Produced by Antonio Gnecchi Ruscone of Art Works Production, the “Past/Forward” show arrives at the Taormina Arte festival, which sees Jacopo Tissi – principal dancer at the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow, now guest principal dancer at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan and at the Teatro dell ‘Opera di Roma – present its new project, “Past/Forward”, scheduled at the Ancient Theater of Taormina on August 17th.

“Between the past and the future – explains Tissi – dance evolves, excites with the beauty and purity of its most classic form and the change towards new contemporary horizons. “Past/Forward” talks about this. But it also talks about me and my personal journey, the richness of dance, the strength of this art in communicating and moving feelings in people. Of my starting over after leaving Moscow at the start of the war. A year after my return from Moscow, determined by the outbreak of war and decided in just two days, I found myself facing a radical and unexpected change. I suddenly had to walk alone and continue my career by looking at it from a new perspective. It wasn’t easy to accept giving up everything a few months after being appointed principal dancer by the international temple of dance, but I feel I have acquired a renewed awareness: now I am looking towards new horizons, bringing the incredible experience of my journey to the heart and into my dance Bolshoi; a great experience that gave me the artistic soul that I will always carry with me”.

Antonio Gnecchi Ruscone explains: “I took this boy to heart, who has an incredible artistic career, when he was still at the Bolshoi, therefore before he returned to Italy. I began to take an interest in him seeing him dance for the first time in 2018 at Les Ètoiles at the Parco della Musica in Rome and intrigued by the exchange of opinions on his account that I had then with a very dear longtime friend of mine, Loretta Alexandrescu Stein, for many years classical dance teacher at the Accademia Teatro alla Scala. I then had the opportunity to interview him remotely for the Teatro degli Arcimboldi in Milan during the pandemic: the impression was that he was not only a champion, but also a respectable boy, delicate and refined in his manners, capable of hovering on a stage wearing the role of a Prince and, at the same time, to keep your feet very firmly anchored to the ground in everyday life. So, at the insistence of my wife Vanessa, I decided one day to call him and ask him if he had an agent; from that phone call we officially began our artistic collaboration. When he was forced to return to Milan in early March 2022, and after the great wave of media interest that overwhelmed him, we thought the time had come to materialize a whole series of talks that had already begun remotely when he was at the Bolshoi, and that it was more than deserving to give his audience something that contained his personal artistic vision, where he could get involved by playing roles that would allow him to dare and challenge himself. Hence, the show “Past / Forward”, which we have christened so because the repertoire ranges from the nineteenth to the twenty-first second. The esteem of his colleagues who have joined the project and who will support him on stage is such as to confirm how much Jacopo’s extraordinary nature is recognized internationally”.

The evening’s programme, which counts on the presence on stage of world stars such as Polina Semionova, Alina Cojocaru, Ksenia Ovsyanick, David Motta Soares, Alejandro Virelles and Tissi himself, is a multi-stage journey through the history of dance, but it is also the dramaturgy of a journey of inner growth made up of feelings, discoveries, expectations, memories and desires which, together, form a sort of artistic map to which he feels he belongs.
During the show, he will perform for the first time a solo by Yuri Possokhov – international choreographer of the Bolshoi Ballet and San Francisco Ballet, former dancer of the Royal Danish Ballet – to the music of Ennio Morricone taken from the famous film by Giuseppe Tornatore, Nuovo Cinema Paradiso: a song that takes the artist back to his roots, his family and his land. “It’s a film that excites me a lot – he says – and I’ve seen it more than once with my parents. Although it has no ties to Sicily, there are images that have a lot to do with Italy and the protagonist is a young man who, like me, leaves to return to his land some time later. The theme of departure and return, the joy of rediscovering the places where we grew up, our roots, the importance of family ties and the light of the most innocent memories illuminate this choreography”. World premiere also for the pas de deux Sighs, taken from the ballet Orlando by Christian Spuck, to music by Edward Elgar, adapted for the occasion, in which Tissi will dance in tandem with the star of the Berlin opera house, Polina Semionova. Already protagonist of this ballet right at the Bolshoi in Moscow in 2021 in world premiere, a year before being appointed first dancer. “The Bolshoi is a wonderful theatre, where I grew up, which inspired me, and which has been a school of life, teaching me humility, respect, introspection and intelligence”. “Past / Forward” also includes several masterpieces in the history of ballet, partly linked to his career, partly to the importance they hold on the international scene.

The opening pas de deux is taken from the ballet Raymonda, one of the prestigious repertoire titles of the great imperial ballets and which Tissi performed several times at the Bolshoi.

It continues with the pas de deux taken from Carmen by Alberto Alonso, to music by George Bizet. Brother of Fernando Alonso and brother-in-law of the great Alicia Alonso, the first artist to leave Cuba to perform in the Soviet Union and then in Europe during the government of Fidel Castro, Alberto Alonso was an influential choreographer in the development of the Cuban style of ballet: a combination of Russian and Western techniques with a Latin style. To the young British choreographer George Williamson, resident at the Center for Ballet and the Arts of New York University, the task of representing one of his world premieres entitled Clay and Diamonds, a pas de deux featuring Ksenia Ovsyanick and David Motta Soares, principal dancers of the Berlin State Opera. In closing, the suite of L’Arlesienne by Roland Petit, “an overwhelming story of amour fou” declares Tissi “with a choreography that challenges me and gives me the opportunity to explore a new me”.

“Past/Forward” is a show that unites and expresses different styles, experiences already lived and others yet to be experimented. Personal memories and debuts mark the human and professional path of an artist who, as in the film Sliding Doors, found himself having to choose his destiny from one day to the next.