MILAN MILANO ITALY | VIA MONTENAPOLEONE PEOPLE & EVENTS | PEOPLE & EVENTS IN VIA MONTENAPOLEONE

Not even a distracted observer could miss the many common points of contact that exist between the routes followed by Micha Van Hoecke and Maria Callas. Both are a part of the now extinct universe that was populated by those who came from a world that was a legacy of a multi-faceted cultural and geographic identity which is difficult to describe with a single definition or adjective. Both belonged to contexts that they were able to transcend in any event, both lived and moved not just within the boundaries of their art, but beyond them. Therefore, it is difficult to simply refer to them as “people of the stage”. And their common destiny which would begin in two worlds that were so different and distant from one another – an America of immigrants for Maria Callas, and a Belgium that was dominated by French culture for Micha Van Hoeche – to arrive in Italy under the form of an almost symbiotic artistic association – could not go unnoticed either.
“It’s true, so many things in common. I am happy to hear it! I had never thought of it… however, in reality… yes, I certainly feel an affinity with the figure of Maria Callas, but I would never dare to make any form of comparison. I find her to be so exceptional that I could never dare. To tell the truth, I fell that there is a common difficulty, that of understanding where to look for your roots when you don’t know where to find them, and then you need to build upon them to set them down”.

She had to change and change herself several times, and each time adapt herself to a special sentiment: that of corresponding, in order to no longer correspond, first yes, then no. Perhaps it is more of a feeling than a destiny.
“With regard to Italy, it is certainly a land that welcomes artists from throughout the world. However, this – I believe – is mostly an element of the soul. Italians have a soul that cannot be understood or touched… like the Russians or the Spaniards. More so than the Belgians, or the French, for that matter. In France, l’esprit is what counts. L’âme française is less important than the esprit français”.

And our hypothetical observer will also not be able to miss this tribute that coincides with the eightieth anniversary her birth. But those who know Micha Van Hoeche will not fail to notice the shyness that follows her formal calendars, the circumstantial celebrations, and the official status.
“The eightieth anniversary?” I had completely forgotten about it... No, in reality, this has nothing to do with it. The tribute to Maria Callas was born from an idea that Cristina Muti had. She wanted to create something that she had wanted to do for a long time, and perhaps she saw the right person in me. I got to work: the tribute was not just a pretence.”
A difficult risk to get around. How can the art of Maria Callas be distilled into a single choreography?
“The thing that is the hardest for me is to be able to avoid using Callas’s voice as pretence for dancing well and for making oneself look good. I try to achieve what she brought to life through her voice, something that came from inside, by following a different route. For me, it is not simply re-proposing what I have learned – whatever that may be – in Callas’s singing. I attempt to establish a total relationship with her voice, not only with the notes. None of the steps are based on the music, in essence, and the key to achieving this is the vision. I feel like I am a traveller in making this tribute. I try to explain myself through a metaphor: I have a great deal of records, music and material on Maria Callas available, and I must begin my journey. The times are no longer what they were when Baudelaire had to go to India in order to write about it. Today, with images, films and television, the journeys are already in front of us in some way. The majority of times, we try to create an organized trip. The “traveller” gets up and goes. He goes to Thailand for fifteen days and he already knows everything: what he will do, the hotel where he will stay, the places he will visit. And so I told myself that this type of a journey no longer interests me. For me, a journey is something that needs to be constructed within yourself: you go forward and you choose the places you will visit day by day. I have many places available to me – the singing, the music, the records of Maria Callas, – and I wander around these places in search of visions. I have the impression of having to paint a series of pictures. Pictures that are inspired by her voice, by her being, by her sound. I do this... I do it and I undo it. Each time I return, I destroy things and then I put them back together. And I have been doing it for a long time now. Normally, a rehearsals for a show last for about a month and a half: you arrive, you prepare… you already know what you have to do and how much you will put into it. This time it is impossible. I also have to travel along with my kids; I cannot simply say to them, ‘Do this thing or do that thing.’”

What are the musical destinations of this journey?
“It’s a collage that I have put together by trying to never resort to the obvious. A show that is created in this way, with so many little pearls, which in the end will make up a single strand. There are some moments that are happier and others that are more dramatic, such as those that deal with the theme of death. There is the constant impression that she dies, but then each time she is born again. We are playing a sort of game with life and death. Another important theme is that of travel and the sea, we cannot forget the fact that Maria Callas was Greek.
In the end, the figure that is born from my musical selections is that of a woman who is a bit flighty and a bit of a victim, who is caught up in what happens to her, who loves. A woman who also has the courage to kill or to kill herself. Along this musical route, there is also a cycle that involves blood, blood and love in the game of a woman who is a victim, who must die in another’s place. The woman sacrifices herself, but at the end of this stage she is overtaken by an absolute love, which is bare of all description. Which of course is the love that Maria Callas gave the world with her art.”

On the contemporary panorama, choreographers have the most disparate relationships with the classical tradition: some accurately avoid it, some limit themselves to that, many look for what is new, remaining bound to the past. Where do you fit in?
“For dancers like myself, it is like an invisible song, a song from within. Much more ephemeral than the music. Either you do traditional dances, that are a part of the repertoire, or you move into a modern setting, a contemporary one. However, these are distinctions that no longer worry me; instead, what is really important is to communicate what you feel inside yourself through movement. That’s what I mean when I talk about dance as something that is ephemeral, and in a certain sense, unattainable.
In other words, I don’t fit in anywhere.
It’s as if someone asked me, “Where are you from?” I’ not Belgian, I’m not Russian, I almost feel Italian, but I’m not that either. I no longer think about it. To tell the truth, I don’t even consider myself to be a choreographer. I feel much more like an acrobat.”

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