Through the Rite: A Cultural Dance Journey

It's called "Through the Rite", the project of the Campania Dance Circuit that won the Boarding Pass Plus call, promoted by the Ministry of Culture to select new proposals for theater, dance, music, circus, and multidisciplinary activities, and to support international paths and collaborations between Italian professionals and others. At the core is Italian choreography "with a focus on religious rites, expressions of the traditions and identity elements of peoples and places. The rite is enhanced by the action that becomes the word of the body, unfolding in a space and time designed by the gesture itself. Thus, the body, through the rite, becomes an element of connection between past, present, and future, useful to celebrate experiences, events, and meanings intrinsically linked to a territorial tradition, but that cross the spheres of human existence of each individual and in any part of the world", explains Claudio Malangone, choreographer chosen together with Emma Cianchi, accompanied respectively by Luigi Aruta and Marcella Martusciello, Italian dancers and choreographers under 35. Campania Dance Circuit is the leader of a partnership with the RaIDFestivals association, the New Dance Young Talent (Netherlands) and the alternative contemporary dance festival Hidalgo (Mexico), where the first international stage of "Through the Rite" is scheduled, after Naples, Salerno, and Avellino. Starting from the procession of the "Cente" and the "Fujenti", one wonders to what extent the concept of rite is so applicable to different social and cultural contexts. Gestures, even simple ones, that assume a paradigmatic character as a repetition of the deeds of gods, heroes, spirits, or ancestors, of which the ordinary activities of men are but a pale reflection. This results in a sort of ceremony with specific bodily actions, postures, and attitudes, according to a precise sequence that leads to a dance, whether propitiatory and liberating. Not only a show but also a photographic exhibition "Sacred and Profane" curated by Gianpiero Scafuri with shots by Gianpiero Scafuri, Giada Ruoppo, and Claudio Malangone.