Cristiana Morganti

Her repertoire was a landmark, and those who came after are somewhat her offspring. She knew how to expose frailty and human condition in the bodies of male and female heroes better than anyone. Such imagery also persists in the spectator, even if he hasn’t watched her dance in “Café Muller”, the only piece she choreographed and performed, and which was last presented in Portugal in 2008, a little over a year before her unexpected death, and ten years after “Mazurca Fogo”, a piece on the city of Lisbon on the occasion of and commissioned by EXPO’98. Pina and her sensitive universe are recorded in our memory, as much as in the last scene from Pedro Almodóvar’s melodramatic film, “Talk to Her”; in the documentary film “Lissabon Wuppertal Lisboa”, by Fernando Lopes; in the book that Portuguese critic Cláudia Galhós dedicated to her; in the presentation of “Bamboo Blues” and “Sweet Mambo” at Teatro Nacional São João in 2011, which was the last time Tanztheater Wuppertal—the company she founded in 1973—came to Porto, and in which Cristiana Morganti danced. Who doesn’t remember the flowery dress, the curly hair and the pointe shoes against Wuppertal’s industrial landscape in Morganti’s scene for “Pina”, by Wim Wenders? The famous performer, who participated in nearly all Tanztheater repertoire as soloist since 1993, invites us to a lecture-performance that consists of an intimate plunge into the rehearsals as seen from a dancer’s perspective. How does one put together a solo? What is the relation between movement and emotion? How do dancer and set design relate to one another? When is a gesture able to turn into dance? And above all, what causes a magic and mysterious relation between artist and spectator? Cristiana Morganti shows some exemplifying excerpts, and then discusses what she danced, her interests and her experience with the German choreographer. “Moving with Pina” enlivens an intimate memory of that character, who turned into an icon, all the while humanising her in her exchange with the audience, so that we continue to remind ourselves that it isn’t so much about the way people dance, but about the reason they do it.


Cristiana Morganti is a dancer and choreographer. She attended the classical dance course at the National Dance Academy in Rome and the modern dance course at the Folkwang University of the Arts in Essen, Germany. After her training, she collaborated with numerous choreographers, such as Susanne Linke, Urs Dietrich and Felix Ruckert, and with the NEUER TANZ company, under the direction of VA Wölfl and Wanda Golonka. Pursuing an interest in experimental theatre, and in the use of voice in particular, Cristiana Morganti furthered her training at Eugenio Barba’s Odin Teatret. One of the highlights of her career was when she worked with the famous author, choreographer and dancer Pina Bausch. From 1993 to 2014, Morganti played soloist with Pina Bausch’s company, and she still gets invited back as guest artist. She participated in most of the German choreographer’s creations, and in a series of new creations by the company she founded. She is currently a visiting professor at the National Superior Conservatory of Music and Dance of Paris (France) and at the Silvio D’Amico National Academy of Dramatic Art in Rome (Italy). In 2010, she created the piece “Moving with Pina”, her tribute to Pina Bausch, which has been acclaimed in the theatres and cities where it has been presented.


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