photos Daniela De Angelis
Credits
of and with Benedetta Capanna
music Vittorino Naso, A. Plisevska (TheTango is played and recorded by the pianist Irma Toudjian)
text Roberts Vizbulis
video Mauro Raponi
costumes Paola Bonesso
ligthing designer Danila Blasi
video research Beatrice Proietti
research for biographic materials Astra Šmite
production PinDoc-Excursus
with contribution of MiC and Sicily Region
residency tersicorea Off/Cagliari - "MONOGRAFIE D'AUTORE" 2016
with the patronage of Embassy of the Republic of Latvia to the Republic of Italy
SAKNES, radici
To Mirdza Kalnins, my grandmother
"This means that the contemporary is not only the one who, perceiving the darkness of the present, grasps a
light that can never reach its destiny; he is also the one who, dividing and interpolating time, is capable of
transforming it and putting it in relation with other times. He is able to read history in unforeseen ways, to
“cite it” according to a necessity that does not arise in any way from his will, but from an exigency to which he
cannot not respond. It is as if this invisible light that is the darkness of the present cast its shadow on the
past, so that the past, touched by this shadow, acquired the ability to respond to the darkness of the now."
Giorgio Agamben
Between shadows and lights we meet our past and our contemporaneity.
It's like travelling in parallel worlds, living them, and dancing between them. The images emerge from nothing. Like fragments of a puzzle I would love to find their place, but instead they place me in a space and
in a time ... of my memory ... of her memory.
I don't create anything but I do let flow through me these dances like in a celebration, the insights, fragilities of our recent past although separated by years, interlace.
We live in our contradictions.
We live in what we leave to others.
In dance we find the unspoken words, blurred images, faceless voices.
We rejoin threads, covering the space of emptiness of life.
The purity of crystals, here's the dance.
The strength of the roots, the dance is saknes.
Giving a meaning to escape, to create an ending.
Absorbing the meaning of return to seal a goodbye.
Everywhere ... anyway ...
just a dance ... a dance ...
an erotic sacrifice of the heart
thrown, violated, loved.
Mirdza Kalnins, (1912-1974) was a latvian dancer. She was "prima ballerina" of the National Opera Riga from 1927 to 1933, specializing in Paris with the famous maesro Nikolai Legat. In 1934 during a trip to Italy she was hired by the Rome Opera House. Here she interpreted ballets such petrushka, The Brds, Coppelia, la Bottega Fantastica, L'Ungheria Romantica. For her fiery temperament she was particularly acclaimed in opera Prince Igor, Carmen and Fedora. She performed in different films as well: Carmen fra i rossi directed by Edgard Neville, Fedora directed by Camillo Mastrocinque, Altri Tempi directed by Alessandro Blasetti, Finisce sempre così by Vittorio De Sica. In 1940 she became director at the Centro Sperimentale di canto e di danza. Mirdza has been invited as jury member of the dance contest for the International Festival of Youth ad Students of 1957 in Moscow. Until 1961 she was assitant for Aurelio Milloss at the Rome Opera House. She is buried at the Non-Catholic cemetery in Rome near the Cestia Piramide.