Photo: Tristán Pérez-Martín

Rítmia · 2019-2022

Rítmia is a contemporary dance and percussion project that explores the poetics of rhythm. Through the interaction between percussion and dance, we create multisensorial polyrhythms where auditory rhythm and visual rhythm support, complement and nuance each other, blurring the limits between choreographic and musical language. Inspired by the geometry and personality of different polyrhythms, we trace a rhythmic dramaturgy along a series of landscapes where music becomes corporeal, voluminous, three-dimensional. Meanwhile, dance acquires a percussive eloquence through walking sequences and looped gestures that generate their own resonances throughout space. 

An immersive journey through different rhythmic layers - each one with its own groove, density and texture - which reveals the malleable and subjective nature of our perception of time and rhythm. Rítmia invites us to feel our own internal rhythm, pulsating tirelessly under our skin, under our eyelids, under our feet.

  • Original idea - Emma Villavecchia and Mauricio Villavecchia

  • Artistic Direction - Emma Villavecchia

  • Assitant Director - Maria Soberón

  • Choreography - Emma Villavecchia in collaboration with the dancers

  • Musical composition - Mauricio Villavecchia

  • Dancers - Maria Soberon, Ursa Sekirnik, Emma Villavecchia

  • Musicians - Mario G. Cortizo, Dani Munarriz

  • External gaze - Federica Porello

  • Video and photography - Tristán Pérez-Martín

  • Support - P.A.R.T.S., CC Parc Sandaru, CC Barceloneta, Departament de Cultura - Generalitat de Catalunya

  • Production accompaniment - elclimamola

  • Executive producer - Mauricio Villavecchia

  • Premiered at Mercat de les Flors (January 2022)

Photo: Emma Villavecchia

Natural artifice · 2017

Natural Artifice is an improvisation and performance practice inspired by meditation. A state of fully embodied presence, or rather the search of such a state. A reflection on how we relate to our thoughts, other people and the environment we inhabit. A response to the anxious thirst and immediacy that often characterizes our day to day.

  • Choreography and dance - Emma Villavecchia

  • Music - Brad Mehldau

  • Support - Centre Cívic El Sortidor

 

Photos: Mireia Lozano

VICARIOUSLY VITAL · 2016

A drummer and a dancer take on the challenge of dilating a climactic scene that verges on sensory overload. They want to inhabit that moment where time is suspended, senses are sharpened and the present imposes itself second after second. In a constant dialogue between rhythm and physicality, they try to maintain the initial intensity through a succession of patterns that eventually gets warped and deconstructed. Together we will have to be attentive to unpredictable changes, intoxicated by the performers' vitality.

  • Artistic direction - Emma Villavecchia

  • Choreography - Emma Villavecchia in collaboration with Kaya Lovestrand

  • Music - Joan Carles Marí

  • Dance - Kaya Lovestrand

  • Supported by Centre Cívic El Sortidor and G.R.U.A.

  • Presented at Festival Sismògraf - Caravana de Tráilers (Olot)

 
 

Photos: Caleb Blansett

QUINTET FOR SQUARE · 2014

After being invited on stage, the audience is placed around three sides of an empty square. The fourth side is closed off by musicians. Five dancers walk into the theater and take their places, one in each corner: four corners for five dancers. This asymmetry initiates a series of solos. As each dancer presents herself one by one, the rest of them watch, together with the audience, from a close distance. A series of gaze vectors is thus created: we watch dancers being watched and dancers watching other dancers. At one point the dancers fall into a unison phrase, tapping into a shared rhythm that quickly dissolves back into the chaos of idiosyncrasies. Inside this real and metaphorical square, notions of individuality and community are explored.

  • Artistic direction - Emma Villavecchia

  • Choreography - Emma Villavecchia in collaboration with the dancers

  • Dance - Chloe Ëngel, Kaya Lovestrand, Amalia Wiatr Lewis, Audre Wirtanen and Fann Xu

  • Musical composition - Luca Nioi in collaboration with the musicians

  • Lighting design - Braden Williams

  • Musicians - Duncan Bullen, Max Epstein, Edward Haweeli and Luca Nioi

  • Support - Bennington College

 
 

Photos: Caleb Blansett

LACUNA · 2014

A dance solo that focuses on inhabiting different shapes, dynamics, and pathways, in a constant dialogue with silence and music. Different vectors are created and redirected, and volumes are gathered, spinned, and destroyed. Every action morphs into another, a single line traveling through an ever-changing landscape. Meanwhile, an undercurrent of Spanish dance emerges.

  • Choreography and dance - Emma Villavecchia

  • Music - Portico Quartet

  • Lighting Design - Braden Williams

  • Presented at Bennington College and No Theme Performance Festival (USA)