Il Cantiere cultural association is an independent artistic team working, since many years, in the field of performing arts, the activity focuses on performances for theatrical spaces and site-specific creations for unconventional places connecting choreographic research to sound, video images and different practices of participatory theatre.

Founded by choreographer and dancer Sara Marasso, the association has since 2014 explored an even more cross disciplinary approach to creation, enriched by a deep and ongoing collaboration with bassist, composer and videomaker Stefano Risso followed by a series of collaboration with other artists including Teresa Noronha Feio (dramaturgy, co-creation , dance) Fenia Kotsopoulou (video, comunication, co-creation, dance), Andrea Coppone (actor, performer) anf with Davide Rigodanza (light design). In 2019 the artistic team was enriched by the collaboration of the project manager and performer Silvia Urbani (organization and artistic production), and more recently with dancer Iro Xyda.

Since 2016, involvement in collaborative and participatory projects has grown significantly to the most recent engagement in the conception and artistic coordination of a Creative Europe cooperation project in the two-year period 2021 – 2023. Currently, their main artistic research direction aims to contribute, through the languages of performance art, to an ecological transition within and outside the field of art.

Sara Marasso

Since the beginning, Sara’s interest in dance has been an occasion to explore the body embracing its complexity. Her research merges theoretical studies in art and cinema and practical studies of different movement’s techniques in a perspective that considers contemporary creation an encounter between languages. Her cross disciplinary work, presented in theater as well as in unconventional spaces, explores different modality of art’s sharing, with a special attention to public space and a wide range of audience, highlighting the connection between scene and everyday life, audience and performers.

After a first period of dance and cinema’s studies in Turin she continues her dance research at the Laban Centre for contemporary dance in London, then in Essen to follow the Wuppertaler Tanztheater’s work, finally move to Paris where she obtains a Master’s degree at Paris VIII University, Dance Department. Her first choreographic works have been invited by national and international performing art festivals such as Interplay International contemporary dance festival, Les Repérages Rencontre Internationales de la Jeunes Choregraphie Lille, Tanzmesse Düsseldorf, Charleroi Dance, Festival da Fabrica Porto, FKM Belgrad, AutunnoDanza Festival, as well as in other important international site-specific creation projects as the European Interreg France-Italian project Marchés Communes, Italyart Cultural Olympiad, Corpi Urbani Genova, Festival Havana Vieja L’Havana.

Original productions were commissioned by Torinodanza Festival, Italian Ministry of cultural heritage and activity, Regional Performing Art Circuit Piemonte da Vivo and Lavanderia a Vapore Regional Center for Dance, Sandretto Re Rebaudengo Contemporary Art Foundation. Since 2019 she is based in Lisbon continuing her activity between Italy, Portugal and abroad.

Stefano Risso bio

An eclectic and research-oriented artist, he has performed with musicians and groups which differ from each other in genre and form: Stefano Battaglia, Gianni Coscia, Roy Paci, Francesco De Gregori, Lalli, Meg, among many others. His work has received wide acclaim and praise by critics, and his personal and collective projects as well have been recognized as outstanding by many of the most important specialized magazines, including Jazzit and Musica Jazz, and on websites like All About Jazz and Jazz Convention.

His vast production and intense concert activity range from instrumental music (jazz, avant-garde jazz, and experimental) to vocal music, rock and folk, and popular or auteur songs, of which he has always been a keen admirer. He has written and produced music for the theatre, and has created music projects for several writers and video artists. He has recorded more than fifty albums, many of which he has realized as leader or co-leader (Vocifero, Les Diables Bleus, HellmullerRissoZanoli, Barber Mouse, T.R.E., to name a few) under international record labels (from Japan to Switzerland, to France, England, Italy, and Finland).