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SCHOLARLY WORK

I believe in the complementarity of theory and praxis: where the first requires rigor and stimulates embodied practice, the second challenges acquired principles and triggers new findings. My passion for the avant-gardes pushed me to experiment with intermediality in my work as a director and choreographer, whereas my training as an actor and dancer brought me to scholarly investigate the experience of the performer in the very moment of performing. My interdisciplinary research studies the embodiment of the image, ranging from dance and performance studies to philosophy and the visual arts. My awarded dissertation, “Performing Shapes: Composing the Gap between Performer and Image,” studied the embodiment of the image in contemporary Western dance and theatre, focusing on the phenomenon of gesture.

Photograph (c) 2015 Maria Carla Maccario

Conferences

Legacies of Commedia dell’Arte, UC, Riverside, November 2019. Presented “I Am a Woman - I Am Harlequin - I Can Play with Tragic: Otherness in Gender and Genre in Contemporary Italian Commedia dell’Arte.”

Dance Studies Association, Northwestern University, Evanston, U. S., August 2019.

Presented lecture-demonstration “The Inoperative Common in Jérôme Bel.”

Dance Studies Association, Valletta, Malta, July 2018. Presented “Finding Agency in Tarantism: A Conflict between Scriptive Choreography and Autopoietic Dance.”

 

Mellon Dance Studies Summer Seminar, Brown University, U. S., June 2016. Presented “Virgilio Sieni and the Gospel Iconography. Kinetic Forms of a Secular Tale.”

 

Mellon Dance Studies Summer Seminar, Northwestern University, U. S., June 2015.

Presented “Performing Shapes: Composing the Gap between Performer and Image.”

 

Performance Studies International 19, Stanford, U. S., June 2013. Presented “Carmelo Bene and the Gap of Gesture,” History and Philosophy, Performance and Philosophy Working Group.

 

Performance Studies International 18, Leeds, UK, June 2012. Presented “The Marionette of Heinrich Von Kleist: A Trainer for the Performer”.

 

Northern California Performance Studies Platform, Stanford, U. S., May 2012.  

Presented “Digging into Jasper Ridge: History’s Presence.”

 

American Dance College Festival Association, Southwest Conference, Modesto Junior College, U. S., March 2011. Performed Yellow.

Publications

Book Chapter

“Dancing the Image: Virgilio Sieni’s Choreographic Tableaux.” Futures of Dance Studies. University of Wisconsin Press. 2020.

Academic Journals

“Rapt and En-chanted. Carmelo Bene’s Voice and the Beyond of Theater,” California Italian Studies. 11, 2 (2022), 1-15.

“The Marionette of Heinrich von Kleist: A Dancing Model,” Dance Chronicle. 42, 2 (2019): 217-243.

 

“Choreographing Expressionist Paintings: Claudia Contin Arlecchino Dances Egon Schiele.” Dance Chronicle. 41, 2 (2018): 212-238, special issue on dance and visual arts.

 

“Carmelo Bene and the Gap in the Actor’s Gesture.” Forum Italicum. 52, 3 (2018): 824-843.

 

“Disseminating Bene in the Anglosphere: A Translation Project.” With Francesco Chillemi. Mimesis Journal: Scritture della Performance. 5, 1 (2016): 79-89. 

 

“A Meditation on Stillness: Ann Carlson’s Picture Jasper Ridge.” Winner of TDR 2015 Student Essay Contest. The Drama Review. 60, 2 (2016): 83-102. 

 

“Dwelling in Performing as Thinking.” Mimesis Journal: Scritture della Performance. 2, 2 (2013): 144-165. 

 

“Etica dello Spazio: Lo Spazio Secondo Robert Wilson e l’Orma di Kandinskij.” Il Castello di Elsinore. 58 (2008): 73-89.

Interview

“The Voice from the 10th Row: Carl Weber and the Berliner Ensemble.” With Branislav Jakovljević, Keara Harman, Michael Hunter, Jamie Lyons, Lindsey Mantoan, Ljubiša Matić, Ciara Murphy, Jens Pohlmann, and Ryan Tacata. The Drama Review. T239 (Fall Issue 2018): 51-108.

 

Translation

De Marinis, Marco. “Maud Robart, Student/Teacher: Collaborating with Grotowski.” The Drama Review. 61,1 (2017): 114-123.

 

Review 

“Ibsen e Wilson: Incontro con la Donna del Mare.” VeneziaArti (2009): 49-50.

 

 

 

 

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