Festival opening with Danza e Mistero

The kulturerbe, tanz! project aims to utilise the national platform to increase the visibility and vitality of the cultural heritage of dance. The focus is on the communication of historical dance knowledge by professional dancers and the cultural participation of non-professional dancers in the artistic stage dance. The festival is held annually in a different Swiss city: 2019 Lucerne, 2022 Visp and Bern, 2023 Délemont. The dance groups are selected by a jury of experts from throughout Switzerland.

Supporting programme:
The jury has once again selected a wide variety of dance techniques and historical assignments, regions and dance groups. Two calls for entries have brought together eight dance groups from five regions. More than 80 dancers, under the direction of renowned choreographers, have explored dance works that date from 1913 to 2009. The plan is to now present eight short pieces each no longer than 12 to 15 minutes in duration. Two workshops by renowned Swiss choreographers (Christian Mattis, Tiziana Arnaboldi) will be offered to everyone without pre-registration and free of charge. Choreographer Tiziana Arnaboldi kicks things off with Danza e mistero All the dance works on show as well as the Dance, cultural heritage! project and festival make up an exhibition in the foyer.

Opening speech by Jeannette Salzmann Albrecht

Danza e Mistero
Homage to Charlotte Bara

Compagnia Tiziana Arnaboldi
Swiss Dance Award Dance as Cultural Heritage 2018

The Belgian dancer Charlotte Bara (Bachrach) lived and worked in Ascona, where she died in 1986. At the «Teatro San Materno», a theatre built specially for her in the Bauhaus style, Bara maintained an enduring relationship with multiple genres of the international dance scene. She also devoted herself to her principal interest of sacred dance. The current artistic director of the «Teatro San Materno», the choreographer Tiziana Arnaboldi, has researched Charlotte Bara’s life and art. Working largely from photographs depicting Bara’s dance poses that are archived in the Ascona municipal museum, she has created the performance «Tanz und Mysterium». In this homage to the dancer Charlotte Bara, three contemporary dancers explore their relationship to her poses and incorporate contemporary elements into the reinterpretation. The project and the accompanying national and international tour aim both to honour a dancer who is not especially well known and to revive her work and explore it on stage.