GIULIO D'ANNA

"Giulio D'Anna stands up, masterfully succeeding in transforming the (auto)biographical into accessible dance."
 jury report for the Zwanen 2014 (VSCD)

"The choreograper brings the human smallness and vulnerability to a wider context and promises the audience to lead and entertain them at the same time."
Jury report Nederlandse DansDagen Prijs van Maastricht 2013

The work of Giulio D’Anna revolves around the desire of investigating and portraying contemporary relationships. Questioning the way culture influences the way we deal with emotions the focus of his dance works is always seeking for personal connections between the dance material and the performer and between the work and the audience.

Giulio D’Anna (1980) is an Italian choreographer based in Amsterdam where has graduated in Choreography at SNDO (School for New Dance Development). He is also graduated as alternative medicine therapist. As choreographer he is interested in the fusion of different theatre languages with dramatic bodies. Drama, desire and humour are key words for his creations.

In 2011 Giulio won the Equilibrio dance festival directed by Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui; in 2012 the Diorapthe Dance Prize, in 2013 the Danza&Danza prize and the NDD Price of Maastricht; in 2014 one of his productions has been nominated for a Zwaan Prize the yearly Dutch Oscar for dance.

OOOOOOOO - International dance theatre format

Winning project of Anticorpi XL CollaborAction 2013 and nomination for the Zwaan (VSCD) 'most uitstanding dance production' 2014

O O O O O O O O is a dance theatre work inspired by The museum of broken relationships of Zagreb and, as for the museum, it revolves around the concept of failed relationships and their ruins.

The material presented sources from the Curriculum Vitae of the performers and from European statistics data. Events and personal information of each life have been under investigation. The performers have been asked to embody verbally and physically memories and experiences of damaged intimacy embracing the idea of exposing their feelings and memories as a sort of ritual, a cathartic cerimony. Can that also inspire our personal search for deeper insights and strengthen our belief in something more meaningful than random suffering?

O O O O O O O O O is a mirror of the emotional state of the young adults; a sort of postmodern musical that aims to offer a moment of self-identification and reflection.

The concept of the original work serves as a format to the creation of a new National works organized around the true stories and contributions of the  new performers. The work, in its National format, compared to the other international and national versions, points out how culture deeply affects and choreograph the way we experience and talk about relationship.

RELA©TIONS - a series of laboratories that address different relationships.

At the core of these laboratories the portrayal of intimacy, and the research of a new vocabulary that could describe the wide range of contemporary relation, are central.

These laboratories are based to the participations of different categories of couples: lovers, neighbours, friends, parent/son (different age groups).

In the specific, the parent/son couples do not need to have a background in dance or theatre. The age group could be with children from 6 to 8 years and 10 to 12 and one for the teenagers between 13 and 16.

Choreographer Giulio D’Anna guides the participants through sessions of movement explorations. The choreographic research of the choreographer is appositely translated in series of games where the couples are invited to create physical intimacy while having fun. The aim of the games is to articulate an intuitive communication that could lead to the discovery and re-definition of the parent/son relation.

During the session a photographer, in collaboration with the choreographer, captures frames and images to document the explorations of the participants. The photographer is part of the plan and the activities of the workshop so that his presence is not felt as alien and disruptive.

The result is a series of photos that portray parent son couples in an intimate dance. This series of photos can be exposed later on as self-standing work of art where choreography and society meet together to encourage a dialogue about relations.

RELA©TIONS can be organized as a single session or a series of multiple events.

The participants to the laboratory are invited to turn off their phones for 2 hours, enter a room with comfortable clothes and bared feet and engage in games with their own parent or son.

REPERTOIRE WORK FOR ACADEMIES AND COMPANIES

In the last years Giulio D’Anna worked with National Academies and Companies in the Netherlands proposing his works as repertoire for the students. His approach with the students focuses on the development of personal creativity, stage presence and movement research, applying his studies about Alwin Nikolais pedagogy and developing a language to expand the analytical approach of Alwin Nikolais to the new qualities needed for a contemporary dancer and performer