INTERVIEW – Prior to his most recent work “DON’T BE SCARED” being part of The Royal Danish Ballet’s “Koreorama nr. 1”, Italian-born dancer and choreographer Lorenzo di Loreto created a dance film, “VIVIDREAM”, in 2022 and in February of 2024 ‘Baroccata’ for Milwaukee Ballet’s “Genesis” programme, where where it was awarded ‘Audience Favorite’.

I’ve always had a passion for choreography, I had choreographed while being a student at English National Ballet School, but it’s only during Covid that this passion really bursted while being in lockdown and not being able to express any art. The concept to “VIVIDREAM” was in fact born during the pandemic.

Can you tell me about Koreorama?

Koreorama is a choreographer development program that gives in- house selected choreographer the possibility to learn about choreography and everything that there’s behind the crafting of a piece.

I was chosen by Nikolaj Hübbe to be part of the program after applying.

Being part of Koreorama is an opportunity to experience your own creativity instead of only executing the creativity of other choreographers as it mostly happens when being a ballet dancer.

Can you describe your process? Where does a piece start? Where does the preparation lie, and how do you work in the studio?

I’m a very visual person and a piece starts from an image, very simple. That image then develops in many directions and the challenging part is making the choices of which direction you want that image to go. In the studio I take a lot from the dancers, their personalities and what their bodies can do. I then build around that. In the case of Koreorama 1. I knew most of the dancers before hand so that part was easier.

Which choreographers inspire you? Do you have role models? Why them specifically? What qualities do they have?

I’m deeply inspired by Jiří Kylián, Natália Horečná, Paul Lightfoot, and Wayne McGregor. I like their peculiar sensitivity to movement and out of the box thinking.

Can you tell us about the current piece? How did you come up with the idea? What is your intention with the work?

“DON’T BE SCARED” was born from an image, the image of the moon and the forces it has upon life on earth. The moon has a bright side and a dark side which are constant from the earth perspective and it is associated with emotions.

This piece is an invitation to have a glimpse of darkness without staring at it for too long, and finally find a connection within oneself.

I was also inspired by Schopenhauer’s dark philosophy on “The Veil of Maya” and his studies on craving, addiction and finding inner peace.

What music do you use? And who are your dancers? How long is it?

The piece has a running time of 17 minutes, I’m using music by Belgian composer Pascal Schumacher who is known to use instruments like xylophone and vibraphone which give a spacey feel and I thought was very fitting to the concept.

The cast is composed by Holly Dorger, Emma Riis, Jonathan Chemlenski, Jon Axel Fransson, Silvia Selvini, Samuel Zaldivar, Daniela De Pompeis, Mathieu Rouaux, Florence Joffre, Georgi Kapitanski, Alexander Larsson, Stephanie Sahlgren, Caroline Iversen, Mads and Lorien.

Can you tell us about your language? What are you focused on, what do you look for?

My language consists of finding points of non-balance and non-control and I focus a lot on the movement of the solar plexus.

It is extremely interesting working with classically trained dancers because of all the control the ballet technique requires. That allows me to dig deep in where to finding space to debunk all that control so that the dancer can move more freely and most of all feel what happens in their bodies when letting go. It can be quite liberating because the solar plexus is an energy centre that holds emotions.

Looking ahead, how do you imagine your work as a choreographer will evolve?

I will keep working on my language developing what possibilities there can be within a human body. This is a lifetime work but I’m excited to see what the future holds.

DON’T BE SCARED
Koreografi: Lorenzo Di Loreto
Lysdesign: Thomas Bek
Musik: ”Drops”, ”Gogopoints” & “Luna” af Pascal Schumacher
Tekst: “The Call, af Oriah “Mountain Dreamer” House fra hendes bog, THE CALL(c) 2003. Publiseret af HarperONE, San Francisco. All rights reserved. Presented with permission of the author. www.oriah.org

“Koreorama Nr. 1” is performed at Gamle Scene, 22nd March to 30th April 2024.

The head photo is a still fra Maria Albrechtsens film about Lorenzo di Loreto’s work on “DON’T BE SCARED”.