“Learning comes from practice. Whether it’s learning to dance through the experience of dancing, or learning to live through experiences of life, the principle remains the same. In some fields, one becomes an athlete of God.”
Martha Graham
Mauro Astolfi is one of the most representative contemporary authors on the European scene. As a choreographer and educator, he has built his own style and original gestural language, the result of a personal elaboration of various expressive forms of contemporary movement. The foyer of the Auditorium Melotti will serve as the setting for his Site Specific Young Project, a training workshop that offers eleven young dancers from Trentino, under his guidance, the opportunity to perform three days with three shows each day, on September 5, 6, and 7, in the context of Oriente Occidente. The theme will be Humanology, and here’s how its author explains it: “The creation took shape by reflecting on the encounter / clash between the human component and man's approach to technology. The performance reflects and investigates human technology, that is, making the body an ‘antenna,’ an antenna to capture signals, those of others, to learn to know and recognize oneself. It is the overcoming of the sophisticated technology of the body to go beyond the body itself; if one is fortunate, one might encounter the ultimate sublimation of technology: love.”
After a long stay in the United States, Mauro Astolfi founded the Spellbound Dance Company in 1994, now known as Spellbound Contemporary Ballet: a preferential channel to express his personal conception of choreographic language, as well as a leading company in the international market, recognized for both the originality of its creations and the technical excellence of its performers. As a freelance author, he has signed choreographies, among others, for Kitonb Extreme Theatre Company (2004) and for Theaterschool in Amsterdam (2005); and for the Balletto di Roma, the production Libera Risonanza (2009), and for the Szegedi Kortárs Balett in Hungary, the show Quasi Umano (2010). He created the choreographies for the musical I Promessi Sposi - Opera moderna directed by Michele Guardì (2010). In 2011, he was invited to Germany by the Leipziger Ballet to choreograph an original creation for the “Intershop” project titled Hold Me in This Storm and to Chicago in the United States for a new work for the River North Chicago Dance Company titled Contact Me. Also in 2011, he co-choreographed with Israeli Adi Salant, associate director of the Batsheva Dance Company for the project “Dance and/ is Culture: A Bridge Between Italy and Israel,” promoted and sponsored by MIUR (Ministry of Education, Universities and Research), Fondazione Flavio Vespasiano, and the Municipality of Rieti. In addition to his work as a choreographer, Mauro Astolfi is constantly engaged as a guest teacher in major international dance centers. Since October 2009, he has been the Artistic Director of the contemporary department at the Centro D.A.F. (Dance & Arts Faculty - International Dance and Performing Arts Project) in Rome.
