Manbuhsona, or large Manbuhsa. Created within the Oriente Occidente residency programme, Pablo Girolami's piece is an evolution of his first successful work as an independent artist, in the form of a duet.
Dancer and choreographer, born in Neuchâtel with Italian-Spanish origins, Pablo Girolami graduated from the Tanz Akademie Zuerich and was a professional dancer at the Hessisches Staatsballett in Wiesbaden/Darmstadt. As a choreographer, he earned a certain renown in Italy at the latest Vetrina della giovane danza d'autore in Ravenna promoted by the Anticorpi network. This led to Lanfranco Cis' idea of offering the artist a residency at Oriente Occidente, to develop the successful duet Manbuhsa – which went on to win the 33rd Madrid choreography competition (Certamen Coreográfico de Madrid) – into a larger work for a group of five dancers. Girolami has gathered around him four performers, plus Giacomo Todeschi, who collaborated in the creation of the duet; he has chosen not to perform on the stage but to watch the performers from the sidelines, as they embark on a journey in the discovery of the origin of our instincts, starting from the observation of animal courtship. «Watching how birds behave during courtship», he says, «during the wedding parade, the coloured plumage of the peacocks' wheel, and the architectural beauty of their movements, greatly influenced me in designing the sequences of physical movements centred on seduction. Manbuhsa was born from there: from the imaginative human transposition of certain peculiar animal dances. Now with Manbuhsona, working with a small community, I intend to expand the play, developing the dramatic composition on two parallel planes, alongside the sensuality of instinctive courtship, I intend to investigate the ensuing social and urban conflict».
Structured as two acts with intervals called Confusion/Contemplation/Revelation and Inspiration/Lightening/Discovery, Manbuhsona uses a global musical collage where traditional ethnic melodies meet clubbing and the deep seated pulses of dub music.
