The piece has been commissioned by EurAsia Partner Kolkata Centre for Creativity, India, in collaboration with EurAsia Partner DANCEHAUSpiú´of Milan, Italy, and with Berlin Dance Institute in Germany.

OMMANIPADMEHUM is a part of the EurAsia Repertory directed by Stefano Fardelli.

The world premiere in India has been supported by Italian Embassy and Italian Cultural Institute of Delhi and by Consulate General of Italy in Kolkata, India.

OMMANIPADMEHUM has been created by Stefano Fardelli for the launch of E.D.C.- EurAsia Dance Company, with its world premiere at EurAsia Partner Kolkata Centre for Creativity (Kolkata – India) in February 2023. For years, Stefano Fardelli has been creating pieces for the EurAsia Repertory that have been danced by other companies, but in 2023 E.D.C., the official company of the Network, was founded.

OM-MANI-PADME-HUM which in Sanskrit literally means “honouring the lotus jewel”, focuses on the history and rituals of the Tibetan Buddhists of the Yellow Hat Order with a particular focus on their connection to the Shaolin monks and thus the study of their training. The idea for this new project stems from the need to continue the exploration and examination of the connection between spirituality and ritual through movement, already begun with the previous solo NAMU: the Sanskrit word namu – or namas – means ‘devotion’. 

Throughout the creation period, the four dancers of the company followed the training of the Shaolin monks, studying their meditation and combat techniques. The next step was to translate, through the ‘contemporary code´, their sequences and movements by bringing them into space and making them abstract, thus maintaining their essence but making them functional to the staging. The same process was followed for the creation of the costumes and atmospheres of the piece.

The encounters with the Buddhist monks and the martial arts students, the study of their practice and ceremonies are the foundation of the choreography. When the bell starts to play the rite begins, the dancers enter what could be a temple and lead us in another dimension and place, accompanied by the Francesco Ziello original music. 

Hats, cloaks, a sun symbol of the divine, and the gold of temples are often rendered abstract by an aseptic architectural use of space and by string or orchestral music that creates contrasts between oriental images and western sounds.

To conclude, a multicultural cast that translates the movements of the Shaolin monks with different nuances that reveal the origins of the various dancers and thus a quality of movement linked to the traditional dances of the performers that influence, and give character to, the entire piece.

Choreography: Stefano Fardelli 

Duration: 35 minutes

Dancers: Umberto Gesi (Italy), Tejaswini Loundo (India), Marco Hernandez (Mexico), Jesus Rea (Bolivia)

Original music: Francesco Ziello 

Music: 10 Preludes Op. 23 by Serjei Rachmaninoff, Concerto For Violoncello And Strings by Dobrinka Tabakova, The Well-Tempered Clavier Book1 by Johann Sebastian Bach, Such Different Paths by Dobrinka Tabakova

Rehearsal Assistant: Jesus Rea

Costume Designer: Marco Hernandez | De La Croix

Video Maker: Salvatore Lazzaro

Visual Artist: Matteo Bittante

Photography: Salvatore Lazzaro and Antonino Dimondo