Giada Matteini
Giada Matteini is an Italian performer, educator, choreographer, and cultural producer based in New York City. She is the Founder and Director of WADE (Wandering Avian Dance Experience), a women-led multifaceted performing arts company working at the intersection with social justice and focused on supporting the voices and artistic expressions of women and historically underrepresented artists. WADE offers numerous points of entry into art and activism through educational programs and curated festivals in the US and Europe. Her WADEintoACTIVISM Festival began during the Covid-19 Pandemic lockdown as a response to the global increase of violence against women and continues its efforts today. The Festival joins the Global 16 Days Campaign, launched by the Center for Women’s Global Leadership and feminists from around the world and has forged collaborations with artists across the globe and with organizations fighting all forms of violence in schools, college campuses, dance studios and work places such as Speak About It: Consent Education, Project Callisto, Dance Data Project, Dance Education Equity Association, and White Ribbon.
Giada is an Assistant Arts Professor at NYU Tisch School of the Arts in NYC and has traveled as a guest artist to Germany, Sweden, Austria, Finland, Spain, China, The Philippines, Mexico and across the U.S. and Italy.
Her 30 year long and on-going ballet research is based in debunking the idea of elitism in the art form, by nurturing the appreciation of the many shapes and sizes of the moving body and of gender fluidity, with the intention to support the training of her students who might feel marginalized in the studio.
As a company director, Giada has produced and/or facilitated over 60 residencies with international artists including Roy Assaf (Roy Assaf Dance), Davide Di Pretoro (Sasha Waltz), Janet Wong (Bill T Jones), Diane Madden (Trisha Brown Dance Company), Kirsten Foote (Limón Dance Company), Cindy Salgado (Crystal Pite), Rashaun Mitchell (Merce Cunningham Dance Company), Shamel Pitts, Rena Butler, Netta Yerushalmy, Stefanie Batten Bland, Bobbi Jene Smith, Loni Landon, Gregory Dolbashian (Dash Ensemble), Shannon Gillen (Vim Vigor), Nathan Trice, Vita Osojnik, Charlotte Boye-Christenson, Cora Bos-Kroese (NDT), Richard Chen See (Paul Taylor Dance Company), Arcell Carbuag (Ronald K. Brown Evidence), Madboots, Sonya Tayeh, Studio Wayne McGregor, Ori Flomin, Sadé and Kristina Alleyne, Molissa Fenley and Company, Sarah Cernaux, and many more.
Giada holds a BA in Dance and Education from Empire State College, an Embodied Social Justice Certificate from the Embody Lab, a Parent Leadership Certificate from Rise Magazine, and she is working on her Moving For Life Certification with Martha Eddy.
Photo (right) by John Eng
Vangeline
Vangeline is a teacher, dancer, and choreographer specializing in Japanese butoh. She is the artistic director of the Vangeline Theater/New York Butoh Institute (New York), a dance company firmly rooted in the tradition of Japanese butoh while carrying it into the twenty-first century.
With her all-female dance company, Vangeline’s socially conscious performances tie together butoh and activism. Vangeline is the founder of the New York Butoh Institute Festival, which elevates the visibility of women in butoh, and the festival Queer Butoh. She pioneered the award-winning, 15-year running program The Dream a Dream Project, which brings butoh dance to incarcerated men and women at correctional facilities across New York State. Her choreographed work has been performed in Chile, Hong Kong, Germany, Denmark, France, the UK, Hong Kong, and Taiwan.
Vangeline is a 2022/2023 Gibney Dance Dance in Process residency and the winner of a 2022 National Endowment for the Arts Dance Award. She is also a 2018 NYFA/NYSCA Artist Fellow in Choreography for Elsewhere (a work that began as an artistic commission from Surface Area Dance Theatre with support from the Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation and the Heritage Lottery Fund UK); the winner of the 2015 Gibney Dance Social Action Award as well as the 2019 Janet Arnold Award from the Society of Antiquaries of London. Her work as an educator, choreographer, and curator has been supported by The National Endowment for the Arts, Japan Foundation, New York Department of Cultural Affairs, New York Foundation for the Arts, New York Council on the Arts, Robert Friedman Foundation, and Asian American Arts Alliance.
Vangeline’s work has been heralded in publications such as the New York Times (“captivating”) and Los Angeles Times (“moves with the clockwork deliberation of a practiced Japanese Butoh artist”) to name a few.
Widely regarded as an expert in her field, Vangeline has taught at Cornell University, New York University, Brooklyn College, CUNY, Sarah Lawrence, and Princeton University (Princeton Atelier). Film projects include a starring role alongside actors James Franco and Winona Ryder in the feature film by director Jay Anania, 'The Letter" (2012-Lionsgate).
In recent years, she has been commissioned by triple Grammy Award-winning artists Esperanza Spalding, Skrillex, and David J. (Bauhaus). She is the author of the critically-acclaimed book: Butoh: Cradling Empty Space, which explores the intersection of butoh and neuroscience. Her work is the subject of CNN’s “Great Big Story” "Learning to Dance with your Demons.” She is also featured on BBC’s podcast Deeply Human with host Dessa (episode 2 of 12 : Why We Dance).
Photo (right) by Michael Blase
KOMOCO
International choreographer and dancer from Italy, Sofia Nappi graduated from the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in New York to then deepen her studies internationally. In her training the close contact with the Hofesh Shecter Dance Company and her studies of Gaga, language of the famous choreographer Ohad Naharin, play a fundamental role.
Sofia is artistic director and co-founder of her project KOMOCO thanks to the generous support of the historic Ass. Sosta Palmizi, Ecotopia Dance Production and her unique collaboration with her first muses Adriano Popolo Rubbio and Paolo Piancastelli.
Right away Sofia’s first creations with KOMOCO won the Partner Introdans Award at the Rotterdam International Duet Choreography Competition 2021, the 1st Prize, the Critics' Award and the Production Award from the Tanja Liedtke Foundation & the Artistic Director Marco Goecke of the Staatstheater Hannover at the prestigious 35th International Choreography Competition Hannover 2021. KOMOCO was been in Germany, USA, Italy, Holland, Israel, France, Albania, Spain, Canary Islands, Kosovo, Belgium and Hungary, making stops to many prestigious Italian and international festivals and platforms, including: La Biennale Di Venezia, The Albania Meeting Dance Festival, RomaEuropa Festival, MASDANZA, the Colours International Dance Festival, Teatro del Canal to name a few.
Sofia also continues her path in the role of independent choreographer creating new works for internationally reknown dance companies, such as the re-stage of Holelah, created at the Venice Biennale 2019 and presented again by the National Theater Mannheim in December 2021; Tagadà at the Staatsoper Hannover (2023); Moving Cloud for the Scottish Dance Theatre to be premiered as part of Celtic Connections 2023 and a new special project with the Dutch national company Introdans (2023). For 2024, the Nederlands Dans Theater 2 and the Göteborg Opera have commissioned a new work from her.
At the same time, Sofia Nappi's work also unfolds in the field of research and professional training at an international level (such as at Tisch - New York University, in the context of Micadanses at Le Carreau du Temple in Paris, Henny Jurriëns Studio in Amsterdam, Elephant and the Black Box and Danza180 in Madrid, Tanzpunkt Hannover, at Daf in Rome, Balletto di Toscana, Opus Ballet, etc.) in close collaboration with the dancers of the KOMOCO company.
Photo by Robero Graziani
Dance HUB: Italy 2024 will feature a KOMOCO workshop with Adriano Popolo Rubbio
Adriano Popolo Rubbio is the Rehearsal Director and a Dancer with KOMOCO.
This process will include the creation of a new, site-specific work utilizing KOMOCO ideologies and techniques.
