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'Traviata' a moving interpretation of misery
Five female dancers represent the varied emotions of Violetta, forced to suppress her feelings for nobleman Alfredo Germont
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Five female dancers represent the varied emotions of Violetta, forced to suppress her feelings for nobleman Alfredo Germont.
As the curtains lifted, the saddest ball began. Seven dancers entered the stage, some in men's black suits, others in red gowns. With empty stares they slowly swirled with empty tilted wine glasses in their hands.
The Italian Artemis Danza dance group performed Traviata on June 14 as the closing event celebrating 65 years of Indonesian-Italian bilateral relations at the Ciputra Artpreneur Theater in South Jakarta.
Traviata, a dance adaptation of the popular opera La Traviata (The Fallen Women), took a different approach in telling the story of Violetta, a famed courtesan, and her love for the son of a noble family, Alfredo Germont.
'It's not a Romeo and Juliet kind of love story,' said Artemis Danza director and choreographer Monica Casadei.
Instead, the performance explored more of Violetta's various feelings while dealing with the hypocritical society as represented by Alfredo's father, Giorgio.
It started with the final scene of the original story in which Alfredo found Violetta had already passed away because of chronic illness.
Five female dancers took turns presenting the different stages of Violetta's feelings while trying to suppress her love for Alfredo.
The expressions of the dancers were rich and their body movements were bold and strong, building an atmosphere of anger and despair on the stage.
The color of the costumes, either black, red and white ' all were designed by Casadei ' also heightened the emotions.
In many scenes, dancers lay on the floor with their feet dangling up as if as they were running backward.
One of the dancers, Francesca Ruggerini, danced alone in one scene with her bare back facing the audience the whole time.
The movement of her back muscles was the main point of her dance as it showed the pain Violetta was suffering.
Another dancer took her place where she stripped off her white ball gown and curled into a ball before meeting death.
Casadei's Traviata was an emotional performance that in its 75-minute course pinned the audience to their seats.
The original opera was written by Giuseppe Verdi in 1853 after watching Alexandre Dumas' La Dame aux Camelias the year before.
'I started working on the adaptation in 2011,' said Casadei. 'I'm always intrigued with the women characters in opera and try to create a different approach to the story from the women's point of view.'
Casadei said that her dancers were trained not only in dance techniques, but also to let out their expressions through their body movements.
'It's good to have professional dancers in a troupe, but the problem is that professional dancers often lack emotions.'
For about one hour in the afternoon before the performance, Casadei and her dancers held a master class for 18 Indonesian dancers aged from 16 to 44 years who came from various dance schools in Jakarta.
One of the dancers was Namarina ballet dancer Maura Munaf, 17, who found the short course inspiring.
'We are taught to mind more about our expressions. We learned so many new things in such a short time. We are trained to do new movements using some muscles we didn't realize existed until now.'
The students joined the Artemis Danza dancers for the climax scene on stage where they moved in extreme, violent steps before eventually lying down on the floor in a row with their eyes pregnant with anger staring at the audience.
Among the audience were Jakarta Governor Basuki 'Ahok' Tjahaja Purnama and his family, as well as Creative Economy Agency head Triawan Munaf.
The director of the Italian Cultural Institute in Jakarta, Michela Linda Magri, said the event was aimed at the knowledge of cultural dancers among Italian and Indonesian artists.
'We will bring Artemis Danza back, as well as other Italian stage performers in the future to make Indonesians more familiar with our culture,' she said.
The theater, she said, has met the international standards required by the professional dance troupe.
The troupe only consists of 10 personnel who include the lighting and property staff.
The newly opened theater could seat 1,200 and has a standardized sound and lighting system.
'It is my father's dream to have a cultural center as a platform to enhance relationships with other countries, especially in cultural aspects,' said Ciputra Artpreneur director Rina Ciputra Sastrawinata, the daughter of Indonesian property monarch Ciputra.
Triawan said that private businesses are welcome to facilitate creative Indonesian talents in the exploration of arts.
'We expect as more facilities are available we can create a creative society,' he said.
' photos courtesy of Ciputra Artpreneur
