'Dirigere lo zoo': alcune contese tra danza e musica nel Novecento

The essay goes over some quarrels about the alliance between dance and music, along the XXth century, beginning from the political transformation of the spatial dimension of listening, from the notion of montage in dance as an independent answer from the structure of music, and from the use of notation (score) as an active part of the creative process. At the heart of it, it seems to predominate what Nabokov called the musical zoo of Djagilev’s Ballets Russes, in which the idea of the past is a supplement of history; it is then continually outstanding nostalgia in front of the ruins of time, as likewise in the experimentation of Massine’s symphonic ballet and in the imperial air of Balanchine’s symphonic choreographies. In his diaries, Nižinskij had already sanctioned the overcoming of the eyes in favour of an autonomy of the feelings, which is capable of throwing into crisis the unity between dance and music, whereas in Laban’s theory this tension seems to turn out to be a renouncement. It seems therefore to prefigure a final paradox, which is able to violate the historical alliance, between dance and music, whilst respecting it: it is necessary to know how to create an internal depth of listening, in order to be able to dance the music without the repetition of a mere external listening.