Dance, Music and Commedia for a Roman Carnival of the Renaissance
The magnificent 16th century Oratorio del Gonfalone will be the backdrop, on the evening of Giovedì grasso, for the première of Se le donne portassero la spada - Canti, danze e lazzi nella Roma del Rinascimento staged by the Il Teatro della Memoria early dance and music ensemble. The theme of the Carnival with its overturning of roles will be the thread for a show that intermingles dance, music and Commedia dell’arte, ideally placed in the Rome of the Renaissance, a crossroads of languages and traditions where aulic culture is enriched by drawing color from folk elements. The performance will feature convivial songs, court music and dance, together with comic lazzi taken from the scenarios of the Roman Renaissance. The music, performed on replicas of period instruments, will include, among others, pieces by Giandomenico del Giovane da Nola, Giovanni Giacomo Gastoldi, Francesco Corteccia, Gabriel Fallamero, Adriano Banchieri, Johann Hieronymus Kapsberger. The dance numbers, based on the interpretation of the treatises by Italian dance masters such as Fabrizio Caroso da Sermoneta and Cesare Negri, will be performed in costumes designed following contemporary iconographis sources.
The cast for this new production by Il Teatro della Memoria, devised and coordinated by Claudia Celi and Andrea Toschi, includes the actors Marco Paciotti and Lorenzo Pasquali, the dancers Francesco Bocchi, Simona Buompadre, Claudia Celi, Paolo Di Segni, the musicians Angela Bucci (singing), Nando Citarella (singing, chitarra battente, percussion), Luigino Leonardi (trombone), Carolina Pace (recorder), Angela Paletta (shawm), Andrea Toschi (curtal, recorder).
