The Luxembourg Showcase comes the Edinburgh Fringe next month to present artists making brilliant and bold dance works. This programme is designed to support, promote and develop the Luxembourgish cultural scene and communicate its identity to a world stage.
We will be spotlighting three artists each presenting work as part of this programme: Simone Mousset, Giovanni Zazzera and Jill Crovisier.
We spoke with artist Giovanni Zazzera who is presenting their work Negare at the festival.
Q: Tell me about your practice and artistic journey?
A: Hi, my name is Giovanni Zazzera, choreographer and Artistic Director of the Z ART Dance company established in Luxembourg. I trained at the Luxembourg Dance Conservatory and continued my studies in Brazil where I was asked to work for various companies. Since 2010, I have performed regularly in the international and Luxembourg scenes.
I thrive on sharing bodies and the movement that emerges from them, playing with their vibrations, singularities, unique languages, and the emotions that emerge.
Convinced that movement is a human necessity, my multidisciplinary artistic approach focuses on the trust of the body, guided by its inherent energy where images, movements and emotions appear. Fascinated by the complexity of the human being, my work explores the identity and authenticity of movement through poetry to the absurd, social, emotional, and temporal subjects, materialising it in space, time, and moments.
In my work, I constantly seek to reinforce an identity rooted in the essence of movement, oriented towards the human and the living, nurturing a rich and complete subject matter.
Q: What drew you to presenting work as part of Fringe 2024?
A: Beyond being honoured to have been selected among Luxembourg’s artists to represent our country’s dance and choreographic performance culture through the solo NEGARE, the FRINGE festival is one of the major events in the artistic and live performance scene. Its exceptional diversity makes it a unique and captivating festival. My work focuses on a variety of arts and cultural media, providing access to dance for a broader audience. As a choreographer, it is essential for me to diversify my approach, to question my work, and to share my choreographic universe with a new audience. The Fringe will allow me to connect my art to a wider and more varied audience.”
Overall, I feel honoured and pleased. I’m delighted to share my work and my choreographic universe with a new audience that is vast, diverse, and international – hoping to offer them unique emotions through this singular solo.
Q: What can audiences expect when experiencing your work? What won’t they expect?
A: NEGARE is a sensitive and intriguing piece about the journey of a character who perpetuates a need to observe himself and to feel observed in order to expose his identity to the gaze of others. Exposing yourself in front of an audience takes courage, or sometimes simply creates a need to exist. In ‘NEGARE’, this body imposes itself, seated on its throne surrounded by a golden carpet, quietly waiting with its carrot in hand for the arena to fill up so that it can finally exist and invite us into its intimate dialogue with itself and its search for identity. Sometimes absurd, sometimes touching, Alexandre invites us to discover him and his authenticity.
In this piece, we question and re-interrogate the identity that defines us, the one we ascribe to ourselves and, above all, the one our environment ascribes to us. Whether through our visible or invisible appearance, our beliefs, and our convictions, we construct an identity that enables us to adapt to our environment. Constantly evolving, our identity takes on different shapes and colours throughout our lives, influenced by the way we look at the world and the way the world looks at us. In this piece, we explore our quest for identity in constant transformation, questioning, emptying, and filling itself to adapt to a constantly changing ecosystem.
My work often focuses on the human being and their various states – be they emotional, political, or temporal. What identifies my past and current creations is the questioning and search for the non-palpable, the invisible visible, the fragility of the moment, of the instant, and of the present movement. Something that is often found in the creations I wear.
Experiencing my work, I hope to offer audiences unique emotions through this singular solo piece.
Q: Who or what influences you the most?
A: The beauty and infinite diversity of life around us.
Inspiration can be found everywhere. We just need to take a different look at our daily lives, whether it be existing works, the elements that surround us or the actions we perform. This change of perspective allows us to discover infinite sources of inspiration Through the prism of our gaze and our reflection, we give life to the creative intention. The objective that I carry is to share it through a creative process, to bring sensitivity, which allows those who look at our work to open-up to new sensations, to feel, to question themselves and to activate a sharing that belongs to them.
Q: What makes art so valuable to society/culture/communities, in your opinion?
A: Art allows us to express various emotions, ideas, and experiences. It creates connections between people by sharing unique stories and perspectives. Art helps shape cultural identity, encourages creative thinking, and stimulates the imagination. It pushes us to see the world from new perspectives. Art encourages us to think, lead us to ask questions, question norms, and invite us to see beyond the obvious. Art evokes deep emotions, brings comfort, inspires hope, or provokes reflection. A powerful means of communication and evolution, art transcends everyday life, connects us to our common humanity, and enriches our collective experience.
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Negare is choreographed by Giovanni Zazzera, performed by Alexandre Lipaux, and is presented by Z Art Dance Company, as part of the Luxembourg selection supported by KulturLX.
You can watch Negare at C ARTS | C venues | C aquila (Studio) on 12-25 Aug (not 19) at 14:40. Tickets are £9-£13.