Giovanna Summo stopped dancing at the age of 50. She had retired, she believed. But that was not to be. Ten years later, at age 60, she was performing her arangettam in Nangiarkoothu.
Now, it’s more than that. Giovanna is beginning work on a dance/ theatre and video performance based on the life of Mario Montessori, the renowned educationalist, and on her little-known sojourn in India.
After ending her career in 2006, she had decided to travel, with the support of the pension she was receiving from the Italian Government. And she chose as her destination Kerala. That decision changed her life, and opened up new avenues. However, on arriving here in 2007, she didn’t want to do anything related to dance or theatre. Rather, it was Ayurveda, and Yoga.
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Drawn to Kathakali
It was, however, not her first visit to Kerala. Way back in 1980, Giovanna had toured India as a young dancer and performed in Thiruvananthapuram. There, she watched Kathakali for the first time and promised herself that she would return some day.
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However, that was a distant dream for the young dancer born in 1956 in Roseto Degli Abruzi, a provincial Italian town, on the coast of the Adriatic Sea into a family of traditional carpenters and craftsmen.
Her father ran his wood carving workshop. In those post-World War 11 years Italy was beginning to move towards industrialisation. And traditional craftsmen like Giovanna’s father were badly hit as machine-made, cheap furniture began to flood the markets. Closing down the workshop, Giovanna’s parents moved to Rome. Little Giovanna was left with her grandparents in their village home.
“I was a little wild, spending the whole day out in the fields, climbing trees and running around,” she remembers. “Later I realised that children in the city don’t feel the body. That’s what led me to Montessori. She believed movement was of high importance in children’s brain development. She never forced the children to sit still in her pre-primary classes. They’re free to move about, walk in or out of the class room and move the furniture around as they like.”
Giovanna started learning dance in school, at the age of eight after joining her parents in Rome. After learning classical ballet , she joined the National Dance Academy of Rome, at the age of 11. Her father was against the whole idea. “He believed that it was not a job. And he wanted me to get a proper job. He even found a job for me at a bank ! But I turned it down, and declared I wanted to be a dancer. He thought it was a big shame !”
In the Academy, she moved onto contemporary and modern dance. After her début performance in 1973, Giovanna worked with various dance groups in Italy. And the India tour happened with one of such companies, I Danzatori Scalzi.
That same year, after returning to Rome, she watched a performance of the great dancer, Pina Bausch. She describes that as a life-changing experience. In 1985 Giovanna established the Vera Stasi dance/theatre company, with the support of the Italian Ministry of National Heritage and Culture, working as a choreographer and author for ten years. Later, in 1997 she established Gruppo Arte Teatro Danza (Art Theatre Dance Group) a cultural in association with director and visual artist Fabrizio Crisafulli. The group received the support of the Ministry of National Heritage and Culture till 2009. The decision to quit had come after a long career of choreographing, dancing and teaching.
Soon after coming to Kerala, she developed a pain in the hip and realised it was not possible to dance or even walk. At that time, she had started to learn Kathakali under Kalamandalam Ratheesan, son of the Kathakali maestro Oyoor Kochugovinda Pillai. Then she had to return, and went through a hip replacement surgery in Italy.
Love for India
After the surgery, Giovanna came back to India again. “India was like a mother, embracing me, soothing me,” she says. By 2014, her health improved and she met Kalamandalam Shailaja, the Koodiyattam and Nangiarkoothu artiste. Giovanna had watched the mesmerising performance of Nangiarkoothu in Thiruvananthapuram, performed by Margi Usha.
Putting aside her ailments, Giovanna started learning Nangiarkoothu. “At first, I could not learn the steps at all. So it was only the mudras. But Shailaja was so supportive that I slowly started to do the movements.”
In 2016, Giovanna joined Kerala Kalamandalam for a six months course and performed her arangettam. “It was a miracle,” she exclaims. “My guru, Shailaja, was very important; she believed in me. And her energy prompted me on.”
She had not told anyone, including her guru, about her past as a dancer. It was only after her arangettam that Giovanna revealed her dancing past to Shailaja and shared her dance videos with her. Soon, she started working on the Maria Montessori project. “I realised that my career was not over. And that I could something !” She did not stop there. But went on to do Navarasa Sadhana, an acting training course conducted by the Koodiyattam performer, scholar and acting trainer G. Venu, at Natana Kairali, Irinjalakuda.
“Life is like a bamboo, it never stops growing,” smiles Giovanna Summo who currently lives in Cheruthuruthy.