Hinter den Kulissen: Francesco Rovea

Since the 2017/2018 season Francesco Rovea has been a member of the ballet company of Theater Krefeld Mönchengladbach. In the last seasons we could admire his skills in, among other productions, Beethoven! and the choreographic workshop. Whether as a headstrong Napoleon, a dancing waiter or a melancholic shepherd, the young Italian is very versatile and gives any character a special touch.

Dear Francesco, we are glad that you have taken the time to give us an insight into your life. How are you doing at the moment of the pandemic? This year was certainly unique for you and the company?

Thank you for giving me the chance to tell you something about me. It’s obviously a difficult time and I have to say honestly that I can’t get used to it. I’m hopeful that everything will return to normal as soon as possible (I can’t wait to attend a party or join a club when the pandemic is over!) And certainly the work in the theatre has changed too. I realized how we dancers are not „independent workers“ but we need to work in a group as a Company and follow our routine of ballet classes, rehearsals, performances…to maintain our technical and artistic level. It is not an easy job to do independently or in small groups, and with the few hours available (as we are doing now).

You are now in your 4th season at the Theater Krefeld Mönchengladbach and thus have been in Germany for four years. Are there differences between Italian and German theatres?

The difference is first of all in the quantity. Unfortunately at the moment in Italy there are only 4 theatre with stable dance companies. Only 4! But there are a large number of talented dancers, who are forced to move abroad to work. I worked for 3 years in a private company in Italy and it was an experience of great artistic and human growth, but unfortunately it did not give me the security of a long term job.

In October you wrote your first choreography for the „Young Theatre Krefeld Mönchengladbach“, for Franz Schubert’s musical play „Ständchen“. Your two colleagues Julianne Cederstam and Alice Franchini performed it. How did you get the idea for the choreography?

I believe that you cannot explain where ideas come from. An idea just comes. In my opinion, the best artists in history are people who have the gift of having brilliant ideas, and the will to put them into practice.
In Schubert’s piece that i decided to choreograph, the tenor who sings seems to look for his beloved in a landscape made of woods, nature and nightingales. I thought of recreating this bucolic image through positions similar to plants or elements of nature, which make the dancers something like the nymphs of the Greek tradition, gods of nature in the form of attractive maidens.

How was it for you to slip from the role of the dancer into the role of the choreographer?

The experience as a choreographer, although it was only a small project and led to a short choreography of 4 minutes, taught me how, in the process of creation, both parts are important: the choreographer and the dancers. The choreographer decides the message he wants to convey, and sees it realized thanks to the filter of the dancers who will exhibit it. On the other hand, the dancers express themselves through the language offered by the choreographer.It creates a sort of small society in which, if everyone performs their function in the best possible way, we get to create something beautiful together.

In my opinion, today’s ballet is moving in the direction of modern dance with acrobatic interludes enriched with classical ballet. Is that deceptive or has ballet really become more modern in recent years?

A distinction must be made between classical ballet and all the other „languages“. The performances of the classical repertoire („Swan Lake“, „Sleeping Beauty“, „The Nutcracker“ …) have always been represented by lots of theatres in the world and I believe that they will be forever brought on stage. They represent the history of dance, the perfection of form and technique, the ideal beauty. Not only that. Ballet is also the basis of most dance companies in the world. Even in our theatre, although we do not perform purely classical performances, we train every day through a ballet lesson. But I also believe that the art of dance, like all other forms of art, must be able to communicate with people of its time. That is why so many forms of expression have developed over the years. In the infinite panorama of dance today we can find from the most acrobatic to the most minimal dances, the most conceptual or traditional styles, those that are inspired by the past and those that disdain it looking only to the future. Today it has become impossible to group dance styles into precise boxes. This is the beauty of the freedom we benefit from today. I hope that ballet will always continue to exist and that the other forms of movement will always continue to try to renew themselves, always aiming not at self-celebration, but at reaching the public.

Together with Radoslaw Rusiecki, you have already put a piece on stage in the choreographic workshop. Do you see choreography as a professional development for the time after dance?

I am very fascinated by the art of choreography. For now I only had these two small opportunities to test myself. I don’t know if I have enough talent or if I will have the chance to make it a real full-time job. I still don’t have clear ideas about my future after my career as a dancer and I don’t want to exclude any possibilities.

Being a ballet dancer means leaving the family at a young age. Where did you grow up and how did you deal with the early departure from home?

I come from a small town in northern Italy. I started dancing in a small school in my town when I was a child, but at the age of 14 I decided to start a more professional training at the school of Teatro Nuovo in Turin. The city is an hour away from my family and this allowed me to start experimenting with independence but not having any separation trauma (every weekend I went home). When I graduated I started working away from home, in Southern Italy, then I moved to Switzerland and finally here to Germany. By now I am used to living away from my family and friends in Italy, but the world has become small, and I never miss the opportunity to go home and visit the people I love.

When you’re not on stage or choreographing, what is your spare time like?

Sometimes it may sound obvious, when we say that we dancers are lucky because we have made our passion a job. In my case I think it’s really like that. Even in my spare time I love to go to the theatre as much as I can, especially to attend ballets, operas and concerts. I love to read about great artists of the past and watch videos of performances from all over the world. But of course I don’t want to make my passion an obsession! That’s why it’s important for me to hang out with friends who don’t work in the theatre, go out, eat in restaurants (good food is a great passion of mine), go to the pool, at the park, play board games, go to flea markets, play bowling and watch good movies.

Deutsch

Liebe „Freunde des Balletts“,
Ich danke Ihnen, dass Sie uns auch in dieser schwierigeren Zeit mit Leidenschaft begleiten und unterstützen. Wir alle hoffen, so bald wie möglich auf die Bühne zurückzukehren, und wir hoffen, dass Sie und der Rest des Publikums unsere Arbeit und unsere Aufführungen weiterhin verfolgen werden. Ich glaube, dass wir in diesem Moment, in dem wir von schlechten Nachrichten erstickt werden, einen Moment der Flucht und Leichtigkeit brauchen. Theater und Tanz existieren genau aus diesem Grund. Wir hoffen also, dass wir uns bald wieder sehen… Nochmals vielen Dank für Ihre Unterstützung! Auf Wiedersehen!

Englisch

Dear „Friends of the ballet“,
thank you for continuing to follow us with passion and support us even in this more difficult period. We all hope to return to the stage as soon as possible and we hope that you and the rest of the audience will continue to follow our work and our performances. I believe that in this moment when we are suffocated by bad news, what we need is a moment of escape and lightness. Theater and dance exist for this very reason. So we hope to see each other soon…Thanks again for your support! Ciao!