During this period, so deeply marked by the pandemic, we have had an unprecedented experience of time. Stuck in a dilated present, nostalgic for an almost mythical past and unable to imagine a future, we have found ourselves reflecting on how all these temporalities are complex and never taken for granted. In the first two decades of the 21st century, artists and scholars have been rethinking the history of dance and how to make it meaningful again for the present-day audience. Some of them are driven by the urgency of confronting works and repertoires that they inherited from their masters; others aim to retrace stories and traditions that have fallen into oblivion because they have been ignored by the official historiography or censored in different times and places. Other artists and scholars are driven by the desire to interrogate the body archives of the dancers they met along their artistic path and who preserve precious knowledge. 

On the whole, these artistic practices and theoretical reflections cultivate a new awareness for the preservation of choreographic heritage and a renewed curiosity for the direct or indirect transmission of dance techniques and choreographic works or for what has been handed down by the individual and collective memories of the artists.

Choreographies of time. A six-step survey starts with the idea that dance is not ephemeral but leaves traces, which are to be sought even where we would least expect them. Just as the choreographic works of the past continue to surface in our present, so those of today will follow largely unpredictable paths. The artists involved in this six-step journey, prompted by six keywords, enter from their own perspective into a dimension in which temporalities are mixed and confused: some tell autobiographical stories, some give space to the emotions experienced in a difficult moment, and others explore the presence of the history of dance in everyday gestures and the imaginary of the present. Each step corresponds to a video work of about 30 minutes made by six Italian artists and articulates their relationship with time by putting into dialogue materials from their individual archives and sequences filmed and edited for the occasion.

Despite being made up of distinct and potentially independent works, this multi-authored project was presented as a collection by the Italian Cultural Institute of Moscow at MMOMA (Moscow Museum of Modern Art) in December 2021 on the occasion of Contemporary Art Day.