Cantata, originally created for Ballet Gulbenkian in 2001, was added to Les Grands’ repertoire in 2007. With its visceral, passionate gestural language, Cantata evokes rugged Mediterranean beauty and spreads the colours of the South. Instinctive and vital, the dance explores the multiple facets of relations between men and women, from seduction to passion and from quarrels to jealousy. Cantata pays homage to Italian culture and to its musical tradition, popular in the most noble sense of the word. The piece is inspired by Italian music from the 18th and 19th centuries, from lullabies to the pizziche of Salento, and with a nod to Neapolitan serenades. The voices and music of the singers of Gruppo Musicale Assurd draw the 10 pairs of dancers into the festive atmosphere of southern Italy, to the sounds of the tambourine and castanets. “Earthy and human,” says The Boston Globe of the ballet, and according to the Daily News Egypt (Cairo), it is “radiating with spirit and passion”. La Presse (Montréal) calls it “a Vesuvian rumbling” intimately linking dance with music.