Millepied and Tharaud, a duo from concert with "Unstill Life"

Spoleto, June 20, 2023 - He chooses the Spoleto Festival Benjamin Millepied for his return to dance. After his poetic Romeo and Juliet as choreographer, Millepied returns to dancing to a beautiful musical program masterfully performed on the piano by his friend Alexandre Tharaud in a light, fun and charming performance. The new creation Unstill Life, scheduled at the Teatro Romano Saturday, June 25, 2023 at 9:30 p.m., is a tale of an art friendship made of gestures, smiles, physical and spiritual contact, between reunions and separation, between sharing and individuality. A solo becomes a duet that flows smoothly between the notes of Rameau to Beethoven passing from Bach and Schubert, black and white images, dialogues in the background in which the two artists seem to reverse their roles. Benjamin Millepied has the lightness and fluidity of the greatest dancers, from Gene Kelly to Michael Baryshnikov, to whom he says he owes his vocation as a dancer, born after watching Luchino Visconti's The White Nights. A reflection on time and the role of the performer, through the body and through notes, in which the elements of the masters return clear, from Jerome Robbins to George Balanchine, in an evocative atmosphere imbued with romantic irony. Alexander Tharaud makes his hands dance, caught on video from Millepied, who to in turn seems to twirl in the music in a continuous dialogue with the piano, to to which he returns each time to start again. The choreography enhances his qualities: musicality, speed, dynamics and purity of line, with a hint of irony, as when he points out to Tharaud who can no longer to keep up...

The black and white images, to recounting their Chaplin-style encounter, the live video footage, the genuine sincerity of the two protagonists that touches moments of deep tenderness, make this show a synthesis of absolute musicality, in which the viewer - quoting Balanchine himself - can see the music and hear the dance.