Pas de Cheval is a duet choreographed by Andrea Costanzo Martini and performed by Francesca Foscarini and Martini himself. Designed for two performers who are no longer young and inspired by the figure of the horse, a symbol of grace, strength, and freedom, the work explores the parallels between the animal and the dancer-performer: both admired creatures, shaped by an imaginary world that conceals a reality of hard work, extreme discipline, and questionable power dynamics. With lightness and irony, Pas de Cheval reveals the contradictions of live performance, questioning the price a performer is willing to pay to win the love of the audience and for their own survival, including economic survival, within the system. Through essential physical language, whispered voices, and an imagination that alternates between practice and representation, the duet explores the boundaries between training and freedom, obedience and desire, virtuosity and vulnerability.
Andrea Costanzo Martini’s solo “What Happened in Torino” was created in the early 2013 and premiered at the International Tanz Solo Festival in Stuttgart in March of that year where it was awarded first prize for both dance and choreography.
The work focuses on the relationship between the body of the performer and the act of being on stage, in a struggle between the search for presence and the feeling of being trapped. Andrea in this work deals with the Gaze of the other, and on how it affects his way of being. Being watched as a trigger for pleasure but also as a petrifying force that holds him on place, under the lights, against his will. Dramaturgically the piece evolves around a text inspired by an Italian tv sale woman from the 90’s placing the work in a very precise contest, however not dictating the aesthetics of the movements or costumes.