CATANIA – On the evening of February 26, 2022, at the National Dance Production Center “Scenario Pubblico” in Catania, “KA-BE” acronym of Krankenbau, nurse, is staged under the artistic direction of Roberto Zappalà, a leading figure in the international contemporary dance sector. It is a production of”Megakles Ballet” with the contribution of the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities and the Sicily Region Tourism Sport Entertainment Department.
Talented professionals are Salvatore Romania and Laura Odierna, who took care of the choreography and direction, Salvatore Romania himself is a magnificent interpreter. The latter masterfully accompanied by the music of Salvo Amore on guitars, Carlo Cattano on sax and flutes and Giovanni Arena on double bass. Around the concept “Thinking”, an event is created that should have been staged in January to remember the day of Remembrance but, for objective socio-health reasons, the date moves and coincides with another sad event of war. This time it is a historic event of 2022: the invasion of Ukraine by Russia. So … really KA-BE serves to think, to reflect and to consider that history should teach us not to repeat the mistakes of the past, but not everyone treasures it and unfortunately they prefer to forget … It is immediately night … absolute darkness falls in the theatrical spaces, silence falls in the hall, the breaths of the spectators seem as dull as the lights, their eyes look into the dark and look for something or someone in the void that surrounds them, they even feel that breath of fresh wind … even if it is not there. Is it perhaps the epilogue of what a man annihilated by war experiences on his own skin? Perhaps the only thing left to him … The artistic direction has magnificently represented the weight of those atrocious moments of humanity, through dark, grey, essential atmospheres, as if to recall the entourage of the theater of the Absurd, where the human being is suspended in time, incapable to change his destiny, helpless in the face of the sense of emptiness and the unnerving uselessness of existence. The strong presence of black in the spaces of the stage writes the plot of events like ink. Their concatenation takes place extraordinarily through the body language of Salvatore Romania who, through the lines he creates, is able to trace the thoughts of the man victim of that war, his breaths, the sharp weight of his pain that runs along the entire length of the body, it creeps into the tendons, clings to the muscles, reaches the heart and destroys it… until it explodes in the head… emptied of its most beautiful thoughts. That pain took away his plans for the future, his dreams, it erased all feelings, it destroyed the dignity of being a human being. In his mind he retraces a scenario of strong physical and emotional suffering … until he explodes in madness, in an annihilation of all his strength and potential. The facial expression and the perfect mimicry of the body tell how the human being is crushed until he collapses to the ground, until he is destroyed by a political system that has deprived him of everything … leaving him with nothing, not even his identity … only his skin and the weight of his pain. The images recited by the choreography, the live music that underline the truth of the events, the amorphous darkness, the eloquent silence and the strident sighs… arouse strong emotions and reflections in the viewer. As the lights come back on and we awaken from that theatrical reality, he thinks that humanity has not undergone evolutions when it comes to power, since even today, man is annihilated by another man who will be deaf to the heartbeat of the heart, the flow of memory, the warmth of hugs and the taste of Love.
