I N T E R P L A Y / 26
FESTIVAL INTERNAZIONALE DI DANZA CONTEMPORANEA & PERFORMING ARTS
XXVI edition
May 26 > July 3 + September 16 – 2026 – Turin
Curated by Ass. Cult. Mosaico Danza
Artistic Direction by Natalia Casorati
There is a city that, every spring, stops looking at dance as a spectacle and begins to experience it as a collective experience. Now in its 26th edition, the International Festival of Contemporary Dance & Performing Arts promoted by the Associazione Culturale Mosaico Danza returns from May 26 to July 3, with an additional date on September 16, confirming itself as one of the most solid and visionary reference points in the Italian dance landscape.
Under the artistic direction of Natalia Casorati, Interplay/26 unfolds across three theatres, one museum, and five multidisciplinary spaces, two of them in outdoor natural settings. These locations span both central and peripheral areas of the city, with a declared aim of accessibility, territorial balance, and dialogue with the urban environment.
The program features 28 performances, including 16 creations by Italian choreographers, 12 productions by European artists from 7 countries, and 5 works by artists from 3 non-EU countries for a total of 9 national premieres. The lineup includes 2 winners of the UBU Prize, 3 winners of the Danza&Danza Prize, 4 national premieres by companies supported by the FNSV of the Ministry of Culture, and 5 premieres by international artists. A dynamic exchange driven by experimentation and innovation, weaving together diverse aesthetic, poetic, and choreographic visions.
A thematic map of the present
As in recent editions, the programme is structured around four thematic macro-areas that outline a poetic and political map of contemporary dance.
CONTEMPORARY RITUALS brings together works in which the body becomes a sensitive device, moving through archaic, urban, and magical imaginaries. The pieces by Carlos Aller & Cecilia Bartolino (Frantics), Leïla Ka, Adriano Bolognino, Francesco Marilungo, YOY Performing Arts, Pablo Ezequiel Rizzo and Bassam Abou Diab explore ritual as a space of passage between past and present. In POLITICAL BODY, dance takes on a critical and subversive dimension: bodies that stumble, fail, and age, transforming fragility into a choreographic strategy. This section features works by Wooshing Machine, ERTZA, Vittorio Porcelli, Francesca Santamaria, Andrea Costanzo Martini, Carlo Massari and the collective (LA)HORDE. WILD BODY traces creations that reject representation in favour of action and physical resistance — BTT, Daniele Ninarello, RIART Dance Company, Stefania Tansini, Hugo Marmelada and Collettivo Lattea — in works where physicality is anti-normative, radically present and compulsive. The map concludes with ANATOMY OF GESTURE: a space dedicated to form, technique, and the transmission of dance as a living archive, featuring works by Lost Movement, Guy Nader & Maria Campos, Parini Secondo, Vittorio Pagani and Simone Le Borgne.
Internationally acclaimed artists
The festival opens on May 26 at the Casa del Teatro with the Italian-Belgian company WOOSHING MACHINE presenting Ma l’amor mio non muore | Epilogue (regional premiere). Founded in 1998 through the meeting of Mauro Paccagnella and Alessandro Bernardeschi, the company moves between dance, theatre, clowning, gravity and lightness. Carlotta Sagna — trained by her mother Anna Sagna, later at the Princess Grace Academy of Dance, at Mudra-Béjart in Brussels, and for over 12 years with Needcompany led by Jan Lauwers — together with Alessandro Bernardeschi and Mauro Paccagnella navigate unstable balances and gestures of mutual support, questioning time, love, and the body as places of resistance. With sharp self-irony, the three bodies — ageing, with their «creaking joints» — pose a burning question: what are we to do with our mortal shells? The company has received the Prix Luminux for Theatrical Moment and the Total Theatre Award for the originality and innovation of its choreographic work. On the same evening, in the Arena, the company FRANTICS presents We Will Not Lower Our Voices di Carlos Aller by CARLOS ALLER (national premiere): a duo performed by Katerina Markoulidaki and Cecilia Bartolino, an enveloping blend of contemporary, urban, and folk dance celebrating memory, solidarity, and female transformation. The work received the 2nd Prize at the Danza en el Camino 2024 and the Prize at the Internationales Solo Tanz Theater Festival Stuttgart 2023.
On May 28 comes one of the most anticipated events: LEÏLA KA con Maldonne (regional premiere). Five dancers take the stage exploring fragility, rebellion, and the multiple identities of femininity through forty garments — evening dresses, wedding dresses, nightwear, and ballroom costumes — within an eclectic score ranging from Dmitri Shostakovich to Lara Fabian. Originally trained as an urban artist, Leïla Ka made her choreographic debut in 2018 with the solo Pode Ser, performed more than two hundred times and awarded six international prizes. Maldonne — her first ensemble creation — was nominated for the International Dance Prize 2025 at Sadler’s Wells Theatre in London, and the choreographer received the révélation chorégraphique award from the Syndicat de la Critique in 2022.
On May 30, in the festival’s urban section in Barriera di Milano, the Spanish company ERTZA led by ASIER ZABALETA presents UN’WE (national premiere), performed by two Mozambican dancers, Fenias Nhumaio and Deissane Machava. The title means «only one» in the Changana language: a work reflecting on a world apparently unified by the media yet deeply fragmented and unequal. The project emerged from an artistic collaboration between Spain and Mozambique supported by the Embassy of Spain and AECID – Cooperación Española.
On June 4 at the Casa del Teatro, the Marseille-based collective (LA)HORDE — artistic directors of the Ballet National de Marseille since 2019 — presents People Used To Die (regional premiere), a 2025 rework created for the fifteen dancers of EQUILIBRIO DINAMICO: the only Italian company for which the collective has choreographed. The piece — an adaptation of the original Avant les gens mouraient, created in 2014 for the EDCM in Montréal — explores the languages of hardjump, hakken, and jumpstyle, transforming codes born in club culture into a powerful reflection on mass, individuality, and bodily memory. Winners of the SACD Prize for New Choreographic Talent in 2022, the Unifrance Prize in Cannes for Ghosts (2023), and the First Prize for Best Experimental at the Berlin Music Video Awards, (LA)HORDE has also choreographed The Celebration Tour for Madonna as well as projects for brands such as Burberry and Isabel Marant.
On June 5 at Teatro Astra Natural Order of Things di GN|MC — Guy Nader e Maria Campos (LB/ES) — makes its Piedmont debut. Inspired by self-organizing systems in nature, the work received three MAX 2025 Prizes and was co-produced by Mercat de les Flors, the Grec Festival de Barcelona 2024 and La Biennale di Venezia/Biennale Danza 2024 (regional premiere).
On June 7 at the Imbarchino in Parco del Valentino, MARILISA GALLICCHIO and ALESSIA SINATO present the national premiere of the duo Pack-Back: a backpack as both physical and symbolic load, a metaphor for the experiences we carry within us, oscillating between protection and weight. Gallicchio was a finalist for the Premio Lorca in 2022 and 2023 for Best Contemporary Dance Performer.
On June 14, at the spaces of Combo — an industrial building converted into a cultural venue — the French artist SIMON LE BORGNE, with live music by Ulysse Zangs, presents Ad Libitum, a performance exploring vulnerability and freedom in the relationship between dance and sound.
Completing the international panorama are the Portuguese company DANÇA DE ALMADA with Contido by Hugo Marmelada, a duet on the relationship between the individual and social structures, and the Lebanese choreographer BASSAM ABOU DIAB with a participatory multidisciplinary creation developed during a residency at the Living Lab of Mosaico Danza, as a result of an international open call for dancers and musicians.
Nationally Acclaimed Artists
The programme of Interplay/26 features some of the most significant figures on the Italian scene, reflecting the plurality and vitality of contemporary dance in Italy.
The compagnia ZEBRA — led by CHIARA FRIGO and SILVIA GRIBAUDI — has been active for fourteen years in the research and dissemination of Italian contemporary dance, with a strong social vocation and an international track record including Big Pulse Dance Alliance, Boarding Pass Plus and Performing Gender. The company supports the new creation by ANDREA COSTANZO MARTINI. Trained at the Heinz-Bosl-Stiftung Ballet Academy in Munich, Costanzo Martini began his career at the Aalto Ballett in Essen, joined the Batsheva Dance Company of Ohad Naharin in 2006, and later danced with the Cullberg Ballet in Stockholm in works by Crystal Pite, Jefta van Dinther and Alexander Ekman. On June 12 at Lavanderia a Vapore he presents Pas de Cheval: an ironic duet with FRANCESCA FOSCARINI that uses the metaphor of the horse to question dynamics of power, training, and the vulnerability of the performer within the performance system.
The Apulian company EQUILIBRIO DINAMICO, founded in 2011 by ROBERTA FERRARA and recognised by the Italian Ministry of Culture as a Dance Production Organisation, has become a regular presence in festivals and theatres across Europe, the Americas and Asia. On June 4 it presents a dyptich composed of People Used To Die by (LA)HORDE for 15 dancers and Violetto Bellosguardo by Vittorio Porcelli, in collaboration with Fondazione TRG.
The company LOST MOVEMENT — founded by NICOLÒ ABBATISTA and CHRISTIAN CONSALVO, multi-award-winning, active on themes of gender and inclusion, and since 2022 curator of FLIC Festival Lanciano in Contemporanea — presents dancehALL on May 30 in Barriera di Milano (winner of Danza Urbana XL 2025): a techno-urban container in which salsa, cha-cha-cha, jive and polka are stripped from their contexts and reduced to essential dynamic patterns capable of engaging diverse audiences.
On June 9 at Lavanderia a Vapore, STEFANIA TANSINI (Compagnia Nanou) — winner of the Premio UBU 2022 for Best Performer Under 35 — presents the national premiere of Studi per M.: a work inspired by Marcel Proust and the connections between sensory memory and the untamed body. The piece was selected at the Open Studios of the NID Platform 2025, with sound dramaturgy by Enrico Malatesta and produced by Compagnia Nanou and Orbita | Spellbound Centro Nazionale di Produzione della Danza. Also returning to Interplay is Daniele Ninarello — founder of Codeduomo, trained at the Codarts Rotterdam Dance Academy, collaborator with Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, Virgilio Sieni and Ezio Bosso, and with works presented at Biennale Danza in Venice and Aerowaves — with I offer myself to you / expanded version: a performance focused on the transmission and sharing of choreographic practices through the Laboratorio Permanente Il Corpo Intuitivo, scheduled on May 30 and June 12.
FRANCESCO MARILUNGO, associate artist of Körper | Centro Nazionale di Produzione della Danza and joint winner of the Premio UBU 2024 for Best Dance Performance with Stuporosa, returns with a work reflecting on mourning as a collective ritual. On June 6 at Lavanderia a Vapore he presents Cani Lunari (regional premiere): an ensemble performance intertwining ritual, trance and imaginaries of archaic femininity, featuring Vera Di Lecce, Barbara Novati, Roberta Racis, Alice Raffaelli and Francesca Linnea Ugolini. House dance, oral chants, magical formulas and a soundscape blending hybrid electronics with the Salento musical tradition of Vera Di Lecce create a score suspended between the earthly and the divine. The project won the CollaborAction – Network Anticorpi XL.
Closing the national focus on July 3 is CARLO MASSARI — founder of C&C Company, winner of CollaborActionXL 2020 and since 2025 co-artistic director of the project SPaCCa (fusion between C&C Company and Sanpapié Company) — with STRANO: a chaotic and poetic inner universe where the body becomes a field of tension between desire, constraint and imagination.
Emerging Artists
Interplay confirms its established role as a scouting festival, fostering dialogue between research, experimentation and professional development.
On May 31 at GAM – Galleria d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea in Turin, the collective YOY Performing Arts (Emma Zani, Roberto Doveri, Timoteo Carbone) presents Meraki (regional premiere): a performance combining dance, music and visual arts in collaboration with Medhat Shafik, Leone d’Oro at the Venice Biennale, with the poem Ithaca by Constantine P. Cavafy. YOY Performing Arts also won Giovane Danza Italiana YTI Project, the Progetto Cura 2025 and the SIAE Nuove Opere call, and were selected by NID Platform 2025.
On June 4 at Casa del Teatro, VITTORIO PORCELLI — a performer with Marina Abramović and recognised at the NID Platform 2025 Open Studios — presents Violetto Bellosguardo, a male reinterpretation of the character created by Roald Dahl. The work has already been presented at the Performance NOW! Festival (Hungary), Festival Nutida (Italy) and L’Escalier (Switzerland). On the same evening, ADRIANO BOLOGNINO — winner of two Premio Danza&Danza awards and recently featured on February 6 in the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics Opening Ceremony at San Siro Stadium — presents the duet Last Movement of Hope with Laura Dell’Agnese and Cristina Roggerini, exploring the fragility and resilience of human relationships.
On June 6 at Lavanderia a Vapore, FRANCESCA SANTAMARIA (Codeduomo) presents the national premiere of Good Vibes Only a satirical work on digital performativity and compulsive scrolling, selected for Aerowaves Twenty26 and winner of Danza Urbana XL 2025.
On June 7 at Imbarchino, the Pamplona-based RIART Dance Company (Rafa Arenas and Idoia Rodríguez) presents Los Invisible (national premiere): a duet blending urban dance, contemporary dance and parkour to explore what invisibly sustains bodies and relationships. The work was selected by Red Acieloabierto.
On June 9 at Lavanderia a Vapore, a triple programme unfolds. After the performance by Stefania Tansini, PARINI SECONDO presents Hit Out (regional premiere), created with the electronic musician Bienoise (Alberto Ricca), transforming jump rope into a choreographic score. The project won Boarding Pass Plus 2023 and the SIAE Nuove Opere call. At 21:30 in the theatre, VITTORIO PAGANI (Codeduomo) presents Superstella: an investigation into the creative process and the mechanisms of dance production. The work was selected for the Vetrina della Giovane Danza d’Autore, NID Platform 2025 and Aerowaves/25, and has already been presented at the Romaeuropa Festival.
On June 12, PABLO EZEQUIEL RIZZO / VOLUPTAS presents Sex.exe (regional premiere): a multidisciplinary performance that won the Premio Prospettiva Danza Teatro 2025 and the MILANoLTRE Must Be The Space call, placing ancient and contemporary iconographies in dialogue through the body.
The programme concludes on September 16 with COLLETTIVO LATTEA con l’anteprima di Moraine – Capitolo I: presenting a preview of Moraine – Chapter I: a project reflecting on loss and transformation, with costumes produced by the Fondazione Pistoletto, video projections and lighting dramaturgy curated by Punto Rec.
Talks, Dialogue and Processes
The festival goes beyond simple performance, transforming the stage into a space for shared reflection through two thematic talks.
The opening event on May 26 launches the cycle of discussions with “Le Forme della Danza“: the performance by Wooshing Machine becomes the starting point for a reflection on the artistic and pedagogical legacy of Anna Sagna, a Turin-born figure among the most significant in twentieth-century Italian dance, whose thinking promoted an aesthetic centred on the expressiveness of movement beyond academic conventions. Among the speakers are her daughter Carlotta Sagna and the representatives of the Collettivo VIE (university research group on Bella Hutter’s legacy) and Alessandro Pontremoli, Professor of Performing Arts Studies at the University of Turin and co-author of a biographical essay on Anna Sagna.
On June 4, following the performances at Casa del Teatro Ragazzi e Giovani, the stage becomes a laboratory with “PANIC ROOM – Giovani corpi, urgenze del presente“. This open dialogue brings together artists — Equilibrio Dinamico with choreographies by (LA)HORDE, Vittorio Porcelli and Adriano Bolognino — whose works move across languages from breakdance to jumpstyle while addressing gender identity, marginalisation, belonging and self-construction. Joining the discussion are Emiliano Bronzino, Artistic Director of Fondazione TRG, and a representative of Associazione Tiarè, active since 2000 with a clinical, relational and social approach to the urgencies faced by young people. The stage thus becomes a place for listening, dialogue and democratic reflection on the challenges shaping the present of new generations.
