, compared to that in England, belonged to me more, I toured and worked quite a bit. And I returned with emotional maturity: I felt that Viareggio was no longer close to me but to return was to return home. Around the age of 30, learning to re-evaluate the merits of the city and not only see its defects, I decided to create a stable base, with the possibility, in the meantime, of working in the world always ready to pack my bags. And this is something I really like.”
What if she hadn’t been a dancer?
“I like to draw, so perhaps I would have opted for the painting academy. Always in the artistic field, which is somewhat of the imprinting of my family. My grandfather Carlino, brother of Vittorio Cinquini who sang songs with Casani and Malfatti, for example, he was self-taught and created wonderful paintings of Viareggio in the early 1900s. My grandfather and my father also created the sets for the songs.”
A relationship with Carnival that in some way seems written…
“As a little girl they took me to the old hangars on Sunday mornings, to Emilio Cinquini, my father’s cousin, and I made papier-mâché, sheets of paper. It was like taking part in the development of the wagon”.
As he has been doing for ten years now with the choreographies for Alessandro Avanzini. How did the collaboration between the two of you come about?
“Her niece, my age, was dancing with my mother, she asked me if I wanted to try, since the choreographers at the time had left. In the space of 25 days I prepared a choreography for “La rete“. That year we won and it was a incredible blow: the ushers welcomed me with care and attention and the relationship with Alessandro Avanzini, from that moment on, has never been separated. He has the same way of working and understanding the performance in the wagon language with someone else.”
What do you start from to create choreographies?
“It is the words and what a project wants to say and communicate, for the Carnival as for the Puccini, that stimulate me and create the intention of the movement, of the scenic and theatrical actions. I start with an idea that is often modified seeing the masks or dancers who are an active part of the creative journey, the choreography is my daughter, they have a piece of it too.”
What achievement are you most proud of?
“Having managed to do what I wanted, without ever giving up: having transformed my passion into a job”.
What would you like for the future instead?
“Accumulate as many experiences as possible, continue to get to know theatrical worlds, places and places. Be able to continue to pack your bags.”
