Maqam

The contemporary dance show staged at the India Theater takes up the Arabic word Maqam which has multiple meanings: "place", "musical scale", "spiritual station", but above all it indicates the system of melodic organization of traditional Arabic music, a technique of improvisation widely practiced throughout the Middle East.

The performance is based on the combination and contamination between the singing of the Iraqi-born trumpet jazz player Amir ElSaffar, a profound connoisseur of the Iraqi maqam tradition, and the music of the electronic composer Lorenzo Bianchi-Hoesh. The two artists know how to create a fascinating spiritual universe that combines tradition and contemporaneity, rhythmic experimentation and Middle Eastern vocal techniques accompanied with the santur, a zither on a table played by ElSaffar. The dance is characterized by an intermittent rotational movement and by upward vaulting that the dancers perform in turn as they enter and leave the stage, arranging themselves in spaces characterized by darkness and semi-darkness, luminous gashes and sharp cuts. This is followed, at intervals, by a series of convulsive intertwining in several directions, with the bodies touching, brushing, freezing and then resuming the movements that the group of dancers activates again, within a hypnotic and enveloping sound fabric.

The mk group of dancers, protagonists of this show, was founded in 1999 by the choreographer Michele Di Stefano and deals with choreography and performance; revolves around shared and transversal projects, including the close collaboration with the musician Lorenzo Bianchi-Hoesch. The mk dancers have also participated in the most important festivals of the new scene in Italy and abroad.

Photo credits: courtesy of India Theater official site