Event

"Dancing with the Past: Ingmar Bergman and Donya Feuer’s version of Claudio Monteverdi’s Ballo delle ingrate (1976)."

Unknown to even the experts, celebrated Swedish film director Ingmar Bergman created, soon after The Magic Flute, a ten-minute choreographic composition for television based on the final section of Monteverdi’s famous “Dance of the ungrateful women,” which concludes Book VIII of madrigals (1638). Prof. Mark Franko, the preeminent dance scholar in the United States, will discuss the crucial role that the Philadelphia-born choreographer and film-maker Donya Feuer played in this work, in other works by Bergman (including The Magic Flute), and in 20th-century dance and media history.

This is the first of three co-sponsored events celebrating, at Penn, the 450th anniversary of Claudio Monteverdi’s birth, focusing on the impact of his music and ideas in the 20th and 21st century and revolving around the themes of recreation and remaking throughout various media. The events are co-sponsored with the Italian Academy of Advanced Studies at Columbia University.

Sponsored, at Penn, by the Center for Italian Studies, the Italian Studies Section of the Romance Languages Department, the Music Department, and the Cinema Studies Program.