#08 THE DANCE OF THE MOTH

All Eyes On > #08 THE DANCE OF THE MOTH

Barre & Ashes

Mari Combi

She /Her/He/Him/They/Them

IG: @mari_dicenere

Reading time 7 min 10 sec

Speaking time 13 min 47 sec

Flying from one side of the city to the other, you can feel the euphoria of youth, and despite the young age, there is already a lot to talk about:

"Ballet came about very naturally because if you are a child and you are 5 years old in Sondrio and you want to do things, they put you in ballet class.

When I was 13, I auditioned for the Ukrainian Ballet Academy and there my career as a professional dancer began.

I did four years in Milan, the Inferno. I then did three years in London, at the Central School of Ballet, 

In Milan, I struggled with the teachers' teaching methods.

I had many questions but there was no space for my questions, no space to open a conversation.... There was religious silence, systematic abuse, and a super toxic environment.

But it's a ballet classic, that is. It's the norm. I think it's a period in history where a lot of scandals are coming out in a lot of schools and ballet academies. Some friends of mine who are in the ballet world are telling me "Oh my God, did you hear about this/that school, this/th thing? crazy! " 

When I was 17 to 20 years old, I had a good time in London, but I also went through a bit of a rough patch, I had a lot of problems with injuries and I had chronic tendonitis, so I did very little dancing. Paradoxically, because I was there dancing and watching my mates go on and I was like: I will never be able to dance. 

How did I solve that in my life? By not wearing ballerinas.

And then... the magic!

When I finished the ballet academy, I was able to open up a bit more to contemporary, even though I didn't know exactly what it was. But I had made up my mind and studied more.

I was in Israel in 2018. For six months.

It was actually very nice, it was its own bubble. I lived in Israel, but I lived in the 'most left-wing kibbutz in all of Israel' with more than 400 people.

Dance, dance, international people. A place where there were a lot of cultures and a lot of freedom, and yet certain things were still taboo and it was a bit of a heavy place. Nevertheless, it was the place that opened up contemporary dance to me and where I enjoyed it so much.

And it's the place where I did my first choreography, because it was compulsory and it scared me. Each of us had to bring a little piece of four minutes maximum and I had brought a duet which was a solo but actually there were two of us on stage where I was singing and this half-Algerian girl was dancing and it was to the notes of an Algerian song called Rawi, a song about peace, it's about the desire for peace in Arabic. 

That was my first approach, to try to create something, and now I want to see a common thread in the things I create, to be able to recreate a world, a world to inhabit, whether it's four minutes, an hour, or whatever format I'm interested in, to be able to take you to another place, maybe another dimension, but just another secluded place outside of everyday reality... this is my means of communicating through art.

Then I went to Catania, I did another course with a company and then to Brussels where I worked as a freelancer, I was with a guy who was already living in Brussels and he asked me to follow him... so January 2020 came and then the Covid... 

In 2021, I thought I wanted to dedicate myself to creation, during a period of closure, I decided to invest in studying and I was accepted to a master's degree in choreography in Zurich, which was a big turning point in my life because it brought me to the city where I still live and where I still plan to live, at least for the present and and the forseeable future.

I approached this place with awareness, it was a bit like a chrysalis coming off.

I have found a home and people who are there for me... all in a very short time... I finished my Master's degree last year and I find myself at a very special time in my life because so many things are moving, everything together, everything in sync, after so much waiting. 

As for my classical training, I had always felt very backward, not up to standard and not OK, I had never worked in a company or other 'classical stages'... as if I had missed a series of steps that could give me the status of a truly professional dancer... 

In June 2024 the Italian premiere of my piece, my master project, a project about moths called "Ali di Cenere - If you never see me, do I still exist?", which is a little window inside my head or my heart, depending on your point of view, as a choreographer and performer... the two things are very connected, I am more often inside the pieces I make than outside them. It's a choice I make consciously, because for me it comes from a need to perform, and then there are contexts where I don't feel it or I'm not asked, so I just stand outside and it's another job.

There are three of us on stage, the whole team consists of eight people, the original version consisted of four girls on stage, a costume designer, two stage designers and two musicians.

This project means everything to me. 

This new version is even more real, somehow I have more vocabulary to approach it... also this restaging process, which I started in March for a residency with the girls and then continued, has made me realise how much I am finding the consciousness within me and being able to externalise it... there is more precision, everything was already there but I had not found a way to convey it. There is more precision, everything was already there but I couldn?t find a way to convey it, now instead we approach the movement in a much more precise way and the moths are just an excuse to talk about so many things: the feminine, the discovery of the self, the body, how life is in constant movement and constant evolution and this piece continues to grow with us. ...for me, a piece does not stop evolving until the last time it is performed, even in codified classical ballets. every time it is a different performance because there will always be an element that goes outside the box. 

It happens more and more often that a piece can be conceived precisely to keep growing, to keep changing, especially when you work with structured improvisation, where you give yourself rules and you play on stage, that's what I like about this piece, we play with each other on stage, we have our language, it's so much fun because we have a structure in which we 'swim' and then we end up hugging and it's beautiful, we look into each other's eyes and we feel super united... another very important thing.

As far as I am concerned, you cannot separate work from your personal life in dance projects, no matter how complicated it can be, communication is very important, a lot of maturity and a lot of concern for the situations of the people you work with.

Last but not least, I have recently been offered to work for a big name in the international art and performance scene, which will be another incredible madness...

It scares me from a certain point of view, also because of what it means socially and politically... but as much as I am against some of the prerogatives that these big institutions represent anyway, this will open so many doors... it would be foolish not to do it. 

I dream of being able to do exactly what I'm doing now? in a more structured way and to be able to make a living from it, to be able to travel around Europe and the world with different projects that are my 'ash wings' or that are projects for others, to continue to build relationships, which is what interests me most, because choreography is a very inclusive art that needs a lot of other kinds of art.

Feedback from the audience I haven't had yet... and I don't know if I want to focus on understanding it, I'm much more interested in the feedback from the people I work with and the fact that my team is happy: when I go to rehearsal before a premiere with Bea, who is my dancer, we dance while waiting for the tram, it's only when I look at us that I realise this is why I do what I do.

I dance on stage but I create things, I have to think about everyone, people, flights and trains to catch, schedules and deadlines and so many other things to do... but there are these moments of wonder when I say - well... happy? Hell, yeah.

..Then I know I am doing something right..

The world of dance is wonderful, but it is also extremely closed and difficult, you have to dedicate your whole life to dance ... the body does not lie. 

In classical ballet they say: -If you don't go to class for one day, you notice it, if you don't go to class for two days, everyone notices it.

You have to be so disciplined to be there every day doing your bars and exercises and it pays off slowly but it has taught me so much because without ballet training I wouldn't have that structure and then in much more chaotic moments I can come back to myself.  I wake up centred, do my exercises, find my balance and then I can go on with the rest of the day, with the rest of my life, with a clear mind.

The moth for me is an extremely fascinating being, extremely misunderstood that is a little bit weird, and a little bit gross, they are hairy but super interesting animals, super sweet and people don't realize how important moths are, even on a scientific level, on an ecosystem level they are good for pollination, then they go around at night, they are happy, they follow the stars and away .. it's a parallelism, it's a desire for myself and with humanity 

I mean to bring forward softness as an act of resistance ... we live in a world where it seems that we only need to come forward with our teeth, and often it is true because it is a shitty world, but perhaps the way to defeat the system is to be soft, with ourselves and with others".

Landing back on earth after flying with Maria...