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This is an artistic residency that is part of a bi-annual independent dance festival, called “IDEA – International Dance Encounter Amman”.

This residency was  led by dancer & choreographer Enrico Paglialunga and the musician & composer Giacomo Mattogno.

The Berlin based duo collide the worlds of sound and movement manifesting the current results in performances, live concerts, laboratorie and public participation formats. In 2018, they initiated the a project called InCapsula.

“We are Enrico Paglialunga and Giacomo Mattogno, dancer-choreographer and musician-composer, and co-founders of the InCapsula project.

InCapsula is the ‘site’ for multidisciplinary encounters between dance and music, in collaboration with artists and professionals from a wide range of backgrounds – encounters which translate into performances, live concerts, workshops and open participatory formats.”

— InCapsula

Story Behind

“So InCapsula is an encounter of dance and sound.

For a lot of people, bring dance and music elements together would mean that a dancer plays music and dance with the rhythm. But that is not what we do. We would look into varies layers of a piece of music in depth. And our exploration of reflected in the artistic residency, and the result of a group piece, we did in Jordan. Prior to the Jordanian residency, we had conducted similar workshops in Berlin where people look into different layers of music.”

 — Enrico Paglialunga

Each person in the workshops were representing a different instrument of a music piece. We imagine this choreographic process as re-visiting the relationship between dance and sound.

Dance, Sound, Physics & Astronomy

“Giacomo Mattogno, the co-founder of InCapsula, has experience in sound engineering.

It is through him that I broadened a lot of my work. I met Giacomo in a studio in Berlin.

At that time, he did not know much about dance and I did not know much about sound. By working together, we discovered each other’s field. There was a time that he would just play certain sound and I would move, while no parameter set.

fter a while, we found a strong link between us in the human level and in the artistic level. I felt there is a strong emotion that his sound could evoke in me. That was the beginning of our exploration of different stimulus. Giacomo introduced the physical side of sound to me.

He explained to me how sound travel through space. how would air molecules interact with each other as all sounds are made by vibrations of molecules through which the sound travels. and sound.

I am very intrigued by the sound is because we cannot see vibrations or air molecules, but for my voice to reach your ears, a lot movements happening in the air. This fascination gave birth to a project called “Shape of moving waves.”

 — Enrico Paglialunga

“As InCapsula, we have a focus on community involvement. We intentionally bring people to our creation. We adopt open participatory formats and value audience building.

We enjoy include people who have never been to theatre to join us, to create an artistic piece, a dance performance to us.

We think it is important to include people who are normally outside of a dance studio to come inside of the making process. It is beneficial to break an artistic bubble where artists create only to satisfy their own interests.”

— InCapsula

The Process

For 5 days, a group of 16 Jordanian participants from different backgrounds joined Enrico Paglialunga and Giacomo Mattogno in an exploration movement and sound.

“It was interesting that at the beginning of the residency, I was not very familiar with the background of the participants. I noticed some participants was often on their phones. I was trying to push them to be more attentive and more active. For a while, I was wondering whether the participants were interested to be there taking the residency or not.

Later I became more aware of the local culture, started to understand the participants in their local context. On the third day of 5-day-residency, I emphasized that as a group piece, I would really want to encourage the participants to physically touch each other, to connect to one another in space and closely with their bodies. I was stressing that it was important to be connected at an emotionally level and at physical level. At this point, I felt that there was a certain kind of resistance from the participants. Some participants appear to be very skeptical. Some appear that they are very reluctant to work in my direction. For a while, I did not know the reason behind this. I thought perhaps some participants are shy, or they expect more time to trust each other, to trust me, to trust what we were doing together. Only later I learnt from the participants that it was not encouraged to touch one another in their culture. It came as a surprise to me at the third day of the residency. And I realized that I had we had only two days left to create a performance.

So on the third of the residency, I was witnessing that the choreography was at the edge of collapsing. I decided to have a discussion with the participants. In the discussion, I apologized to the participants that I was adopting an approach which was based on my assumptions. I told the participants that it is incredible to be submerged in a new environment and it was a great learning process for me. After we opened ourselves up, the working experience on the fourth day was brilliant. It was more or less a miracle that on the the fourth day, participants broke the ice and walked out of their comfort zones to accept physical touch. Suddenly, as if something clicked, and the participants understood it is not only creating an art work, but also a process of discovering one’s own body, of discovering the space they were in. They felt that they could put their social norms aside, and try to explore the world in a different way. This was very impressive to me. We managed to create a safe space where we practice our arts, and feel free. I was very happy that the participants took this artistic residency as an opportunity for find their internal freedom.

Audiences in Amman had a glimpse of the in initial solo we created in 2018 and also experienced a group piece of the residency result built upon my initial exploration.”

 — Enrico Paglialunga

“We had a very intense experience with Jordan as a country, and with local participants as a residency. In the 5-day-residency. 

In these 5 days, I have worked with non-dancers and conducted the residency in Amman.

I found it inspiring to work with non-dancers, with people of different background, of different ages. In my work, it is important to include a participatory approach, and bring people together, emphasize on the human-side of dance making, meanwhile maintain the quality of the final result of the work to be professional.”

— Enrico Paglialunga

Cast:

  • Concept: InCapsula
  • Choreography: Enrico Paglialunga
  • Original music (Live): Giacomo Mattogno – Junction To Humanity
  • Dance: Qased Ihsan, Rashmi Yeolekar, Mariam Amer, Raneem Wajeeh Nahhas,Yazan Issa, Suhaib Khalel, Ahmad Shaker Alfaleh, Akka Hamdan, الطيب رزق, Elias Shaheen, Ahmad Maher Haniya, Ammar Daoud, Ibrahim Al-Sakhni
  • Assistance: Maysam Nasier & فريق وهج الشمس للفنون المسرحية والفلكلورية
  • Photography: Mohammad Ema
  • Videography, video-editing: Mohammadali Awad

The first 3 days’ of residency took place in Al Balad Theater which is located in renovated old cinema house in Downtown, Amman. We appreciate the generous support from Tamasi Collective, Arab Theater Training Center, and Al Balad Theater. The 4th day’s residency, and the final performance took place in Jordan National Gallery of Fine Arts.

The final performance lasted 30 minutes. 

Enrico Paglialunga

Enrico Paglialunga is an Italian performer-teacher-young choreographer based in Berlin and co-founder of the project InCapsula art scenario.

Since 2015 he teaches regular training at Tanzfabrik Berlin and he is guest teacher at Dock 11 Berlin, Marameo Berlin, Danceworks Berlin, TanzKompanie des landesbühnen Sachsen, WeeDance company Gh-Theater, Profitraining Leipzig LOFFT Theater, Thaeter Pforzheim, Ig Tanz Ost.

He danced and choreographed in various projects in Europe and USA , working for TanzTheater Internazional Hannover, Helena Waldmann, Brice Mousset, Enzo Celli, WeeDance Company, Theater Strahl & DeDansers and choreographing for National Dance Academy Rome, Tanzfabrik Berlin, WeeDance Company and InCapsula art scenario.

Enrico is currently collaborating with Cia Sonia Rodriguez Hernandez, Transforma Berlin and attending a dance movement therapy education at Arte.do/ University of Salento (IT).

enricopaglialunga.ep@gmail.com

+4915778450210

https://incapsula.org/

Giacomo Mattogno

Giacomo Mattogno is an Italian composer, musician, and producer, in the field of contemporary/electronic music.

Trained at the St. Louis Academy in Rome, he moved to Berlin where he founded his project, Junction to Humanity; due to its international characteristics, this project unites different cultures, influences and musical concepts from the US, Germany, and Italy.

Giacomo is also the founder of Nordpathrecords: in his works he combines organic and electronic music, building an atmosphere of noises and sounds able to evoke non-linear elements, thus capturing different moods of the listener.

mattogno.giacomo@gmail.com

info@incapsula.org

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