It is essential to adopt a 'virgin state' of total openness when attending MK's works because it is almost impossible to find any adherence to a preconceived dance model in them. Nourished by a gestural choice that is far from both the everyday and the purely aesthetic state, MK's works form a category of their own.
Founded in Rome in 1997 by the eclectic Michele Di Stefano (choreographer, dancer, singer, actor, and literature scholar), dancer Biagio Caravano, and composer Paolo Sinigaglia, the MK company has produced several works, all developed with complete methodological autonomy. There is no cyclicity or compositional return in the group's body of work; rather, there is the urgency to reset and start anew each time, even with a now perfectly recognizable stylistic signature.
Creation occurs collectively under the generative impulse of Michele Di Stefano: each member abandons their skills and talents in favor of total permeability with the external environment. From the 'theme' of disorientation and sudden changes in direction and rhythm, Mk ultra (2000) takes its cue, while the subsequent Zero Moses (2001) focuses on the negation of the compositional process to the point that the dancers are subject to the interference of an added, intrusive dancer who endangers the formal architecture. The indispensable common denominator of all the works is the body subjected to new dynamic possibilities.
Already in e-ink (1999), the extraordinary 'out-of-format' duet (due to the physical structure of the two performers, the extremely thin and lanky Di Stefano and the more compact and muscular Caravano), a cameo of disharmony, union, and bifurcation, Di Stefano's ever-changing and surprising writing showcased all the variations of dynamics. In Addominale Bianco (2002), the show hosted by Oriente Occidente, there is something additional to the rhythm: the bewilderment and obtuseness (being outside of knowledge) of the body. The choreographer writes: "The first corollary of this obtuse attitude is having to deal with a type of communication that seeks to resolve itself in the evidence of the enigma, where the peculiarity of dance as a place of silence becomes increasingly clear. We are exercising control so that nothing of what is acted out refers to anything else." The research then focuses once again on the erasure of the ego to make way for rhythmic unleashing.
Thus, on stage, the bodies of the four performers frantically move, awkward and magnetically drawn against their will by hidden magnetic fields. The white, almost deadly space is empty and disorienting. Every point is central (Cunningham teaches), every point traveled is important, being explored according to visceral impulses rather than will. The catapulted body yearns for contact, and with Addominale Bianco, the syntax of the choreographic phrase lives with a lyrical elasticity.
