#SimonettaAlessandri

[charlieashwell]

Interview with Simonetta Alessandri for TripHazard

I have been working as co-producer at TripSpace on the project TripHazard: New tendencies in training and choreography. TripHazard provides a framework in which dance practices might travel between and across contexts of morning class and rehearsal room; where relations between training and choreography can be defined, discarded, articulated, re-articulated and danced all over. As part of the project, I have been interviewing the participating artists.

Here I chat to Simonetta Alessandri about her research.

Hello, hello!

Hello, hello.

What are you doing for TripHazard?

I will work with Feldenkrais as an access to researching movement. This is my recent interest in the last few years. And then, my work will be researching Tarantism.

Tarantism?

Tarantism is a dance and music tradition from Italy. It’s kind of a trance form, specific to the region of Puglia.

Is it practised by everybody from this region? Or is it a kind of performance?

There are two different aspects. In the more recent one it’s become a little bit touristic, so they reorganise it in an accessible way for people to learn. It’s transformed into a kind of folk dance; a dance where the men want to catch the women. There’s improvised words and music and it’s very very frenetic and a very very fast beat.

But originally, tarantism was more like a phenomenon or trance dance movement practised in the south of Italy in general but especially in Puglia. There were a few appointments during the year where women, like ninety-five percent women, were able to express themselves in a very aggressive way. You never heard about that?

I’ve heard about a phenomenon where big groups, big communities, have this kind of dancing disease where they can’t stop dancing. But maybe that’s something totally different.

I think tarantism is not the only one, for sure. There are some very interesting documents, videos, from the late 50s of these women meeting together in a church and just getting crazy for like 2 days. They were really in that physical state where they could have done anything… to express themselves. And the musicians were helping them to get more and more out of this. It’s not anymore so real. But I think until the 70s, it was real.

So is there something kind of functional about it?

Of course.

About letting go of something which has been held for a long time?

Absolutely. They were in rural 40s, 50s and either unable to cope with their society, or really sick. They were in a very specific land between mental illness or just incompatibility with society.

I mean, sick society, right?

Yeah. And so this was a way to really express themselves.

Do you have in mind some connection with this and your current practice of Feldenkrais into performance?

I think it’s always a little bit unknown. I’m interested to research into this land of trance. This ‘do the ritual’. ‘Be in the rituality’. So there is something about the authenticity of being really there because it’s what you really want to do; it’s the ritual that will help you and also you will get totally lost in this. So there are some aspects that are already close.

Feldenkrais strikes me as a very mindful practice. And also very practical. And then on the other hand, when I think of trance, I think of compulsion… movement that you can’t help but do.

There are similarities in the work. Feldenkrais is very practical and functional, as you said. But there’s also a mind state that you can go into that is this slow pace; that could potentially go more into the practice of Milton Erickson, for instance, one of the first important hypnotists. He was a friend of Feldenkrais, so they studied and explored together. And actually, when you do Feldenkrais, you really arrive in a mind state that is different. The heartbeat slows down, sometimes people start to sleep and you go in between.

Semi-conscious, almost?

Semi-conscious, yeah. Sometimes you could fall asleep and then have a sense that you actually understood the class because the words the teacher says arrive anyways, no? You see something.

You begin to dream.

Yeah. Kind of like a dream. But, as you said, the idea is to be able, afterwards, to reconnect to your body, to understand and to use it in normal life, also. As a human being.

Can you say a bit more about what Feldenkrais is?

It’s a somatic method. So you learn from inside. But it’s also a self-directing method. You learn, basically, how you learn. And the movement is the place where that happens.

There is a lot of space because you don’t follow, you don’t see an action; the request is vocalised. So you’re not copying anyone - you are thinking about the action and you are exploring. It’s very, very explorative. And it makes you aware of a different zone - that are not your habits - so you can start to question where your habits are and then how to get rid of that.

To what’s kind of pre-habit, or…

Yeah, we are full of habits; physical and mental habits. And some are very important but we need to recognise that we need to be able to make choices. So, it’s a method about awareness through movement. And the awareness could increase, increase, increase and become more and more and more sophisticated.

You are understanding what is working for you and what is not working from the sensation. It’s very different than always referring back to somebody else telling you if it’s correct or not.

That seems quite linked, to me, to this question of the dancer as artist; as maker within the structure of the choreography that they’re working in. That as a dancer you’re constantly assessing and reassessing your interests in relation to the choreography.

Exactly. This is a really important starting point. You are self-directing. You are understanding from the inside. And then there’s a different sense of collaboration.