choreogrphy Anna Basti
performer Anna Basti
Duration 60 min.
Le classique c’est chic! is a research platform created with the aim of deconstructing the imagery surrounding classical technique, with the desire to provide as many people as possible with tools for understanding and reclaiming their bodies. The classes for nonprofessionals (débutants) are the heart of this project, as is the relationship with public space, which shapes each teaching proposal. The urban furnishings become barres for the occasion, and the very layout of the space dictates how the body moves through it. This is a way to reclaim and re-signify public space, enacted through the body as an expression of collective care, using classical technique – which, by contrast, often excludes bodies and, at best, confines them to endure varying degrees of strain to reach an aesthetic model. The target audience is non-professionals, and the class is conceived as a porous, living structure, that anyone can move through, engaging with their body, even casually or spontaneously. The articulation of the exercises is closely linked to the place that will host the project, with which a necessary dialogue is triggered that generates solutions and strategies for each occasion: the class can only be prepared after having specifically established the place that will host it. This is why there is no video documentation of a single class in its entirety, but several examples of how this relationship has been articulated in very different contexts and manners. Class durations vary from one to one and a half hours, depending on the needs of the programme in which the project is hosted.