Watch: Two dancing parts of Pärt at Teatro Reggio Emilia

Fondazione Nazionale della Danza / Aterballetto, a pioneering dance structure in Italy presents two choreographers from Canada and Cuba: Danièle Desnoyers and Norge Cedeño Raffo. In close collaboration with the Orchestra La Toscanini of Parma, Teatro Municipale Valli Reggio Emilia is the stage for Double Side, where an ensemble of dancers, singers and string players perform a baroque suite and Arvo Pärt’s Stabat Mater.

Desnoyers comes from Montréal, the metropolis of modern Canadian dance, where his light and fluid style and his company have established him a fixture on the contemporary scene. With a strong sense of theatre , his creations always have a strong relationship with music. His new work for Aterballetto is based on a suite by Federico Gon, an Italian baroque composer who was inspired by Henry Purcell. For his part, Raffo is inspired by religious music. The up-and-coming young choreographer is a former soloist with Danza Contemporánea de Cuba, the most important contemporary company in Cuba. Arvo Pärt’s Stabat Mater becomes a painful farewell work for him. The Estonian composer set the medieval text on a mother’s sorrow to music in his characteristic reduced style. The moving effect of this music also characterises the expressive, free and pure dance. ‘How can one find hope in a broken world after such a great loss, how can one go on living?’ These are the existential questions of Norge Cedeño Raffo’s work.

Here is an introduction to the key creators of Double Side.

Streaming on 25 November 2022 at

1900 CET/ 1800 London/ 1300 NY