Damiano Fina

Dance and Alchemy Damiano Fina

The days of hunting and dancing around the fire are still in our cells, along with ancient world views. Alchemy was not born as a science for its own sake, as we know it today, but it bloomed from the conquest of matter through fire and guarded the initiatory secret that unites humanity with sky. In "Dance and Alchemy" Damiano Fina takes dance back to its origins to illuminate its future, without neglecting the history of performance at the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries. According to the author, today it is necessary to bring the performing arts back to the sacred and ritual: "There is an immeasurable distance between those who participate in the sacred ritual and those who, instead, enjoy as an aesthete the beauty or horror of scenery, music, dance and opera. Not only is it fundamental to bring the performance back to its ritual origins, but it is also necessary to look for a way to restore the relationship with the sacred in contemporary society, which has desacralized its festivities, its rites of passage and its relationship with the universe." In order to restore this link between the sacred and the profane, art must take an interest in pedagogy. Thus the FÜYA method was born, because dance and performance are educational.