La Clausura Sconfinata
La Clausura Sconfinata interweaves baroque music, Gregorian chant and modern dance in an innovative yet classic new show exploring the interplay between freedom and enclosure. The music and choreography of this interdisciplinary work explore the paradoxical inner richness of life within the cloister.
Throughout the hour-long piece, the all-female cast of twelve musicians and dancers work together with one artistic voice to express the isolation, pain, joy, community, and discipline of the extraordinary women who live within the cloister. The music, all performed live, combines sacred chants for Compline, Vespers and Matins with music composed by nuns and classic 16th century tunes such as Aria della Monica. Minimal gestural movement vocabulary grows into full-bodied, expressive movement as the piece progresses simultaneously from day to night, and from the outer to the inner world of the nuns. Taking its cues from Isadora Duncan Technique, La Clausura is the first contemporary, interdisciplinary adaptation of the Duncan aesthetic to fully integrate music in the staging.
Photo: Aurora D’Aversa
La Clausura premiered as the main event of Narni’s Corsa all’Annello Festival on April 25th, 2009. The sold-out show was greeted with a standing ovation. According to York University professor of art history and expert on baroque convent life, Helen Hills, the performance “continues to resonate.” An encore performance, offered at Monastero San Paolo in Orvieto, Italy, was greeted with similar enthusiasm and engendered a lively question and answer session with the artists.
Photo: Aurora D’Aversa
Background
The cloister, mandated by the Council of Trent in the 16th century, was designed as an architectural metaphor for the physical and spiritual boundaries of virginity. Paradoxically, given the intention of clausura (enclosure), the convents provided educational opportunities rarely available in the outer world, and were notorious breeding grounds for independent thought.
Isadora Duncan, the iconoclastic creator of modern dance, wrote that “the dancer’s body is but the luminous manifestation of the soul.” She imagined the moving body to be the sacred expression of freedom and spirituality, combining the inner and the outer world into one seamless whole. Although created in the early twentieth century, her timeless movement style continues to evoke the spirit of women throughout history, bringing out the spiritual yet passionate nature of this unique piece.
La Clausura Sconfinata places the ecstatic and sometimes tragic Duncan dance vocabulary in counterpoint to original and evocative 16th century music choices. Together, these art forms highlight and explore the ongoing tension between the two ideals of individuality and restraint, creating a timeless reflection of the human struggle to live within our own social confines.
Personnel
Lori Belilove’s (Choreographer) direct lineage and prestigious performing career have earned her an international reputation as the premier interpreter and ambassador of the dance of Isadora Duncan. She has been hailed as “…one of the most impassioned and authentic Duncan interpreters around.” (Janice Ross, of the Oakland Tribune). Through her performances, master classes, and workshops, children, college students and professional dancers have experienced the purity, timelessness, authentic phrasing, and musicality that has been passed down to Lori through the direct line of Isadora Duncan dancers. Among her teachers were Anna Duncan and Irma Duncan, two of the six adopted artistic daughters of Isadora.
Ms. Belilove received a B.F.A. in dance, religion, and classical studies from Mills College, Oakland, CA. She trained extensively in the modern technique of Doris Humphrey as a private student of both Eleanor King and Ernestine Stodelle, original members of the Humphrey-Weidman Dance Company.
Candace Smith, (Music Director) American singer, was born in Los Angeles but has lived in Europe since 1975 (in Italy since 1978). She received her Bachelor’s Degree in music in California (CSUN) and was particularly active in the field of contemporary music before going on to the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, where she specialized in medieval music under Andrea von Ramm. In Italy she studied with the late singer Cathy Berberian, among others. In 1994 she earned a diploma from the Rabine-Institut für funktionale Stimmpädagogik (Germany).
She has collaborated and recorded with numerous ensembles of early music including Sequentia (Cologne) and P.A.N. (Boston). Her first experience with early music composed by women was with her own ensemble, Concerto delle Dame (1978-89) an international group of musicians and one of the first to specialize in this repertoire. In 1991 she founded Cappella Artemisia, an ensemble of women whose repertoire is the music of Italian convents of the 16th and 17th centuries. This ensemble has six CDs currently available (on the Italian label TACTUS). In 1997, she began publishing this repertoire together with her husband, American cornettist Bruce Dickey, under the name of Artemisia Editions.
Ms. Smith is quite active as a teacher throughout Europe, working with singers of varying repertoires (both classical and non), actors, music teachers and, most recently, psychiatric patients. In this capacity she was also the assistant of Cathy Berberian, with whom she performed concerts of American music. She has held numerous seminars and workshops on the use of the voice, particularly in the field of contemporary music, for institutions and organizations in Italy and elsewhere in Europe. She is currently on the faculty of the Bernstein School of Musical Theatre in Bologna.
Her diversified studies and eclectic musical interests have given rise to an extremely varied repertoire which she exhibits in concerts of early and contemporary music as well as cabaret.
Photo: Aurora D’Aversa
Requirements
An evocative performance space is ideal. La Clausura would offer an exciting new interpretation of classic monastic cloisters, while the premiere in Narni took place in a 13th Century church, complete with original fresco work and with the benefit of its excellent acoustics. However, the performance is easily adaptable and by virtue of lighting and video projection, also lends itself well to performances in theater spaces. All other requirements (technical and cachet) are available upon request.