C.R.E.A. – Reopening of the call

Nico Monaco began studying dance in Brindisi (Italy). After attending the Advanced Course for Young Dancers at CRD Aterballetto directed by Mauro Bigonzetti, he collaborates and takes part in some of the most prestigious dance companies on the international scene such as Akram Khan Company, Emio Greco/Pc, Gregory Maquoma, Tom Dale, The Featherstonehaugh, Shobana Jeyasing Dance Company, Mavin Khoo Dance Company, Zfin Malta Dance Ensemble. In 2013 he joined the Zfin Malta Dance Ensemble company as rehearsal director and received a teaching diploma in the Double Skin Double Mind methodology at the ICK Amsterdam company. In 2018 he takes on the role of rehearsal director and assistant choreographer at Akram Khan Dance Company. Over the years Nicola has the opportunity to present his choreographic work at various Theatres in England, Holland, Italy and Hungary. on the role of rehearsal director for the Akram Khan Company’s show Xenos.

Stefano Mazzotta choreographer and dancer. After training in dance and theatre at a very young age at the Laboratorio Permanente dell’Attore of the Cantieri Teatrali Koreja (Lecce), he continued his studies at the Civica Scuola d’Arte Drammatica Paolo Grassi founded in Milan by Giorgio Strehler, where he graduated in 2000. He studied with masters such as Jean Cebron, Giorgio Barberio Corsetti, Marco Baliani, Bruce Michelson, Maria Consagra, Susanna Beltrami, Beatrice Libonati, Raffaella Giordano, Michele Abbondanza, Davide Montagna. Since 2005, with the creation of the company Zerogrammi, of which he is still the permanent choreographer and artistic director, he started a personal creative and productive path whose choreographic sign, strongly inspired by the contamination of genres and research in areas and artistic languages transversal to the choreographic one, is the result of the contamination between dance and theatre of movement. From this mixture derives a theatre of the body with a fluid and evocative sign broken only by forms and signs coming from the rich vocabulary of everyday gestures, whose first instance is a communicative lightness of Calvinian inspiration. He has directed artistic projects and creations in collaboration with festivals and theatres in Italy, Portugal, France, Russia, Singapore, Holland and Germany, obtaining numerous awards. Over the years he has been training at academies such as Tsekh Dance School (Moscow, Russia), University of Turin (Italy), University of Salento (Italy), Summer School of the Civica Scuola d’Arte Drammatica Paolo Grassi (Italy), Alta Formazione/Arearea (Italy), Accademia Nazionale di Danza/Madis and at his company’s Turin office, CASA LUFT, a theatrical space where the production work goes side by side with a broader project that includes actions on the territory of dissemination and awareness around contemporary languages, choreographic coworking and professionalizing paths in the field of dance and theatre. Since 2018 she has been a member of the RTO directing the Lavanderia a Vapore/Centro di residenza per la danza della Regione Piemonte. Zerogrammi’s artistic and cultural activities are supported by the Piedmont Region and MIBAC, Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities and Tourism.

California-born Carolyn Carlson defines herself first and foremost as a nomad. From San Francisco Bay to the University of Utah, from the Alwin Nikolais company in New York to Anne Béranger’s in France, from Paris Opera Ballet to Teatrodanza La Fenice in Venice, from the Théâtre de la Ville de Paris to Helsinki, from Ballet Cullberg to La Cartoucherie in Paris, from the Venice Biennale to Roubaix, Carlson is a tireless traveller, always seeking to develop and share her poetic universe.
She arrived in France in 1971 the beneficiary of Alwin Nikolaïs’ ideas about movement, composition and teaching. The following year, with Rituel pour un rêve mort, she wrote a poetic manifesto that defined an approach to her work that she has adhered to ever since: dance that is strongly oriented towards philosophy and spirituality. Carlson prefers the term ‘visual poetry’ to ‘choreography’ to describe her work. For four decades, Carlson has had significant influence and success in many European countries. She played a key role in the birth of French and Italian contemporary dance through the GRTOP (theatre research group) at Paris Opera Ballet and Teatrodanza at La Fenice. She has created over 100 pieces, a large number of which are landmarks in the history of dance, including Density 21.5, The Year of the Horse, Blue Lady, Steppe, Maa, Signes, Writings on Water and Inanna. In 2006, her work was rewarded with the first ever Golden Lion given to a choreographer by the Venice Biennale. Founder of the Atelier de Paris-Carolyn Carlson at the Cartoucherie in 1999, she was associated artist to Théâtre National de Chaillot with the Carolyn Carlson Company from 2014 to 2016. In 2017, besides touring her repertoire, the choreographer explores new forms of creations: an exhibition for museums, a full-length dance movie for cinema… In 2019 she became a French citizen and the following year she was elected at the French Academy of Fine Arts, in the choreography section.

Sara Orselli began studying dance at the Dance Gallery in Perugia, directed by Valentina Romito and Rita Petrone. She continued her training from 1999 to 2002 at Isola Danza, the academy of the Venice Biennale then directed by Carolyn Carlson. She danced in the following creations by Carlson in the company of the Biennale: Parabola in 1999, Light Bringers in 2000, J. Beuys Song in 2001. In 2003 she moved to Paris where she met the Finnish choreographer Juha Marsalo, with whom she danced Prologue d’une Scène d’amour, Scène d’amour, Perle and Parfum. She continued to be part of Carolyn Carlson’s company with whom she danced Inanna, Water born, Eau, Present Memory, Mundus Imaginalis, Mandala, We Were Horses, Synchronicity, Now and Crossroads to Synchronicity. During the same period she was Carolyn Carlson’s assistant in the productions: Wash the Flowers in Lucerne (2005), Les Rêves de Karabine Klaxon (2006), If to leave is to remember (Munich 2006) Woman in a room (solo for Diana Vishneva 2013), Pneuma for the National Opera of Bordeaux (2014) and the broadcast of If to leave is to remember for the National Opera of Bordeaux (2015), the Helsinki National Opera (2016), the Artez School of Art, Arnhem (2018), the Massimo in Palermo (2018), and the transmission of Pneuma to the Helsinki National Opera (2018). Since 2014 she also joins the Simona Bucci company, with whom she dances Enter Lady Macbeth. In 2018 she creates the solo Still There, produced and in collaboration with the Simona Bucci company.