Image Courtesy of Rebecca Marta D’Andrea

Interview: Rebecca Marta D’Andrea

Luca Curci talks with Rebecca Marta D’Andrea during SELF MEMORIES – The contemporary sense of awareness exhibition in Venice on August 2015.
Image Courtesy of Rebecca Marta D’Andrea

Rebecca Marta D’Andrea is a dance and cross–art artist based between Bristol and Italy, whose research has been developed and performed internationally through a number of collaborations and residencies. She graduated in Choreography at Dartington College of Arts in 2006 with the dissertation ‘The relationship between audience and performer in improvised performance’, and after a period of further research into improvisation at the School for New Dance Development in Amsterdam. She is interested in investigating the potential of the creative body to enhance the communication between different languages, and as a tool to investigate deeper layers of the process of building and outbuilding our perception of reality and sense of identity, both as a solo as well as a collective process, part of an overall system of interconnected phenomena in constant transformation. As well as teaching elements of her own research exploration at Dance Space, The Island Artists Studios in Bristol, where she is based, and performing with local collectives and in collaboration with artists from other disciplines, she is currently studying an MA in Creative Practice at Independent Dance and Trinity Laban, supported by Gill Clarke bursary, researching strategies into dance composition and improvisation through a somatic approach to movement.

Image Courtesy of Rebecca Marta D’Andrea

Luca Curci – Can you talk about your personal experience in Venice? What did you think about the whole organization of the event, the artists’ selection, the communication management and opening nights?

Rebecca Dandrea –  I enjoyed taking part in it. The conversation happened mainly via e-mails, and once I arrived I felt supported by an efficient team of people.It was great to see the work that other artists had developed on the same theme and meet some of them.

Image Courtesy of Rebecca Marta D’Andrea

L. C. – What do you think about the collaboration between It’s LIQUID and Ca’ Zanardi/Venice Art House?

R. D. – It seems a fruitful collaboration.

Image Courtesy of Rebecca Marta D’Andrea

L. C. – Can you talk about the artwork you presented in Venice? How is it linked with the festival’s theme?

R. D. –  My work ‘Totem. Archaeology of the Body’ is a  dance solo which dwells into the self as a place of discovery, renewal and potential. It investigates the movement arising when the main structures of perception are liberated through a process of deconstruction that digs into the resonance of the layers of sensations carried by the body. The body becomes as a living resonant chamber, a container which is contained within the structural frameworks that has itself created, but that, in the process, finds a new place of transformation. In this piece I am inspired by de constructivist architect B. Tschumi and his idea of design as a strategy rather than a fixed composition,with the possibility of having open sequences of transformation, as well as by the concept of ‘pure memory’ of philosopher Henri Bergson. I think that in relationship to the overall theme of exhibition, the memories contained within the self are explored  through the ’emerging’ of movement that they evoke. I think of the body as a small society, where the same strategies of investigation can be applied on a micro and macro scale.

Image Courtesy of Rebecca Marta D’Andrea

L. C. – What are you currently working on?

R. D. – I am currently based in Bristol where I am a resident artist at The Island Artists Studios and I share my dance practice through teaching, performing and researching.I am currently co-organizing a short festival of somatic based dance classes called RE:Connections. This year I am also finishing  to study an MA in Creative Practice at Independent Dance and Trinity Laban Conservatory of Music and Dance in London and I am working on a final choreographic piece that will be presented next July as part of the Graduate Showcase.

Image Courtesy of Rebecca Marta D’Andrea

L. C. – What is art for you?

R. D. – Art for me is a dialogue that gives voice to the ‘unknown’ part of the individual and collective Self, in a way that can break through the boundaries of  logical understanding, and let different layers of perception emerge, to show us new possible connections within ourselves, in between each other and the environment that we live in.

Image Courtesy of Rebecca Marta D’Andrea

L. C. – What do you think about International ArtExpo and It’s LIQUID organizations? Do you think they can represent an opportunity for artists?

R. D. – I enjoyed taking part in the opening of the exhibition.It is definitely a good opportunity to present work to an audience, meet other artists and network with people with similar interests

Image Courtesy of Rebecca Marta D’Andrea

Image Courtesy of Rebecca Marta D’Andrea