A traveling workshop in contemporary dance technique and choreographic composition curated by Stefano Mazzotta

The body, despite any attempt at neutrality, communicates incessantly, drawing on a vocabulary of forms shaped by every lived experience—especially those we most deeply love and recognize as our own. We can consciously collect these “signs” and, through them, build our own language. We can then learn to recognize its mechanisms, its lexicon, its syntax, in order to find a precise correspondence between what we intend to express and what our presence and actions continuously reveal.

The foremost responsibility of those who step onto the stage using choreographic language as their means of communication is to know their instrument—the body—in all its most subtle nuances. Although seemingly simple in structure and limited by weight, form, and function, the body is capable of expressing an extraordinary range of colors, endlessly multiplied when they blend and generate ever-unique and shifting shades. To know one’s body and the infinite meanings it can convey means to be consciously present in every moment of stillness and movement, with a clear awareness of their dramaturgical implications. It means being present in every smallest part of oneself and learning how to articulate each element in the service of building a clear and intentional message.

To “compose” the sentences through which the body speaks—to dance—is like painting a landscape before the eyes of the other: understanding and rendering its forms and dimensions, its space and distances, the intensity of its colors and their gradations. By undertaking this analytical path, we take the first step toward the honesty required on stage, while embracing the precious and inevitable variables inherent in all living things.

Teaching approach

The workshop proposals, at an intermediate to advanced level, are intended for professional dancers, actors, and performers, aged 16 and over, who have already begun a training path and wish to deepen, train, and refine new aspects related to physical theatre and dance techniques.

The study of movement techniques and compositional practices is structured around:

Technical refinement

(movement and dance techniques)

Choreographic writing

(movement analysis and compositional exercises)

Creative laboratory

(staging processes developed around specific themes or theatrical texts proposed by the instructor)