The city of dance
A touring project by Valerio Festi for Notti di Luce 2005

Improvisation as the cipher of artistic research, light as the essence of the feast and dance as the synthesis of these elements. Three shows carried out by Studio Festi to create an incredible three- day ball party in the heart of the city.
Every night, at the end of the show in Matteotti Square, a young girl hanging withìn a big transparent self-lit up sphere, headed by a violin player, leades the public up to Dante Square, the natural stage of this ball feast. Each of these three nights is dedicated to dance, light andimprovisation.

Light as Shape
Lighttransforming in a picture and creating cinema, the great invention of the XX century. But here light as shape becomes the occasion for improvisation and for a dialogue between “real” and “probable”. On a large screen famous dance scenes from the history of cinema give the opportunity for a new dance. Solo artists, couples, groups of dancers extemporize dance acts that imitate and reinvent the dance displayed on screen.

Light as Suggestiveness
Light is a basic part of the party, but also a necessary scene element of the worldwide most famous dance: waltz. In a setting recalling Wien’s dance-halls and Casanova’s fascinating Venice in three following scenes dance and music suddenly melt together. The show ends up with a great walzt: young girls dance on white pianos, the dancer in love dances on her “rinocerotto”’s back, the mythological unicorn, and robot-women dance in their glittering white dressing. Above everything and everybody a hail of flower petals and fragments of light.

Light as Substance
Light turns into substance and becomes the protagonist. It’s her who creates water and earth, it’s her that pierces air with its rays and it’s her again that materialize into fire. On the last night the whole scene is for the elements and their dance closes the three-day feast. Earth, water, air and fire are celebrated by dancing acrobates and their moviments melt in every element’s light: pink like the breaking of dawn on Earth, light-blue like Air, white like the trasparence of water and red like fire that lights up and seduces the soul.