Benilde

Benilde Marini sits cross-legged with a posture so refined, her back never once touches the chair's frame. Long black hair frames sharply defined cheekbones that hold an animated expression of both intensity and warmth. Benilde is a dancer - as if one couldn't tell just by looking at her. Fresh from her successful production of Storie Di Gatti, she shares with us the story of how she became the founder of the town's only dance school. Although born in Cagli, Benilde moved to Switzerland at the age of three. At seven, she began taking classical dance lessons. She continued ballet there until returning to her birthplace five years later. Benilde's eyes now begin to dim a little with regret as she explains that because her new home did not have a dance school at that time, she lost about six to eight valuable years of practice.
However, Benilde's love of dance was renewed with a more modern twist. At 19, when she was old enough to travel the hour's distance from Cagli, she learned jazz from famed choreographer, Floriana Mariotti in Perugia. Then, at 25, she traveled to Senegallia, a small town on the Adriatic coast of Italy, where she was able to learn more advanced jazz techniques at the Nirvana Dance School from "the most important dancers of the world:" Andrè de la Roche, Steve la Chance, and Gary Garrison (an American). In 1991, Benilde founded Movimento E Fantasia Centro Danza, Cagli's first and only school of dance. Now she would have the chance to give the children of Cagli the fortune she was not blessed with. Although she has other interests like literature and photography (her husband, Maurizio Bucarelli is a photographer), Benilde says all she has ever wanted to do was teach dance. Besides, "that is all I have time for" she says, finally leaning back with a satisfied grin. On a typical "busy day" Benilde leads a two-hour jazz class in the early morning. She then returns home to prepare for her next class-at Cagli's Scuola Media, middle school where she teaches the history and theory of dance to 11- to 13-year-olds. Later in the day, at 4 p.m., she holds an hourly private dance class for no more than four dancers at a time. Then, from 5-6:30 p.m., she directs older women in classes such as aerobics, step, gymnastics, and Latin dance. For two days out of each week, another teacher takes over,	giving Benilde time for spending time with the mothers of her students. "She is a very hard worker and she has a lot of talent," says Stefania Rossi, one of the mothers." When asked how she defines her relationship with her students, she quickly responds with a warm smile, "We are friends". Her intense connection to her students was obvious during the school's recent annual performance when she stood in the wings of the stage, executing every move along with them. A few beginner students occasionally looked to the wings when they had trouble recalling the next step. She says the most challenging aspect of her career is "to make [her] students understand that dancing is a form of art". Of her dancing technique, she chuckles, "I was absolutely not influenced by television." The ability to express inner feelings through the elegant movement of the body is what draws her to dance. She loves Jiri Kilien's geometrical schemes of movement along with his ability to combine dancers of many different ages into one choreography. Although she is a fan of his technique, she reminds us that she does not "pretend to look like him" in terms of her own choreography. Nevertheless she managed to combine 79 "cats" of all ages into one unified performance. Since she opened her school, Benilde has already choreographed and directed 20 performances. And from the energy in her face, she will continue to do so far into the future.
Text: Devon Fink Editing: Emily Moroni, Liz Iasiello Graphic Design: Emily Moroni HTML: Emily Moroni Picture courtesy of Benilde Marini