NEWS: ROMA @ Various venues

In this semi-autobiographical work, Anglo-Sicilian choreographer Anthony Lo-Giudice brings together a team of internationally renowned performers, both dancers and musicians including violinist Bradley Creswick MBE, to explore notions of cross-cultural identity, border and nationhood. He explains: “ROMA is a recollection of memories and reflections on how my family, heritage and nationality have made me the person I am today. These musings, although personal, form the basis of a wider study of contemporary society.” And he’s right, these are pertinent topics in contemporary Britain today. Ultimately, it all comes down to what it is to belong.

Anthony talks about the inspiration for his work: “My work as a choreographer is often a blend of folklore fantasy, nostalgia and working-class anxieties that are communicated through the visual aesthetics of dance and the moving body. I have created ROMA to enable me to understand my parents at a deeper level, whilst they are still alive to tell their stories.”

And so Anthony crafts the intimate musings of his English mother and Sicilian father’s accounts of one another, shaping them into a series of fleeting memories and imaginations that become the beautiful evocative work that is ROMA. He sensitively depicts their tempestuous jostle between love and cultural divide, the struggles of loneliness and conflict that they face, and the inevitable complexities of heritage, tradition, language and family.

Touring theatres and other venues throughout the North of England over the next couple of months, ROMA portrays through movement and music one particular love story, yes, but the quest is universal. We all want someone to love. We all want a place to call home. We all want to feel like we belong somewhere.

ROMA is performed at Durham Cathedral on Friday 18^th November, Middlesbrough Town Hall on Thursday 1^st December, Queen’s Hall Hexham on Friday 2^nd December and Dance City, Newcastle on Friday 9^th December.