ABOUT

More about my creative practice

As a choreographer and director I had the chance to start creating work early on alongside my performing career thanks to Arts Council England and Opera productions commissions.

I am interested in narrative works which allow space for evocative and abstract imagery. My approach to creating is fluid and adaptable to different environments and is informed by the correlation of movement, music and space. For any creative process I collect visual elements and references which I assemble in an abstract mood board which takes material shape through moving bodies. When directing movements starting from an authentic dramatic place, I tend to generate a very specific movement language hence the choreographic palette varies from work to work. I let movement emerge from the world we are conceiving with the creative team, its context, environment and music direct my imagination which expresses through choreography. I generate movement from an authentic human place rather than codified dance steps, allowing emotions to translate in physical states and characters to emerge from the embodiment of those. I like to imagine movement as the visual representation of the complexity of the score, choosing movement and highlighting its intention through the articulation of the music’s dynamics and texture.

Alongside directing/choreographing in theatre setting, I have enjoyed creating work for unconventional venues such as churches, crypts, galleries, auction houses, warehouses, domestic environments for both live performances and the screen. I found very interesting creating site-specific and site-sensitive work, allowing the architecture of the space to inform the creative process and the tapestry of the environment to suggest movement direction. In a similar way when working in theatres with a set I enjoy letting the set suggest choreographic possibilities instead of layering choreography on top.

By still being a performer myself I have a great physical investment in the creative process.

All my research, links to videos and works are available on request.

My Background

I have a huge interest in popular and social dances which I started learning from a very young age with my parents. I travelled a lot as a child performing with a folkloristic choir sharing southern Italian music and dance tradition across Europe and learning other countries’ traditional dances. This early exposure to the multiculturality of Europe has inspired me to learn four European languages and graduate as a translator in English-Italian-French-German (Roma3 University). I have then carried this interest applying it to European dance history and culture.

As an undergraduate I led research in European court and popular dances, learning rhythms and politics of touch across different dance genres starting from dance mentions and references within literature works.

At the University of Chichester for my Masters degree in Dance performance and Choreography I focused on couple dances, particularly on how Ballroom dances have originated as hybrid forms from the melding of pre-existing European, African, north & south American tradition of Dance. I have been pioneering in the application of Ballroom movement principles in contemporary theatre and it is the groundwork of my company EDIFICE (co-directed with Harriet Waghorn). 

I have developed my directing skills through the Master offered by Verona Academy of Opera.  

As a performer I received a conventional training in Ballroom, and at the National Academy of Dance (Rome) I trained in Ballet and Contemporary dance as well as receiving an education in score reading and repertoire.

I am now associate lecturer at the University of Chichester in repertoire of contemporary theatre and dance technique. I qualified in stage fighting from the British Academy of Dramatic Combat.