choreography: Sang Jijia
composer: Dickson Dee
live video artists: Luca Brinchi and Roberta Zanardo
light design: Marco Policastro
costumes: Giuseppina Maurizi
choreography assistants: Yanan Yu and Adriana De Santis
dancers (world première): Francesca Bugelli, Pierluigi Castellini, Donato Demita, Liber Dorizzi, Elena Fontana Paganini, Giovanfrancesco Giannini, Helena Mannella, Sara Paternesi, Filippo Porro, Yanan Yu (first part*); Maria Cossu, Mario Laterza, Giuliana Mele, Claudia Mezzolla, Giovanni La Rocca, Cosmo Sancilio, Yadira Rodriguez Fernandez, Violeta Wulff Mena, Fabio Cavallo (second part)
After the world première performed by Spellbound Contemporary Ballet dancers
production: Fondazione Fabbrica Europa, Fondazione Milano Civica Scuola di Teatro Paolo Grassi, Spellbound Contemporary Ballet, Marche Teatro – Danza alle Muse, Bejing Dance Festival, Guangdong Dance Festival
partners for the creation residency: Fondazione Teatro della Toscana Centro per la Sperimentazione e la Ricerca Teatrale di Pontedera
technical sponsors: Teatro Greco (E.C.O. Italia), Cyberaudio, Noise Asia Ltd
(*) The first part original version comes from “Pathos” music by Dickson Dee, sponsored and commissioned by Composers and Authors Society of Hong Kong (CASH)

Pa|Ethos is made up of two words, Pathos and Ethos, borrowed from Aristotle’s Art of Rhetoric.
The choreographer Sang Jijia uses them to signify two approaches to the subject discussed. Ethos underlines precision, Pathos evokes passion and feeling.
The work is based on Italian plastic art of the classical era and is divided into two parts. The first looks at the rules of social life where interpersonal relations are rigidly distributed. Each movement in space is well measured and carefully executed. In the second, emotions are translated into the physicality of the dancers; taking stage action to its most extreme, they achieve complete transparency of body through which the soul is revealed in its entirety.
The poetic art of Sang Jijia, who comes from Tibet, rests on the profundity of Eastern thought and is enriched by the most important experiences of European research in dance and contemporary theatre. A precise and original meeting between rigour and expressiveness that become the ingredients giving rise to Pa|Ethos.

The project includes the presence of the well-known composer Dickson Dee, and the collaboration of Luca Brinchi and Roberta Zanardo, for the virtual set design.
The international project conceived by Fabbrica Europa with the choreographer Sang Jijia is a challenge that calls into play a new way of coproduction on contemporary creation. Those involved are: the Fondazione Milano Civica Scuola di Teatro Paolo Grassi (whose dancers interpret the first part of the performance), Spellbound Contemporary Ballet (interpreting the second part) together with a number of important organizations such as Marche Teatro – Danza alle Muse, Bejing Dance Festival, Guangdong Dance Festival.
The executive production is in the care of Valentina Marini of the Spellbound Contemporary Ballet company which will re-stage the first part, to allow the show to continue from its debut to June 2018.

Sang Jijia – Born in Gansu, Tibetan Sang Jijia has been dancing and choreographing professionally since 1993, following his studies at the Music and Dance Department of the Central University for Nationalities in Beijing, China. He began his career as a dancer and choreographer with the Guangdong Modern Dance Company. In 1999, he left to join City Contemporary Dance Company of Hong Kong. Acknowledged for his powerful technique, Sang’s performances have received rave reviews in Asia and the West as he has collaborated with leading choreographers from around the globe. He received the Gold Medal in Modern Dance from the Paris International Dance Competition in 1996 and was hailed as “The Star of the Century” by the Guangdong Provincial Government in 1997. In 2002, Sang was selected by The Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative in its inaugural year to study choreography under William Forsythe in Germany. He continued with Ballett Frankfurt and later the Forsythe Company as assistant choreographer and dancer until 2006. Sang is currently Resident Artist with Beijing Dance / LDTX.
His major works include Blue in Show Your Colours, 365 Ways of Doing and Undoing Orientalism (co-choreographed with Willy Tsao and Xing Liang), Happening Continuous for Movement Fiber, Unspeakable and Standing Before Darkness for BeijingDance / LDTX, Sticks for Guangdong Modern Dance Company, and As If To Nothing for CCDC, presented with great success last year at the new theatre of Opera di Firenze as part of Fabbrica Europa.
His works have been presented in Korea’s Chang Mu Dance Festival, Swiss International Dance Festival, International Computer Music Festival, Taipei Arts Festival, Holland Dance Festival, Huayi – Chinese Festival of Arts in Singapore, Guangdong Modern Dance Festival, Beijing Modern Dance Festival, and Dance Salad Festival of Houston..

Dickson Dee – Sound artist, composer and producer, Dickson Dee (Li Chin Sung) has been engaged in the music industry for more than 25 years. His career started from importing European independent labels to Hong Kong, China and Taiwan; he then established his own music label Noise Asia, organizing concerts etc. His experience includes distribution, import/export, creation, publishing, promotion, artist management and other kinds of works in the industry. He has made a great contribution to the development of independent music in Hong Kong, China and Taiwan. In 1996, Dickson’s debut solo album Past was released under the Tzadik label (USA). Since then, he began to set foot on the creation field with musical styles ranging from avantgarde to experimental, musique concrete, electronic, new classical, industrial noise, dance, electronic world jazz etc. He has performed under different names and formed several bands. For example, DJ Dee for electronic experimental music, Li Chin Sung for musique concrete and avantgarde, PNF for industrial noise, Khoomi Sound Machine for electronic world jazz, Dickson Dee for electronic acoustic, sampling cut ‘n’ paste and turntablism. Mars News Ensemble for mixed film, music, multimedia art project.
Dickson set up his personal label Dicksonia Audio beside Noise Asia, which concentrates on the release and publishing of his own works. This provides more freedom and convenience to further develop his creativity.
Besides concerts, Dickson also appears in arts academy and university for workshops and lectures to share his experiences with students, hoping to trigger their interest on sound art and music; furthermore, to give them a better understanding on the different aspects of music.

Luca Brinchi and Roberta Zanardi are based between Rome and Bruxelles.
They have worked with the Santasangre Company since the early years of the new millennium. In 2012 they started working on their individual artistic project and artistic collaborations.
In the last two years they have collaborated with Jan Fabre on the contemporary opera Tragedy of the friendship, with lacasadargilla and Muta Imago on Art You Lost?, a social-interactive installation made by 1000 people, with Fabrizio Arcuri/Accademia degli Artefatti on Ritratto di una Capitale, a marathon-show of 12 hours about Rome, with Andrea Baracco on Hamlet and Veronica Cruciani on Un biscotto sotto il sofa. In Europe they attended in Tsekh Festival of Moscow (RUS), Grec Festival of Barcelona (ES), in Noorderzon Festival of Groningen (NL), in Divadelna Nitra Fest (SK), Eurokaz of Zagreb (HR), in Kontrapunkt of Stettin (PL), in Exodos of Ljubjana, in Temp d’images of Warsaw (PL) and Cluj (RO), in Sophiensale of Berlin (D), Ferme du buisson of Paris (FR) and at the Biennial Expo of Young Artists from Europe and the Mediterranean in Naples (IT). In Italy they performed in the Romaeuropa Festival, in Fabbrica Europa, in Drodesera>Centrale Fies, in Festival delle Colline Torinesi, in Bassano OperaEstate, in Santarcangelo Festival, in MIT of Rome, Inteatro/Polverigi.
Their journey aims to start a process of expressive contamination on a transversal axis touching the most significative styles of performing arts such as video, music, body art and environmental aesthetic design.

Spellbound Contemporary Ballet was established in 1994 on the initiative of the choreographer Mauro Astolfi who founded the company after returning from a long artistic stay in the US. Since 1996 Astolfi shares the project with Valentina Marini with whom the Company began a process of intense internationalization and cross-collaborations. The rich artistic project, together with a dynamic and constantly evolving concept, has facilitated the broad dissemination of the creations at national and international level.
Acclaimed for the excellence of its performers and the versatility of the choreographic language, Spellbound have preformed in major theaters and festivals (Germany, France, Serbia, Croatia, Cyprus, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Spain, Austria, Israel, Russia, Belarus, United States, Canada, Panama, Thailand and Korea).
Thanks to the modernity of its programs and the wide repertoire, the company has become a leader in terms of the international cultural offer and it’s always active in exchange projects and networking in connection with the most fertile European art scene. In 2014 the ensemble celebrated the twentieth anniversary of activity, a period in which it has developed with increasing interest training and educational projects for both the public and at least two generations of dancers.

The Course of Teatrodanza of the “Paolo Grassi” School of Dramatic Art started under the name of Atelier di Teatrodanza in 1986 and acquired its present form as a professional studies course in 1990.
Since 1998 it has been a three-year course for full-time pupils as it offers a high number of technical and theoretical subjects.
The aim of the Course, coordinated and directed by Marinella Guatterini, is to offer pupils practical and theoretical instruments for work on the body, for in-depth study for dancers and performers who wish to qualify their professional standing as contemporary interpreters, and for aspiring choreographers or dancers who show talent and interest in composition. The focus on the creative aspect of dance lanauage has made of the Atelier/Corso di Teatrodanza, for over twenty years, the only Italian centre which really trains creators on the contemporary scene, a fact proved by the names of those who have obtained their diplomas there as choreographers and dancer/performers at home and abroad.

CALENDAR

May 8-10, 2015 | Festival Fabbrica Europa – Teatro Era, Pontedera (Italy)
January 30-31, 2016 | Teatro Alighieri, Ravenna (Italy)
February 2, 2016 | Teatro Verdi, Brindisi (Italy)
April 21, 2016 | Teatro Garibaldi, Bisceglie (Italy)
November 10, 2016 | Guangdong Dance Festival, Guangzhou (China)
November 26, 2016 | Teatro delle Muse, Ancona (Italy)
February 2, 2017 | Opernhaus, Bonn (Germany)
February 28, 2017 | Teatro Diego Fabbri, Forlì (Italy)
June 1, 2017 | Festival Fabbrica Europa – Teatro Goldoni, Livorno (Italy)
September 1, 2017 | Oriente Occidente Dance Festival – Teatro Zandonai, Rovereto (Italy)
May 16, 2018 | Prospettiva Danza Teatro 2018 – Teatro Comunale Verdi, Padova (Italy)

[photo: Andrea Gianfortuna]