Fellini and the Dance

by Sonia Schoonejans

In his 1963 film La Ricotta, italian writer and director Pier Paolo Pasolini gave these words about Federico Fellini to Orson Welles: “He dances, yes, he dances”.
Beyond the relationship between dance and cinema and despite the denials of Fellini himself who claimed to have no knowledge of dance, the great filmmaker’s camera work and the rhythm of his editing establish dance-like movements. Suffice to recall the opening images of Amarcord in which white sheets flap in the wind next to a woman who has come to hang out her laundry, not to mention the moments of actual dancing that creep into practically all of his films, from Luci di varietà in 1950 to La Voce della luna from 1990.
Dance sequences are most often integrated simply into the narrative, and carry various meanings, be they festive, cathartic, ritualistic or simply as the manifestation of a youthful impulse, a bubbling-up of innocent life-force. In La Strada for example, the character of Gelsomina, having been mistreated by Zampanò, restores her natural cheerfulness when she performs a dance step. Likewise, the young prostitute in Le notti di Cabiria (Nights of Cabiria) escapes the deceptive nature of her profession when dance allows her to express her true joyful and spontaneous nature. When in 8½, a young woman leads an older man into a wild version of the twist, he finds himself cheered up, all under the doubtful gaze of Guido, a filmmaker lacking inspiration and in the midst of a personal crisis. It is through dance again that the outcome of Guido’s existential dilemma is expressed: having gone through his own past and experienced doubts and uncertainties, he gets caught up in the great danced farandole which ends the film. By joining his crew, his friends and those close to him in this dancing circle, he finds once again his role in life as well as his creativity.
Sometimes, in addition to expressing life force, dance can be a tool of seduction as in Satyricon, when Trimalchion’s wife dances lasciviously in front of her husband. The first stirrings of erotic desire are also shown through dance as when, returning to 8½, schoolchildren ask Saraghina to dance the rumba!!
Fellini’s films use all characteristic aspects of dance from its origins to those of today in manifold ways, providing catharsis and social and sensual connection with others. This, perhaps, may explain the attraction of Fellini’s cinema to choreographers. What is certain is the number of choreographic and musical adaptations which his films have engendered of which La Strada remains the most notable example.
Among the various works inspired by this film, Mario Pistoni’s produced in 1966 for Milan’s La Scala Ballet stands out, featuring Carla Fracci in the role of Gelsomina and Pistoni himself as Zampanò. It is ballet full of choreographic invention which successfully translates the poetic and nostalgic universe of the film on to the stage and which was regularly revived at the theatre.
Pistoni’s ballet was revived in France in 2015 when, under Ivan Cavallari’s directorship, Strasburg’s Ballet du Rhin staged it with new sets and costumes which moved away from the more ‘realistic’ originals.
In 1995 Micha Van Hoecke staged a dreamlike show under the title Fellini for Rome Opera Ballet. The Belgian choreographer has always admired the film director, who he compares to a kind of “special type of detective who looks at existence with a mysterious, captivating magnifying glass.” The ballet focused on the filmmaker’s life, with Natalia Makarova playing Giulietta Masina (the director’s wife and muse) and Jean Babilée in the title role.
In 1999, Italian choreographer Luciano Cannito created his imaginary Amarcord at La Scala, Milan, which was then taken on tour to New York by the company.
During an evening in homage to Fellini, Maurice Béjart, also an admirer of the filmmaker, created and choreographed a narrative for his own company which brought certain Fellini characters back to life.
In 2018, Monica Casadei, as director of Artemis Danza, created I Bislacchi (The Weirdos), an evocation of the filmmaker’s universe through characters and scenes taken from the master’s films.
Several American composers and directors have also drawn on Fellin’s filmography, creating musicals for Broadway before making them into films, the clearest example of which was Sweet Charity, a 1966 stage musical directed and choreographed by Bob Fosse and then made by him into a film in 1969; it was inspired by Le notti di Cabiria whose story he adapted and placed in an American context. The sweet Roman prostitute becomes a taxi girl working in a seedy cabaret bar. Despite watering down the main theme, Fosse brought its nonetheless explosive subject matter to New York musical theatre for the first time and established a new type of neo-realism on Broadway. Fellini, who did not in fact choose to block this adaptation, nevertheless preferred not to appear in the credits.
Ten years later, Fosse decided to adapt 8½ into a musical which, after Broadway, he then directed on film. To further immerse himself in the Fellini approach during filming, Fosse hired Giuseppe Rotunno, Fellini’s own director of photography.
8½ also inspired composer Maury Yeston, author of the libretto and songs for the 1982 Broadway musical Nine which became a film in 2009. It was for this show that Alvin Ailey created his only work on Broadway. The adaptation features a single male character, Guido from 8½, surrounded only by women. Once again, Fellini had refused to be associated with the project and only changed his mind when he heard the first songs from the show. He then invited Yeston to Rome where he was able to perform them on the piano that belonged to Nino Rota, the composer of the music for several of Fellini’s films.
Finally, in writing about Fellini and dance, we can’t fail to mention his meeting with Pina Bausch in 1982 after a show given by the choreographer and her company at the Teatro Olimpico in Rome. Moved by Bausch’s sleepwalking ‘dance’ in Café Müller, the master offered her the role of the Blind Princess in E la Nave va (The Ship Sails On). This filming seems to have influenced the choreographer’s later pieces. Not only did Pina herself direct a film, Die Klage der Kaiserin (The Complaint of an Empress), but significantly, from 1983, the year of la Nave, onwards, the choreographer used video a great deal in her stage settings as a moving backdrop. As for Fellini, in recognizing a great choreographer and dancer to the point of wanting her in his film, is this not a way of placing dance among the major arts?
With Fellini as with Bausch, through the power of images and gestures, art touches areas of consciousness beyond the scope of words. In many of Fellini’s films, there exist the signs of an imminent catastrophe awaiting the Western world: the dead fish at the end of La Dolce Vita, the enormous wrecking ball that destroys the rehearsal room in Prova d’orchestra, the sunken ship in E la nave va where the worthless singers of a civilisation in decline are piled up. In the shows created by Bausch, we also frequently experience the impression of a latent threat, a threat from which her dancers seek to escape, so they panic and run as if on the edge of a precipice.
Sonia Schoonejans

The Triumph of Cojocaru
La Strada – chor. Natalia Horecná, mus. Nino Rota – Alina Cojocaru & Acworkroom Prod.
London, Sadler’s Wells Theatre
Alina Cojocaru’s return to the London stage in a new ballet inspired by Federico Fellini’s 1954 film La Strada provided a real ‘sit up and take notice’ moment for the capital’s dance-going public: here was what has been missing for some time – a real star. Cojocaru, who, having established herself as one of The Royal Ballet’s finest performers between 1999 to 2013, left the company alongside her regular stage partner and husband Johan Kobborg. Since then, she has enjoyed a varied career becoming something of a muse at Hamburg Ballet for choreographer John Neumeier.
London has missed her greatly, and her appearance in Slovakian-born choreographer Natalia Horeèná ‡
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s wildly uneven new work was nevertheless something to be celebrated. It was immediately apparent that she has lost none of her tremendous qualities as a dance artist; the flowing nature of her movement, a strong technique, a deep understanding of character and an innate sense of theatrical effect. As Gelsomina, the innocent sold into marriage with a brute, she brought so much detail and depth to her characterisation which, given the caricatures of the other performers can only have come from within her own artistry.
Horeèná’s competent, broadly “neo-classical” style was at is weakest in narrative, stronger in more abstract sections, many of which involved Cojocaru partnered (very well) by two angel-like figures as she retreats from the harsh reality of her life onto a more spiritual plane.
It was a genuine pleasure to see Kobborg, now 51, again on stage – trim, alert, technically strong and even able to juggle and ride a unicycle, while ex-La Scala principal Mick Zeni was given little to work with, the choreographer having shied away from his character Zampanó’s brutality, leaving him with far too much Soviet-style wide-eyes and air-clutching.
The circus/travelling entertainer setting is not a success. Whilst performing troupes fascinated post-war creators and audiences (Roland Petit’s ballet Les Forains, Marcel Carné’s Les Enfants du Paradis (both 1945) and Fellini’s 1954 La Strada are a few examples), those days are long past, so that Horecná’s funny movements and silly walks only set the teeth on edge.
Fatally, she herself selected an extensive selection of excerpts from Nino Rota scores, stretching to prologue, two acts and an epilogue what should have been a one-act work (as was Italian choreographer’s Mario Pistoni’s 1966 distillation for La Scala and Carla Fracci).
However, it was a mark of Cojocaru’s luminous artistry that when she herself was performing, none of the above seemed to matter, such was the pleasure and satisfaction that she gave to an appreciative audience. Unlike many, she reminded us once again that for a great dancer, technical mastery is merely the beginning of the journey and not the end.
Gerald Dowler