Side Steps

Newcomer

Martino Semenzato

No, the many Christmas Nutcrackers do not get on his nerves at all: "We're all having a lot of fun," because Edward Clug's Stuttgart production is so lighthearted and cheerful, says Martino Semenzato, almost a little surprised at himself. Alongside his erformances as Drosselmeier, the young Italian is working on Untamed, a site-specific production for the Stuttgart Ballet's next premiere. Together with the artist Donna Volta Newmen, he is transforming the foyer of the Schauspielhaus into a forest, where dancers emerge from the walls. Untamed premiered a year ago in the Stuttgart Wagenhallen. A film and a performance mirror the body's resilience in the self-healing powers of nature. At the center is ballerina Diana Ionescu, who returns to the stage after an injury. For the evening Interaction, Semenzato is now working with more dancers and speaks of the pure joy of choreographing – "in itself a good reason to be alive!"

The 26-year-old soloist has already created three pieces for the Noverre evenings and has proven himself to be a choreographer who expresses his message solely through the bodies, not through staging: "I don't like movement for the sake of movement. I want to say something." Semenzato is eager to learn and explains: "We are a new generation, and we are all trying to develop our own language." To this end, he observes not only the many young dance creators in Stuttgart, almost all of them Italians and his friends, but also famous colleagues and their craft: "How they develop their ideas, how they communicate, how they express themselves."

The tall, stylistically versatile dancer came to Stuttgart from the academy in Monte-Carlo to dance purely classically. Instead, he enjoys the modern diversity he has found here, is often cast in world premieres, has worked with William Forsythe, and will soon be working with Sol León and Paul Lightfoot. Semenzato doesn't mind that he tends to dance the darker roles in the classics: "I don't really see myself as a prince," he laughs. And he hopes that not all young dancers are trained to be princes, but rather "the best version of themselves. Whether that ends up being a prince or not is completely irrelevant."

Angela Reinhardt

Interaction: with Oh Dear by Fabio Adorisio, Die Seele am Faden by Friedemann Vogel and Thomas Lempertz, and Untamed by Donna Volta Newmen and Martino Semenzato, Premiere on 10 January; www.stuttgarter-ballett.de