Parkin'Son - A masterpiece that gets under one's skin

Parkin'Son - A masterpiece that gets under one's skin                                 Flurina Dominique Thali

An old man is on the stage, in the middle of a lot of smallround and white rugs like curdled milk. He is singing “IlMondo”, a piece by the Italian composer Jimmy Fontana. It is a melancholic song about love, time and the fact that the world never stands still. In that sense, the whole following choreography is made rhythmic bythe ticking of a clock.

This is the beginning of  “Parkin'Son”, a piece created by the award-winning Italian choreographer Giulio d'Anna. The music was composed by Maartin Bokslag and light as well as stage design made by Theresia Kneven and Daniel Caballero. The two men performing this duet have the same roots and at the same time they could not be more different they are Giulio himself, 33 years old, professional dancer and choreographer, and his father, Stefano, 64 years old and without any theatre or dance background – two generations opposite eachother occupied by the questions, "what is the difference between the '49 and the '80" and "which is the story two bodies tell, when one is the idea of the future and the other one the idea of the past?"

The title is very clear and so is the diagnosis for Giulio's father; he suffers from Parkinson disease, which canlead to death quite quickly. It splits them up and brings them together; this piece is not a family story, it is morelike some medicine so that Stefano can live on in Giulio. This hard diagnosis as well as researches which prove that Parkinson can be held down by dance motivated the Italian maker to involve his father in his work now.

Giulio tells the story of his life in this touching piece – childhood memories, present times and future dreams, a father and a son on stage, like in real life. Starting with very synchronous movements showing their similarities the piece gets unexpectedly wilder after a while. They challenge each other more and more to a duel and the movements get from theatrical and abstract to more realistic and painful. It also shows the two different sides;Giulio's dynamic and openness and his father's slow and dignified movements of the past. In the whole piece they share their human conditions without hiding anythingand they don't fear other people's look.

It is very rare that you see such a direct dispute between muscular presence and wooden physicality in which the relationship gets explored at the very moment, on stage. Wonderful, soft music took me into another world, where no one has to be perfect and love can overcome a lot of difficulties. Wrapped in a lot of humour, they made me smile and I could recognise myself in many situations. It was impressive, what a body can do, even though it may look very fragile from the outside. In that way I got surprised in a lot of moments which kept my attention for the whole hour.

It is worth seeing this creation of art. It brings you back to reality and with that to what life actually is about:being happy and good to each other and finding a way to deal with differences and the fact that no life is endless.

Long moments of silence and immobility were held throughout the whole piece and they were needed; sowe all got witnesses of a terminal illness.