Kor’sia (Spain / Italy) – MONT VENTOUX

Duration: 65 min. 

Recommended age: 12+

Attention. The performance features flashing lights and loud music.

With Mount Ventoux, the Kor’sia Collective revisits the work that Francesco Petrarca wrote in 1336, Ascent to Mont Ventoux, apparently just a letter recounting the ascent to a mountain in any other April afternoon.Through an ascent disguised in simplicity, Petrarca offers an alternative to the faith of the world, an ascending journey for humanity to elude and leave behind the dark years of the Middle Age; bringing about a paradigmatic shift to the world to come, humanism.

As the Kor’sia Collective perceives it, this story, Mont Ventoux, still offers us the possibility of learning from the past, which can be transformed into a better experience of the present, and therefore in the construction of a better future for all and all.

Today, we, the people who live together on the planet, seven centuries later and in greater acceleration, typical of the times we live in, we also perceive the urgent need for a change. We are facing the destabilization of the structures that up to now supported us as a community and as humanity, and witnessing the transformation of a too uncertain future.Petrarca, already warned: “We have to wake up from lethargy, get out of the molds!”. Under this mantra, the Kor’sia Collective wants to collaborate in giving voice again to these words that today resonate with importante:

Ascend the mountain.

Recover our values.

Do a mass philanthropic exercise.

Put humanity and the nature that precedes back in the center. What a better way to do so than through dancing bodies.

The Kor’sia Collective is a group of artists based in Madrid and formed by Mattia Russo and Antonio de Rosa as directors and choreographers, together with the visual arts researcher and co-founder, Giuseppe Dagostino and Agnès López-Río, Professor of Performing Arts as a playwright and artistic consultant.

They make up the hard core of Kor’sia who, together with other collaborators related to other artistic disciplines, such as music, cinema, fashion, literature, lighting, space design… work on the creation of dance, which always emerge under the mantra of their own philosophy. A search for the defense and transmission to the new generations, that the arts, and specifically the arts of movement, are the only representations that manage to transmit the human world: tradition, society, culture, gender, sustainability, democracy… of a way that no other knowledge achieves. Capable of generating spaces in which individuals can access their most intimate and spiritual ways, helping them find their own meaning in life.

IDEA AND DIRECTION: Mattia Russo and Antonio de Rosa

CHOREOGRAPHY: Mattia Russo and Antonio de Rosa in collaboration with the performers

DANCERS: Benoît Couchot, Angela Dematte, Samuel Dilkes, Emilie Leriche, Helena Olmedo, Andrew Scott, Dovydas, Strimaitis, Ana Van Tendeloo and Edoardo Brovardi

DRAMATURGY: Agnès López-Río

SCENOGRAPHY: Amber Vandenhoeck in collaboration with Mattia Russo and Antonio de Rosa/ Kor'sia

ORIGINAL MUSIC: Alejandro Da Rocha. Original Song: Raquel Tort Vázquez

COSTUME: Costume design and creative direction Luca Guarini. In collaboration with Aitor Goikoetxea, Levi's (all denim).

PRODUCTION: Gabriel Blanco and Paola Villegas, Andrea Mendez (Spectare)

TECHNICAL DIRECTION: Meritxell Cabanas

COPRODUCTION:

Mount Ventoux, is a full-evening performance created by Kor'sia Collective with the support of :

Conde Duque Contemporary Culture Center (Spain),

Tanzplattform Rhein Main (Germany),

Hessisches Staatsballet (Germany),

Roma Europa Festival (Italy),

The Watermill Center (USA),

Festival Bolzano Danza - Fondazione Haydn di Bolzano e Trento (Italy),

Grec Festival- Barcelona Festival (Spain),

Tero Saarinen Company (Fi ),

Istituto Italiano di Cultura de Madrid (Spain)

OperaEstate Festival Veneto (Italy).

FEDORA - VAN CLEEF & ARPELS Dance Prize Winner 2023 with the support of Van Cleef & Arpels

WITH THE ASSISTANCE OF: Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport - Government of Spain, Community of Madrid, City Hall of Madrid, European Festival.

Premiere in October 2023 at Centro Cultural Conde Duque, Madrid, Spain.

Website: kor-sia.com

Instagram: @korsia_official

Facebook: @Kor’sia

Vimeo: @Kor’sia

Twitter: @Kor’sia

Photos by Maria Alperi.