8 July 2026, 21.15

Real Collegio, Lucca

Free admission

An evening dedicated to contemporary dance featuring new works developed by guest artists from the fifteenth edition, alongside repertory pieces, performed by participants of Dance Italia’s advanced study program.

Dance Italia (DI) is a summer dance program, organized by Stefanie Nelson Dancegroup. DI promotes the study of contemporary movement disciplines through intensive Workshops, Masterclasses, and outdoor performances. Every summer for 15 years, internationally renowned artists, dance students, and young professionals gather in the city of Lucca, for this month-long program. Through specific educational offerings, involving artists, teachers, choreographers, and dancers active on the national and international scene, DI provides participants with tools and opportunities to deepen their artistic, technical, and performance skills.

Dance Italia has hosted more than 600 participants from 24 countries around the world.

This evening is dedicated with deep affection to Monica Bocci.

Performers: Jess Akers, Thy-Lan Alcalay, Leticia Bernardo, Aria Brown, Amelia Brownell, Julienne Buenaventura, Elizabeth Chicas-Delcid, Sophie Douglas, Sofia Farah, Sadie Ferguson, Emersyn Hansen, Reagan Loconto, Lauren Maddock, Emily Martinez, Sara Mondino, Wynona Moon, Taylor Moxey, Scarlet Newton, Lauren Smith, Naomi Southwell, Avery Taylor.

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Idiom: a physical playground

Choreography by Jess Akers

Music: Playground Soundscape

A new creation, investigating the intersection of ‘chance’ and play. The audience is fully immersed in a collection of movement memories; witnessing the recapturing of lost childhood daydreams on the playground. The piece also features a collaboration with Scoreographies, a project by Elisa D'Amico and Francesco Dalmasso that investigates the use of scores as a relational and choreographic tool. Scores, understood as a series of instructions or rules of the game, function to activate movement, space, and interactions between bodies, moving towards a different perception of being together.

Repertory excerpts: “The Fridas” & “Pupo”

Choreography by Komoco Dance: Sofia Nappi in collaboration with dancers

Staged by Glenda Gheller & Adriano Popolo Rubbio

Music: Irfan (“Return to Outremer”), “Adrien Casalis (“Collapse”)

“The Fridas” is a duet inspired by the painting The Two Fridas by Frida Kahlo. It explores the complex theme of human identity through a relationship of complicity and contrast between two dancers. Specular and divergent movements embody internal conflicts and harmony.

In Italian, "Pupo" refers to both child and puppet: This piece is inspired by Pinocchio, the wooden puppet, who would so much like to be a real boy. The focus is on metamorphosis from puppet to boy: how does this slow transformation from one state to another take place? How does the naive child grow up and no longer allow themself to be manipulated by others? Carlo Collodi's world-famous children's book inspired Nappi to create a modern coming-of-age story, through which fairy-tale characters such as the fox and tomcat, the talking cricket and the blue fairy also haunt in associations.

Again and again and again and...

Choreography by: Tricia Dietrick in collaboration with the dancers

Music: Sufjan Stevens (“Lamentation VII”), Satoshi & Makoto (“Crepuscule Leger”), Haruhisa Tanaka (“Last Dance”)

Using the mediums of writing, sound, and imagery, dancers engaged in a multidisciplinary, collaborative process of movement and expression fueled by memory and the human subconscious. As an artist, Tricia is interested in the first echoes of movement and the hidden layers of the human psyche—where does our personal relationship with movement begin and how can we uncover it? Moreover, how can we bring all of these pieces together in a harmony unique to the solo artist and group?

Repertory excerpt: The Rite of Spring

By Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch

Staged by Milan Nowoitnick Kampfer

Music: Igor Stravinsky: The Rite of Spring, K15, Pt. 1: IV. Spring Rounds

Originally choreographed by Pina Bausch in 1975 to Igor Stravinsky's iconic score, The Rite of Spring is a landmark work of contemporary dance. Performed on a stage covered in earth, the piece explores ritual, sacrifice, and the primal forces that bind and divide humanity. Through its raw physicality and emotional intensity, Bausch's choreography remains one of the most influential and enduring works in dance history.

Dance It - OUT

Choreography by: Nunzia Picciallo

Music: Huerco S. (“Plonk IV.)”, Courtesy (“Night Journeys II”)

Picciallo’s ‘WAMI (Who Am I)’ research investigates a physicality that frees itself from the ingrained memory of gender binarism in dance and form, countering traditional structures that confine movement to fixed gender roles. Through fluid and transformative expressions, their research challenges the historical limits imposed on the body, allowing identity to be reimagined beyond societal norms.

Insomnis

Choreography by: Glenda Gheller

Music: TEKEMAT (“TeKeMaT”), Mefisto Brass (“Satisfaction”)

Inspired by the Bauta and the Moretta, two iconic masks of the Venetian tradition, this short creation explores two different forms of power. One dissolves the face to let freedom and transgression emerge; the other guards an intimacy that can only surface by choosing to reveal itself. Between absence and presence, invisibility and revelation, the body crosses a boundary where the mask does not hide identity, but reveals its multiple possibilities.