NEW FACES
A column by Alessandro Bizzotto devoted to rising talents and young artists of the dance world
“I never stayed still as a child”. That’s how Giacomo De Luca begins his story. Like many other dancers told me, everything starts when he is little. “I heard the songs on the radio and I danced”.
Born in Lecce, Italy, in 1999, he starts taking dance lessons at about five – his first ballet school is not that far from home. “I immediately took it seriously, while for many mates it was mostly fun”.
In 2013 he moves to Milan to join La Scala Theatre Ballet School. “My first audition didn’t go as expected. Five months later, I tried again and I was admitted” he reveals me. After graduation, the choice not to join a classical company, in spite of having danced in several La Scala productions between 2014 and 2019 and with the Tokyo Ballet on the occasion of the company’s tour in Milan in 2019. “I’ve always loved to listen and to look for creativity” Giacomo explains. “I felt like I wanted to look for my real self – so, I decided to start exploring and not to enter a corps de ballet”.
In 2021 and 2022, Wayne McGregor wants him to join the International Festival of Contemporary Dance at the Venice Biennale as well as the activities of the Biennale College Danza. “His language explores the body in a search for himself which investigates on human creativity”, they write about De Luca after the Festival.
“I’ve always wanted to understand who I am throughout different experiences. I really want to explore my body, its strength and its possibilities in new ways” he says.
He is currently dancing in the Serra di Danza project by Emio Greco e Pieter C. Scholten. 2024 will bring Giacomo abroad again. “It is about the freedom of doing what I am passionate about, for now. Which is great”. Amsterdam is one of the cities he is most professionally connected with, but he cannot unveil much more for now.
He does yoga and meditation. “After all, dancing is presenting myself in connection with the cosmos and with nature. I am an intuitive person, and sometimes I like being alone. Dance is a kind of sensory exploration for me – it is about finding new places of the spirit and of the body too”.
De Luca is into trying to choreograph as well. His first choreographic project, Dramatis, was presented two years ago at the Verdi Theatre in Padova, Italy, during the Young Choreographers program. “I love creating. It is so important to experiment and to go beyond the old aesthetic codes. Our bodies can push boundaries, in my eyes: the body is clever, it can memorize. Every time I created a choreography, I mostly asked questions without trying to provide answers – I really believe movement is able to find answers itself”.
He refused some television appearances. “I am not against tv, yet it never offered me what I was looking for, nor it offered me the chance to show who I am. I was invited to talk on some tv programmes, but never to do something which could have really qualified me as a dancer”.
De Luca doesn’t seem to trust too much in strokes of luck. “I don’t believe in the saying that the train passes only once” he confides, “as I think you must go to the station instead and to choose what train you get on”. His hopes for the future are “a less competitive environment and more funds for associations and artistic collectives”.
A key encounter in his artistic life? “There is not just one. But I can very remember the day I met Sylvie Guillem. I was disoriented – she was different from any other ballerina. She conveyed me the ability to say no”.
Who was Giacomo De Luca’s childhood idol growing up? “Michael Jackson” he says, smiling unashamed.
