Core meu

- A tribute to Maurice Béjart -

Core Meu evokes trance and sacrifice. The ballet bridges the wide gap between pointe technique and tarantella to transport us to Italy’s Apulia Region in the confines of the Mediterranean. Accompanied by Antonio Castrignanò and his musicians, the energy generated by this ‘mass’ of dancers swirling to the beat of the tamburello harks back to the origins of dance. Against the backdrop of the blue Sea, the people of Salento’s white villages defied the Church (which condemned dance for its erotic nature) by claiming the tarantella was a remedy against the bite of tarantulas (which never existed there). Having circumvented the ban, the villagers could indulge in this popular dance — which combines trance and seduction — to the point of exhaustion. Love and the desire that consume bodies and death whose contours can be barely discerned: a vein Jean-Christophe Maillot has been exploring for forty years. There again, his choreography alternates moments of appeased sensuality with sequences of sheer physical debauchery. With nearly forty minutes of growing sensuality, Core Meu celebrates the exhilaration of dance leading to a Dionysian finale after which the fifty dancers collapse as one body.

Choreography: Jean-Christophe Maillot
Assistant choreographer: Bernice Coppieters
Music: Antonio Castrignanò - Sufi, Core Meu, Respiri di pizzica, Beddha ci dormi, Formenta, Corri, Tremula terra
Costumes: Salvador Mateu Andujar
Lighting: Samuel Thery
Duration: 38 min

With the participation of Antonio Castrignanò & Taranta Sounds

Created on July 1st 2017, Place du Casino Monte-Carlo for F(ê)aites de la Danse
Premiere held on April 25th 2019, Grimaldi Forum