Sunday 19 February 2017

The Project: Nino Rota's La Strada Suite with Uncommon Movers

We will be creating a musical and visual piece using Nino Rota's La Strada Suite.
As a flute player, I will be part of the orchestra. We will work with dancers to use movement and space to enhance the music and evoke themes expressed in the film. 


The film


Federico Fellini's La Strada is an oscar winning 1954 Italian drama, set in a poor, postwar rural Italy. Zampano, a travelling sideshow strongman buys the innocent and unusual Gelsomina from her mother. Zampano is a cruel and abusive companion, teaching her the snare drum, trumpet and how to be his assistant.


As well as the trumpet, the violin features heavily in the film. It is played by the unfortunate fool, whose heartbreaking melody is a major theme of the suite.
Questions of morality, purpose and love persist throughout the film, leaving a tragic end against the backdrop of the circus.


The Composer


Nino Rota (1911 - 1979)


Nino Rota was an Italian musician, who became a child prodigy. He ventured into many styles of music and was known as both a composer and conductor.
Starting in the early 1940s, Fellini was the first director Rota worked with. Rota  had a series of successes in film music, receiving an Oscar for Best Original Score for The Godfather II. ), King Vidor, René Clément, Edward Dmytrik and Eduardo de Filippo. Additionally, he composed the music for many theatre productions by Visconti, Zefirelli and de Filippo.


The Performance: Dance Jam during CoLab's Spaghetti Southern Night

Friday 24th February, Laban Building, Creekside. 7pm
More information/tickets - Italian Night

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