As part of the events commemorating the 700th anniversary of Dante Alighieri’s passing, the Istituto Italiano di Cultura Toronto presents Italian modern dance company ARTEMIS DANZA, founded and directed by Monica Casadei in a reinterpretation of select passages from the Divine Comedy‘s Hell.
DANTE SOLO INFERNO | DANTE’S HELL
Artemis Danza Dance Company
Wednesday, November 17 | 8:00PM EST
Fleck Dance Theatre | Harbourfront Centre
207 Queens Quay West
Third Floor
This event is FREE with Registration
Pre-registration is encouraged, but walk-ups are welcome
Please arrive 30 minutes before the start time to allow extra time to pick up your tickets and sign in to contact tracing. If you do not pick up your reserved tickets before 7:45PM, your seats will be released to the public.
To reserve ACCESSIBLE SEATING, please send a request via email to tickets@harbourfrontcentre.com.
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In this performance, the dancers are the protagonists of several choreographic scenes dedicated to the lost souls met by Dante on his infernal journey.
Charon, Minos, Francesca da Rimini, Pier Della Vigna, Ulysses, are some of the characters chosen by Monica Casadei to investigate the human soul and compose a poetic and, at the same time, visually impacting image, in which every archetype of the collective unconscious finds its own carnal and earthly manifestation.
Dissipating, as Dante did, the darkness that surrounds these famous souls and bringing them to light, literally in the spotlight, Casadei follows them along a path of sin, awareness, acceptance and prayer, where the point of arrival is no longer the punishment but the expressive force of the self, in all its fullness and truth.
The soundtrack alternates between original music composed by Luca Vianini and pieces of Giuseppe Verdi’s sacred music, interspersed with Dante’s most famous verses.
ABOUT ARTEMIS DANZA
Since 2005, Artemis Danza is engaged in “Artemis Incontra Culture Altre” (Artemis Meets Other Cultures), a project of artistic residencies and international tours that gave birth to performances, workshops, publications, reports and exhibitions (in Germany, France, Swaziland, Ukraine, Poland, Russia, Japan, Argentina, USA, Colombia, Lebanon; Paraguay, Thailand, China, Ethiopia, Korea, South Africa, Nigeria, Cuba, Vietnam, Mexico, and beyond).
Artemis Danza also concentrates on Corpo d’Opera, a project of choreographic re-imagining of the opera repertoire, with a special focus on female figures. Some of the main productions that the company has staged in recent years – such as Traviata, Tosca and Carmen K – originate from Corpo d’Opera.
Compagnia Artemis Danza is supported by the Italian Ministry of Culture and Emilia Romagna Region; several international projects are supported by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation and the Emilia Romagna Region – Local Authority for Cultural Heritage and Landscape.
To date, Artemis Danza has staged more than forty creations, ranging from contemporary dance shows to choreographies for theatrical performances and operas. Artemis Danza also supports the work of young choreographers and promotes educational initiatives such as professional workshops and theoretical conferences.
ABOUT ITS FOUNDER, MONICA CASADEI
A graduate in Philosophy from the University of Bologna with a dissertation on Plato and Dance, Monica Casadei acquired in Italy, France and Great Britain a solid preparation in the techniques of western contemporary dance.
Central to her artistic formation are also some Eastern influences as a result of periods spent in India and China and from her training in the martial arts: towards the end of the 1980s in Paris, she moves on to the Japanese martial art of Aikido and also attends the Academie des Arts Martiaux et Arts Contemporaines directed by André Cognard. At the same time, she pursued the following endeavours: training to achieve first dan in Aikido, a teaching degree in Aiki-Taiso in the Autonomous Academy of Aikido and the study of Japanese Buto Dance with Kazuo Ohno Masaki Iwana, Carlotta Ikeda and Ko Morobushi. In these years she is also a performer and dancer for the Compagnie Terre Rouge of Isabelle Dubouloz.
In 1994, Monica Casadei founded, in France, the Compagnia Artemis Danza, with which she moved to Italy in 1997.