Disambiguation probes the libidinal drive and the sensorial overload linked to the diversified milieus of nocturnal life in it's most alluring, enigmatic, and shadowed dimensions.
In Disambiguation choreographer and dancer Elisa Zuppini crafts a system where human perception converges with the presence of other-than-human agencies. The fifteen dancers form a pulsing structure in which they extend toward and withdraw from the audience's perceptual field. Like chtonic waves a hybrid circuit of sensation is generated.
The dancers explore an insomniac framework, particularly that of 'post-clubbing' in which the stimulating effects and aftereffects of hedonistic nocturnal life is examined. They perform in a dissociative state of depersonalization, allowing them to resource from something other than conditioned subjectivity. Instead, they take charge of wandering intensities. The identifiable traits of these affects disperse, giving rise to erratic moods across perceptual spectrums. By inhabiting liminal and viscous spaces, the performers explore multiple sensibilities, navigating within the condition of metathreshold (a ceaseless transition, where boundaries dissolve and transformation occurs), where ambiguity itself sculpts tangible states.
Accompanied by deconstructed melodies and industrial rhythms, a haunting gothic trend emerges. Navigating a world erratically attempting to understand itself, Disambiguation reflects on collective agency and how this distributed cognition gives rise to a dramaturgy of affect.
Press
A Painting of Resignation by Fransien van der Putt on Theaterkrant
Bodies in Between: Elisa Zuppini's Disambiguation by Florian Hellwig (to be found under 'Research')






concept and choreography Elisa Zuppini creation in collaboration with the performers Hannah Badura, Rowan van den Boomen, Tim Brügger, Harvey Burke-Hamilton, Lola Dupriez, Mandisa Gramelsberger, Katrina Gusca, Jieon Ko, Ana Longo Nsame, Maxine van Lishoet, Clémence Masakidi, Esteban Alejandro Obregon Moriano, Envel Serazin, Jentel Schiettekatte, Ditte Toppet dramaturgy Bruno Listopad supervisor sound editor Fabian Reichle featuring original tracks by Lotic and BFRND costumes Elisa Zuppini and Bruno Listopad lighting design Martijn Smolders technic and lighting design contribution Martin Kaffarnik producer Charlot Van Der Meer graphic design poster Bruno Listopad and Tea Teearu developed with the support of AFK (Amsterdam Funds for the Arts) co-produced by Expanded Contemporary Dance and WhyNot Festival research presentation platforms Amsterdam University of the Arts (June 2024); FLAM Festival with Museumnacht (November 2024, Amsterdam) thanks to the performers, Bruno Listopad, Bojana Bauer, Belle de Wit, Marjolein Vogels, Jacuzzi, Maria Ines Villasmil-Prieto, Gideon Poirier, Rose Akras, Tea Teearu, Zeynep Guntur, Dave Krooshof, Frascati photography Sjoerd Derine (Amsterdam University of the Arts, June 2024); Thiemi Higashi (FLAM Festival with Museumnacht, November 2024, Amsterdam).
The first development phase of this work took place at Expanded Contemporary Dance, Amsterdam University of the Arts, in May and June 2024, together with more performer from the original cast Efua-Maria Raknerud Aikins, Kofi Boanyah, Federica Lovato, Mia Malencia, Bo Nijssen, May van Leeuwen, Maren Weertman, Hope Landu and the assistance of Tamara Beudeker and Bruno Listopad. This phase was made possible through the invitation of the then artistic director of Expanded Contemporary Dance, Bojana Bauer.

In The Knot, the body transforms through a tangled series of sculptures, where choreographic knots appear at once visceral, formal, and visual. Through their dynamic tension, these intricate bindings generate a choreographic motion that embraces spaces external to its writing. Continually redefining its boundaries, the work evokes an erotic dispersal of what resides within or beyond the choreography, ultimately seeking to reorient thought and inspire a reinvention of the continuous affection for the body.




concept, choreography and performance Elisa Zuppini dramaturgy Bruno Listopad sound Fabian Reichle supported by FLAM Festival, Jacuzzi photography Thiemi Higashi
presented at
FLAM Festival, Forum for Live Art Amsterdam, November 2024
Dansehallerne, Copenhagen, 21st March 2025
Red Light District Art and Culture, Amsterdam, 13th April 2025
Holland Festival, Amsterdam, 14th June 2025
Red Light District Art and Culture, Amsterdam, 13th September 2025
A commission by Expanded Contemporary Dance, Academy for Theatre and Dance, Amsterdam. Also presented at Museumnacht and FLAM Festival 2024.

“In Disambiguation Zuppini masterfully crafts a complex ensemble piece."
Bojana Bauer, theorist, dramaturg, and artistic director of ECD Expanded Contemporary Dance, and CND responsable de formation et de pédagogie, Paris
“Wonderful and devastating performance (…) Definitely the most impressive group work I saw in years.” Fransien van den Put, dramaturg, theatre critic and author
In "Disambiguation," ensemble work for 15 dancers, Zuppini evokes the presence of a self-contained world where the human capacity for sensation and image creation, along with the active presence of non-human forces, are enveloped within a choreographic-machine that is both human-made and self-sustaining. "Disambiguation" emerges as a circuit of sensations woven with media references, fragmented loops, and dissociated postures. The circuit, as it seeks to understand itself and its own functioning, carries the work through its own self-perception. Within this domain, gravity acts as a multifaceted force, morphing within bodies and ultimately affecting not only our kinetic experience but also our individual, and collective introspective realities.






Concept and choreography: Elisa Zuppini
Creation in collaboration with the performers: Efua-Maria Raknerud Aikins, Kofi Boanyah, Harvey Burke-Hamilton, Federica Lovato, Mia Malencia, Clémence Masakidi, Bo Nijssen, Esteban Alejandro Obregon Moriano, May van Leeuwen, Maren Weertman, Jieon Ko, Tim Brügger, Lola Dupriez, Mandisa Gramelsberger, Hope Landu, Rowan van den Boomen, Ditte Toppet
Artistic advise: Bruno Listopad
Supervisor sound editor: Fabian Reichle
Repetitor: Tamara Beudeker
Costumes: Elisa Zuppini, Bruno Listopad
Light Design: Martijn Smolders
Photo credits: Nina and Neda Ruzheva
Production: Expanded Contemporary Dance
Photo credits: Sjoerd Derine
Presented at:
Academy for Theater and Dance, Amsterdam, 19th-22nd June 2024
Museumnacht + FLAM Festival, 2nd November 2024

AN ARCHIVE is a choreographic model that reorganizes temporal forms. Working within the structure of the theatrical black box, it engages with the immanent and often resistant isolation of the space, reassembling it into open and renewed edging spatialities.

Choreography and Performance | Elisa Zuppini
Dramaturgy | Bruno Listopad
Sound | Fabian Reichle
A performance created for the Pauline de Groot Festival. Commissioned by Fransien van der Putt.
Supported by SNDO-50years, DAS, De Nieuwe Dansbibliotheek, Plein Theater, and Stichting Podiumkunst.net

Himalaya unfolds as a cinematic environment where sculpture, metaphysical fiction, and post-clubbing converge, inviting contemplation on the perception of time and its multiplicities.
Himalaya marks the first work of Elisa Zuppini following her graduation from the SNDO – School for New Dance Development, first premiered at ICK Fest and later reworked into a new version in 2023, which premiered during the Feeling Curious? festival at Theatre Rotterdam. Over time, Himalaya has evolved alongside the development of Zuppini’s artistic research, reflecting the early foundations of her creative journey.
In Himalaya, Zuppini deepens her exploration of the material and libidinal dimensions of the body, and of reality as a complex web of interrelated systems. Her inquiry engages with what appear to be irreconcilable forces and with the allure of synthetic hybridisation, as these intensities are refracted through the body.
By tracing particular aspects of reality, she scrutinises the slow tempos of erosion within the geological realm, the accelerating images of digital environments, and the repetition and persistence of machinic bodies. In Himalaya, she stages the conflict between these systems — as if they were moving tectonics within perception itself — that collide but never fully integrate. Drawing from planetary motions, this tension becomes a metaphor for the ways such systems may operate in the mind: disjointed yet related, forced yet unsettled.
Accompanied by original music from acclaimed composer Hesaitix fka M.E.S.H. (James Whipple) — sonic landscapes weaving layered textures drawn from both the organic and the synthetic — the piece unfolds through a viscous relationship between sound and body, exploring an irregular temporal structure that draws the spectator’s attention into unexpected openings

Concept and Choreography | Elisa Zuppini
Performer | Federica Dalla Pozza
Live sound | M.E.S.H. (James Whipple)
Dramaturg | Bruno Listopad
Production assistance | Michael Scerbo, Ludovica Daddi
Camera and editing | Saskia Habermann
Produced and supported by Amsterdam Fonds for the Arts, ICK Amsterdam, Choreographic Center Heidelberg, Ricerca X, Armunia Teatri, RAM – Residenze Artistiche Marchigiane (promoted by MiC and Regione Marche
The piece was presented at:
Spider Festival, Lubljiana, Slovenia, June 2024 (REWORK)
FAROUT Festival, BASE Milano, Italy, October 2023 (REWORK)
Feeling Curious? Festival at Theatre Rotterdam, Netherlands, October 2023 (REWORK)
Danza Urbana, Bologna, Italy, September 2023
Synergy Festival, Amsterdam, Netherlands, June 2023
Tanzbiennale Heidelberg, Germany, July 2021
Julidans Off Venue, Amsterdam, July 2021
Theater de Meervaart, Amsterdam, Netherlands, October 2019
BODY drop event, Amsterdam, Netherlands, October 2019 (Try out)
Antidote Festival, Utrecht, Netherlands, June 2019 (Try out)

With the work Miniatures, Elisa Zuppini initiates a new research phase delving into tight logic and layers through which constricted self-sensing foldings proliferate into intensive movements and refurnishing miniatures of dispersion. Through such a process, Zuppini observes the implications that arise between mass, their bodies, and abstract objects, as well as how altered perception blurs the boundaries between the sphere of the mind and the actual, yet somehow provisional, space.
Furthermore, the core inspiration for Miniatures centres on loops and the notion of “trending,” particularly delving into the repetition and variation within a dance sequence. Drawing inspiration from the format of a fashion show, primarily for the successive entrance of its performers in a constant motion forward (and backward), the piece navigates the concept of a dance phrase functioning as a trend—something captivating and desiring continuous reconstruction and repetition.


Concept and choreography Elisa Zuppini in collaboration with Bruno Listopad
Performed by Dovile Krutulyte and Wan-Yun Chen
Produced by and presented at FLAM Festival residencies Under_construction, Amsterdam 2023

For Performing Landscapes Elisa Zuppini creates a piece for the student of 3rd year Expanded Contemporary Dance in Amsterdam. The project is a collaboration between the Academy and WhyNot Festival.


Concept and choreography | Elisa Zuppini
Sound | Oceanic
Performers | Salya Berraf, Wan-Yu Chen, Elias Clark, Eivinas Dziena, Hannah Fernandes Badura, Alberte Buch GØbel, Balder StuestØl Hansen, Dovile Krutulyte,
Ummi Renteria Wouters, Ana Margaride Tasso de Sousa, Erikas Žilaitis, Meriç Tuncer, Swali Mazzaggio, Alina Lugovskaya, Johan Hogsten, Ida Vu.
Photography by Sjoerd Derine
Produced by | ECD Expanded Contemporary Dance Amsterdam (NL)

In Synthetic Disjunctions the maker and solo performer Elisa Zuppini explores dance as a visual and textural manifestation. She utilizes her body to encapsulate the experience of dancing into forms as 'abstract objects'. Aware that this very experience is irrepressible, she enlightens the excess that remains uncontainable.
Constantly operating through a friction between withhold and manifestation, Zuppini gives life to a series of embodied forms like living objects. Something eerie is activated in space and an irregular architecture unfolds by default as a result of internal relational logic.


Concept and choreography | Elisa Zuppini
Object realisation | Sajoscha Talirz
Dramaturgy | Bruno Listopad
Photo credit | Thomas Lenden
Developed with the support of Dansmakers Amsterdam, ICK Dans Amsterdam, Veem House for Performance and Green House, Ricerca X, CAMPUS choreographic center, Jacuzzi
The piece was presented at:
Warm Bad_ The Digital Edition, Amsterdam, November 2023
Subbucultcha LOOM at Pasthoornek, Amsterdam, August 2023
Veem House for Performance, Amsterdam, March 2023
Pleintheater Amsterdam, October 2021
Kunstelik Amsterdam, October 2020
Dansmakers Amsterdam, August 2020
NDSM Amsterdam, June 2020

Synthetic Disjunctions is a piece created both for the theater and for the white box. During 2020 it was also presented in two site specific spaces during the Festival Antidote 1on1, where one audience member at the time was invited to watch the performance. An initiative undertaken under the pandemic Covid19.
It was presented at: NDSM Amsterdam and Kunstlicht Amsterdam Noord.

Performance and Choreography | Elisa Zuppini
Photo credit | Jesse Vanhoek, Ines Agnese
Supported by Dansmakers Amsterdam and ICK Amsterdam Dance Company


Choreography | Elisa Zuppini
Performance | Federica Dalla Pozza, Elisa Zuppini
Outfits | Eduardo Leon
Performed at
Subbuculctha Horses in the void, February 2019 Amsterdam
De Apple, June 2019 Amsterdam
Van Gogh Museum, November 2019 Amsterdam
Arti et Amicitiae Global Warm up, November 2019 Amsterdam
Het Heem x HardHoof anniversary, October 2020 Amsterdam
Groningen Friday Night, February 2020, Groningen
Photo credits | Giovanni Giaretta

STRAXXE (cloth in Venetian dialect) is a site specific performance created for The Picnic Pavillon at Casa Punto Croce, located in Venice. The event take place during the opening of Biennale di Venezia as a counterforce from venetian artists against the art consumerism that the city undergoes in that period.


Transmaterial is a meta-organic and multi-directional space where you can slime or get stuck, dissolve, elevate and dance.
Transmaterial explore a self choreographic system where the material and affective relation in between bodies, body parts and the body of the audience, construct and unfold the event every time differently.

Concept | Elisa Zuppini
Performers | Tamir Eting, Gerko Farkas, Federica Dalla Pozza, Elisa Zuppini
Avisor | Bruno Listopad
Photo credits | Nellie de Boer
Produced by SNDO School for New Dance Development (Graduation Festival)

LIIL presents an unfolding reality of transformative bodies. By entering a hypersensitive state of perception, the performers sense themselves and the space between the fictional and the actual: the body as a decentralized system of embodying force, place as an ever-moving site, the skin as a giant landscape, materiality in constant re-organization and the gravity as a re-configurable force.
By allowing micro and macro elements to enter into relational movement, a system of systems is initiated generating unpredictable, fragmented and oblique (mis)alignments through the sensory chaos. The body experiences itself as a materiality that transforms irregularly in time, while the viewer is invited to slip between different dimensions of materiality.
LIIL is a culmination of various elements of Zuppini’s artistic research, inspired by an unceasing quest for the complexity of the invisible forces that constantly habit and encounter the bodies.
Review of LIIL by philosopher and critic Samo Oleami, at Spider Festival 2018, Lubljiana (SL)
Concept and Choreogrphy | Elisa Zuppini
Performers | Federica Dalla Pozza, Elisa Zuppini
Soundtrack and mix | Elisa Zuppini
Sound advisor and design | Elisa Battistutta
Dramaturgical advisors | Renèe Copraji and Nikola Knevic
Light design | Marteen
Photo credits | Matjias Luckic, Nellie De Boer
Produced by SNDO School for New Dance Development
The piece was presented at:
Corrosia Theater festival, Almere (NL), March 2019
Dansmakers, Amsterdam, November 2018
Spider Festival Lubljiana (SL), September 2018
Frascati Theater, Amsterdam, March 2018

Fontana dei movimenti is a piece at the threeshold of both sci-fi and ballet genre. From unity to shape, to separations, the work aims to search for the source of movement from which form can rise.
The project was a collaboration in between SNDO choreography department and MTD dance department at Theaterschool in Amsterdam.
Concet and Choreography | Elisa Zuppini
Performers | Ana, Andrei, Christian, Diana, Evgenia, Pilvi
Advisor | Michele Rizzo
Produced by SNDO and presented at Veem House for Performance, Amsterdam 2017

Singularities on the Edges of Nowhere is a piece created from the event, an intra-action between the choreographer and the 9 dancers.
Commissioned by Open Flr and presented at Villa Strozzi in Florence (IT) in the summer of 2016.
Elisa was awarded by Opne Flr as young talent in choreography 2016.

Concept and Choreography | Elisa Zuppini
Performers | Casey Brown, Dixon Li, Kimberley Lippe, Claire Laske, Abigail Santana Medina, Emmanuel Ponce Martinez, Isaias Fitch Vegas, Noemi Sanchez Cardenas, Brenna Nopenz
Photo credits | Valeria Cosi

Might be dancing / manifested perception is a manifesto for dancing. Three performers from diverse backgrounds, encounter in an swirling dance in which their qualities get to mix. With contamination from Ballet, House and Russian dance they meet to give life to a contemporary dancing: a dance of network, speed connection and disorganized identities.
Treating the body of the performers as an archive and working the movement from an idea of vectorial forces, the qualities get queered and extended from the bodies into the whirling chaos of the piece. The work thus builds on shifting intensities, always resisting to the verge of collapse.

Concept and Choreography | Elisa Zuppini
Performers | Mami Kang, Imola Nagi, Alexey Shcolnik
Advisor | Matej Kejizar
Mentor | Bruno Listopad
Sound mix | Elisa Zuppini
Light design | Pedro Correia
Photo credits | Nellie de Boer, Anne Smeets
produced by SNDO school for new dance development
Elisa had a wonderful approach to the assignment and a great work attitude. She made a performance that seems to derive out of a curiosity about how her own perception is wired, engineered, distributed, and reconfigured when opening herself and entering in conscious relation with the materials of the world, either virtual or actual.
This bold work has been obviously very fruitful to her development as a choreographer but also to her dancers and the development of the discipline itself, but not solely -- I will attempt to touch upon that later on.
Yet why is Might be dancing / manifested perception research so valuable?
Because this contributes to the revaluation of movement into performing arts after this has been partly marginalized in many reflexive choreographic circles as merely redundant. Coincidently she does so after movement has been intensely valued in affect and activist philosophy. She does not do such out of disciplinary essentialism, or a sort of modernist revivalism. On the contrary, she looks upon this through the lens of hybridism and as a relational technology that operates continuously beyond and through a logic of representation. She diagnoses movement by hypersensitizing herself to the sensation as the object itself.
Practically speaking, Elisa worked intensely on drafting and reconfiguring diverse types of scores that activated bodies into unpredictable and fragmentary responses. She did so by attentively examining her performers in relation to herself, the site as a moving environment, and by queering their own movement recollections, and projections. But also by being sensitive to non-human factors -- light and sound were also perceived as vectorial agents -- choreographic objects that incited performers and the public to experience sensation as abstraction.
Elisa´s choreography demonstrates that nothing is static and all is dynamic. Yet how could she manage to create a work that stands in its own legs out of an overwhelming field of moving potential? By building hierarchies through scores that filter the chaos of the world into a provisional sense order threaten by collapse, by subtracting and composing away some parts, and juxtaposing others through counterpoints that build new hierarchies out of the old. By deliberately manipulating synchronous registers, modalities of attention, the embodied collective cultural memories of her performers and by puzzling these within a whole always at the verge of being subsumed by chaos.
She researched movement constructively through the making of a choreographic monument dispossessed of the pathos of the monumental. Yet why call it a monument then? Because the compositional compound could stand up firmly under a tensed precarious balance producing an event.
All in all, Elisa worked devoted, perhaps passionately would be a more accurate term. She remained empirical just like an engineer or even a scientist analyzing lived movement and relation as the only reality. She has undoubtedly developed terrific and highly empirical research important for her, but also to the revaluation and better comprehension of movement in our lives. This is the site in which I perceive her operating, but of course, perception is not objective as this is relational movement too. The only thing we can be sure to ever know is relation itself.
Bruno Listopad (2016)
In collaboration with Michael Scerbo

Movement is inescapable. During the dancing plague the body took over; the control exercised by the mind was overthrown, and an incessant movement took centre stage. A somatic condition echoing the Bacchanalia where the genderfluid deity, Dionysus, was celebrated by reaching a state of ecstatic frenzy through dance and intoxication. Resounding, in turn, in a more contemporary ritual: the rave. The body therefore becomes a channel of all those forces which are constantly around us, soaking them up, and opening up to a continuum of intensity and affect.
Moving on the echo of these events, performance collaborators Michael Scerbo and Elisa Zuppini import the sequential alchemy of the club into the space of the gallery, experimenting with what substances, dance and environments can do to bodies’ sensory systems and what kinds of kinetic activity and relationality–physical, affective, psychic, architectural–these shifts produce, especially in the aftermath of the recent forceful halt. How can we host movement again?
Intoxication, as a form of a public program to the exhibition and para-ritual, weaves together different formats (sensorial lecture-performance, workshop, performative act) offering a multi-sensorial journey into different worlds and temporalities.
Bergamo, March 2022 (IT)

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CREDITS
Concept and Performance: Michael Scerbo & Elisa Zuppini
Intoxication, Acidity, Compression, 2022
Choreographic score: Elisa Zuppini
Performed by: Federica Dalla Pozza
Sound design: Katatonic Silentio
Pants: AVOIDSTREET
Dancing Plague is an exhibition curated by Panos Giannikopolous
GAMeC, May 2022
Foto: Antonio Maniscalco, Elisa Zuppini
Courtesy GAMeC - Galleria d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Bergamo
In collaboration with Nica Roses, for Festival WhyNot

In the frame of Landscaping, organized by Whynot Festival, 10 artists come together to create a performance on the topic 'Body and Landscape'. In collaboration with Nica, Elisa Zuppini creates her contribution.
.. somewhere trying to de-romanticize nature but after all ending up in a romantic tension with the nature of reality 〰️ reckless bodies ➰ synthetic despair ➿ emotional sculptures 🥀
By Elisa Zuppini and Nica Roses


Idea & Production: WhyNot (Daisy Benz & Marjolein Vogels)
Concept: Job Oberman, Theun Mosk, Dario Tortorelli, Elisa Zuppini & Nica Roses
Choreography: Dario Tortorelli, Elisa Zuppini&Nica
Sound Installation & Music Composition: Job Oberman (Oceanic)
Scenography: Theun Mosk
Landscape Architect: Anna Maria Fink
Publication: Daphne Bakker
Publicity & Production Assistant: Vera Goetzee
Photo credites: Nick Chesnaye
A collaboration with Christopher Tym

In their first experiment together choreographer Elisa Zuppini and visual artist Christopher Tym investigate the relation between a body and a camera in motion.
As these two bodies amplify and inform each other’s movements, they begin to produce an altered sense of a moving environment between them, something beyond representation of the human body and its surroundings - they become extensions of each other. There’s a sense of free fall in this relationship, there is no up or down and that all movement has the potential to be destabilized and reoriented in multiple directions simultaneously.
The body sees the camera, the camera sees the body.
What is inside the frame dances together
The short film premiered at Cinedans Dance Film Festival in March 2021, Amsterdam

Choreographer | Elisa Zuppini
Visual artist | Christopher Tym
A collaboration initiated by Jacuzzi and supported by Mondrian Fonds. Filmed in Ascoli Piceno.
A collaboration with Koen Bartijn

In Bare Time three performers inhabit the space of the gallery. The daily activities of practicing, dancing, and resting are performed within the space. Looped, these activities succumb to a bare choreographed pattern in which nothing new seems to enter. At the same time, the shared space in which they’re performed provides the potential for micro-events to influence the flow, creating raptures in the routines and emancipating them. While their times and activities are partitioned, there is a constant search for a common time.
Concept | Koen Bartijn
Choreography | Elisa Zuppini
Performance | Federica Dalla Pozza, Doke Pawels, Elisa Zuppini

A collaboration with Lavinia Rossetti at Antwerp Academy for Fine Arts

What is the role of the body in relation to jewelry? Which sensations can jewelry provoke to the body and how can those change or affect the self-awareness of the wearer?
The conversation between jewelry maker Lavinia Rossetti and choreographer Elisa Zuppini started from general reflections about the relation between body and jewelry. Their research has been developed by observing the experiential state of the performer when entering in a relationship with diverse types of objects and materials, while also looking at their responses. To be able to observe this relationship they created a system composed of steel springs and magnets. The magnets are arranged in space and on the body, while the springs are partially or totally free between the body and the magnets.
In a nutshell, the body, springs and magnets create a relational cluster. The body engages in this relation through de.sy.re, a movement system developed by Elisa Zuppini which functions through logic of sensations and where the body is considered as an hypersensitive subject. As the body reorients itself, springs and magnets enact their response. This ever-moving and sensorial system generates constant shapes in transit, changing and reshaping, exploring questions about wearability and design within the field of jewelry.
The result of this crossed investigation between their practices aims to propose an analysis of body and jewellery as a relational system where both subject and object are considered active agents for each other.
The outcome of this research have the form of a video that will be presented at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp, during Body and Material Reinvented open weeks. October 2021.


Photo credit | Lucy Plato
Video editing and camera | Paulina Prokop

Why does it feel so exciting and important to dance together, and what is really happening when we do that? In this conversation, dancers, DJ’s and artists will share thoughts about their practices and discuss the ways in which dancing becomes a potentially subversive act. How might the processes of movement - of bodies, attention and perception - reflect and re-invigorate processes of change and transformation in personal, social and political realms?
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Curation | Noha Ramadan and Elisa Zuppini
Performances by Isadora Tomasi, Setareh Fatehi, Elisa Zuppini
DJs | Nocturnal Femme, Fatima Ferrari, Ziur
Production | ICK Amsterdam Dance company and ADE Amsterdam Dance Event
A REVIEW BY FLORIAN HELLWIG
Florian Hellwig is a dramaturge, university lecturer and writer.

The performance Disambiguation by choreographer Elisa Zuppini is one of my favourite theatre moments of the recent season. There are theatre events that leave you with a special feeling and continue to resonate, even days and weeks after seeing the performance, perhaps even for a longer period of time. It is comparable to being in love, with butterflies in your stomach, with the feeling after a happy surprise. You feel in a different state of being or much more in a stage of somewhere in between: Between the reality of the performance and the everyday before and after visiting the performance. Something keeps vibrating and moving, longing for something that is already over. Like our childhood is irrevocably over at a certain point, but the inner child in us can continue to wonder.
The repetitive movements and actions of the fifteen dancers from Disambiguation continue to reverberate in your own body like an echo. Bodies bounce in a liminal state. The performers tack in the tension between individualization and depersonalization, between the individual and the other and others. They float between 'alone together' and ‘together alone', between a singular and collective identity, between heterogeneity and homogeneity, between lostness and intertwining.
The performance makes tangible various forms of physical connectedness and disconnection, the interaction of one's own body with that of others, the individual and the collective body, the body between subject and object, between part and whole, between past and present, and also between performer and audience. As a spectator you do not only look at the phenomenal bodies of the dancers but you are aware of your own body, of how you sensually perceive what appears in space before you and how it appears: bodies in search of physicality. Are these bodies trying to return to a condition and identity they once had or are they already trying out a new physicality and writing a new identity? Are these bodies an expression of a certain norm and normativity or are they actually eroding it through repetition? Do they confirm a certain status and state of being or are they actually freeing themselves from it? What are the boundaries of a body? Where does a subject begin or end?
The performance begins in the empty space of Theater Frascati. Apart from a grey dance floor on the flat floor of the hall, there is nothing else. The side and back walls that border the stage are clearly visible. There is no decor or set pieces. Bright white light illuminates the room (the light is so bright that it appears as if the floor is white). The performers enter through the same entrance as the audience, in black clothing, black crocs, with white nails and a shiny layer on their faces, and walk to a position to the left or right of the stage, just in front of the stands. They group themselves in two formations of seven and eight dancers respectively, who stand apart from each other and look at the stage, with their backs to the audience. The performers and the audience both look in the same direction, at the empty space that lies before them like a white canvas, waiting for the first brushstrokes. The audience looks over the shoulders of the dancers, who bounce into space one by one, alternately from one formation or another in a diagonal. The dancers are like black ink on the canvas.

According to theatre maker and theatre reformer Peter Brook, you can call any empty space a bare stage. As soon as a person walks through this space and another person looks at the person who is walking, it is an act. In Disambiguation, the performers walk and write space with their bodies and movements through the physical theatre space of Frascati during the performance, thereby evoking various fictional spaces; it is live scenography. These fictional spaces are actually more mental spaces than explicitly referred to locations. These imaginary spaces are not constituted by physical props but only by the repetitive movements, and are never physically visible. As a spectator, you therefore always see the empty space on the bare stage next to the fictional spaces. The bodies are continuously in a liminal status between the physical and fictional spatial reality, between an actual location and one or more virtual places.
It is not clear who these bodies are and in what kind of state they are, between all possible identities and identitylessness. These bodies are mainly phenomenological, the bodies of the dancers themselves. The presented bodies are not representative bodies, also when these bodies carry a (hidden) history with them and this history becomes palpable. The movements refer to post-clubbing, the after-party trembling, a Bacchanal without Bacchus, and without Eros. The bodies are initially isolated, locked up or withdrawn in imaginary micro-spaces, and increasingly ‘on line’, when they walk diagonally and straight through space in lines. The patterns resemble social frameworks, which are first confirmed and later destabilized by the repetition of movements: Bouncing as an expression of fluidity.
The dancers move from an individual and isolated space seemingly to a more collective space. They alternate between being 'on' and 'off', between being together in one space and falling apart again. There is no physical contact. The other, the mirror image, Eros, remain at a distance.
The bodies, movement and physical actions create a presentational and fictional space. These two spaces oscillate back and forth throughout the performance, between theatre and club, between the real and the imaginary, the concrete and the complex, the layered and the attempts at simplification. The focus is on actuality, that everything that happens at that moment happens, in the reality of performers and spectators. The performers navigate in a twilight zone between hyperactivity and fatigue, between stimulation and overstimulation, between insomnia and sleep, between memory and possibility. The attention is mainly on the materiality of the body, on the dissociative state, on transgression and transformation. The trudging movements seem to be a reaction to something that has happened before, or serve as a preparation for something that has yet to happen. It is not dramatic theatre. The drama is contained in the bodies and their movements, in the tension between subject and object, in the world in which the bodies are bouncing, between the human and the non-human, between the mechanical and the animal. The phenomenal bodies are first and foremost subjects, at the same time they are anonymised and objectified by the clothing and the mechanical movements.
Given the duality and contradictions of the movements and what the bodies do or do not bring about, the title of the performance can also be read as a desire. The desire to make everything clearer in an increasingly difficult to read world of digital bytes and myths. What is the body in a rational and technological world? What is the status of our intuition and instincts? How do humans make contact with themselves and others when more and more of the body is fragmented or automated? Has the connectivity of the Internet brought us more or less connection and communication? Perhaps both are true. There is a lot of data traffic, but our overall existence has become more fragmented. We can seemingly be in multiple places at once and are increasingly disconnected from our own bodies.

In the beginning, the gazes are introverted or endless. Because the dancers initially do not make eye contact or contact with the auditorium, with the people watching them, the audience initially has the role of voyeur. This role does change during the performance, as the relationship between the dancers and each other develops. The spectator becomes a witness to the fragmented individual movements of the dancers, of their jolts and falls, how they sink to the ground, pull themselves up again and seemingly start again. Limbs such as hands, arms, feet, shoulders tremble and make the whole body vibrate, between robotics and primates, between algorithm and instincts. The bodies flow through space in a play of diagonals and long lines, without the dancers making contact with each other. Their gazes are not directed at anything or are turned inward. No emotion can be read from the eyes, facial expressions or gestures. When the more or less identical movements of the fifteen bodies come together towards the end to a common movement forward, towards the stands, towards the audience, the spectators are observed. Our mirror images are now looking at us.
Through the performative nature of Disambiguation, the audience becomes aware of their own body and their sensory perception and experience of what happens in the shared space. As a spectator, you not only look at moving bodies but also become aware of your own body and physicality, and how you as an audience look at the bodies of others. Through performativity, social and cultural norms are confirmed or questioned. According to Judith Butler, all our actions are influenced by an ideological framework, including acts of resistance. But through repetition, something can be undermined and changed. Performativity can evoke social, political and cultural change. Identity can be performed 'in between' as something that is not fixed and denies fixation, but is fluid. The movements also have a ritualistic character, not in a religious sense but as a social phenomenon. To create a connection through certain actions or movements.
The audience slowly becomes a witness, and towards the end the conscious other. In the beginning, the spectators peer over the dancers’ shoulders, facing the same direction as them. This is the perspective of many paintings from the Romantic period, in which people are small figures or dots in the overwhelming, all-powerful nature or stand with their backs to the viewer to focus on the landscape. In the industrial age, another reversal takes place. The individual human being is central and portrays himself as a controlling authority and entity that dominates nature. In the digital age, people have become dots and data again. Perhaps another reversal is possible. Perhaps a reversal is accomplished in Disambiguation, or set in motion.
The lurching and trembling of the bodies can be interpreted, on the one hand, as the tremors of an addicted body experiencing withdrawal symptoms because the drug has worn off. Addiction always involves habituation and dependence. Body and mind are fixated on the intake of the drugs; these are, of course, also imaginary and mental means that experience and numb us, seduce and distract us, allow us to ascend and descend. The behaviour of modern humans is partly determined by this fixation on the thrill. In today's event-driven society, humans constantly crave the thrill; they are addicted to experiences and, under the pressure of technology and the speed of modern life, constantly seek stimulation, new and ever stronger stimuli. The lurching movements may be the result of stimulation and overstimulation. On the other hand, the trembling of the body can also mark a transition to a new state of being, or at the very least, represent a simulation of an alternative or archaic state of being. Like a body undergoing withdrawal, it initially exhibits intense reactions to break free from habit and addiction. Initially, the longing for a missing substance predominates. But through the trudging and trembling, the body purifies itself, breaking free of the addictive substances, and achieving something substantial, a shift toward a deep connection with itself. Perhaps the bodies in Disambiguation are actually freeing themselves, for example, from pressure, depression, and discipline, from fear and isolation, which characterize capsular society, and returning to or rediscovering the speechless body, a body beyond the boundaries of language, detached from the construction and configuration of language, toward a subject that can manifest itself through movement and spatiality.
Perhaps we see in the performance a new "turn," a return or progression toward a different bodily awareness, or at least a possible beginning, partly because the process isn't yet complete but is still ongoing at the end of Disambiguation. A development unfolds in the performance, an evolution from bouncing and trudging movements to a genuine gait, from dangling limbs to upright, grounded movements, from being watched to looking, from "being moved" to "conscious movement." This new physical awareness may be primarily sensitive, intuitive, and animal, rather than cognitive, rational, and non-animal. Instead of fragmented, the body can once again be holistic, connected to the earth and to other bodies.

Disambiguation, in a sense, thematizes the clash of animal and non-animal energy, of physical rhythms and digital algorithms. Animal energy is one created by humans and animals, while non-animal energy is produced by, for example, electricity. A society based on animal energy differs significantly from one based on non-animal energy. Modern, industrialized societies, based on non-animal energy, are now considered more civilized. The question, however, is what constitutes civilization? According to Japanese theatre maker Suzuki, a civilized society is one in which perception and expression are developed through innate animal energy. This animal energy fosters the sense of security and trust necessary for healthy communication between people and within communities. The new shift may be a return to more animal energy. Or to a harmonious symbiosis and balanced synthesis of both types of energy, of premodernity and modernity. As in the performance, a theatrical dialogue is established between the animal quality of the bodies and the electrical energy of light and music.
In the 1970s, Suzuki developed a method for restoring the body as a whole by focusing on energy, breathing, and control over gravity. Footwork plays a central role in this training method, which connects one to the earth (and the spirits of the ancestors, thus to the soil of history) through stamping, while simultaneously allowing the entire body to resonate—not just the upper body, torso, and head, but all limbs. The lurching movements in Disambiguation are a kind of stamping and have the same effect. The springy crocs further enhance this effect. The entire body vibrates, all limbs moving. It has an animal quality, even if the aftershock may be the result of non-animal, artificial influences (such as drug use). The bodies sink to the earth, then rise again, seeking balance and calibration. In the moments of silence, the dancers' breaths are clearly audible.
The "turn" may also signify a rejection of (hyper)individuality and a path toward (new) subjectivity, entanglement instead of alienation. The subject is, after all, part of something and connected to a larger whole, such as groups and communities. Human existence is based on a "we" rather than an "I." American philosopher Maggie Nelson argues that the question is not whether we are entangled, but how we navigate, endure, and dance within this entanglement.
The sizzling performance intelligently touches on the body and identity discourse. Intelligent because concepts are not represented but subtly shine through the choreography, and questions arise, whose body is it and who and what determines identity? Are we humans increasingly being turned into objects by our urge for consumption and stimuli, and by the increasing influence of algorithms? How can we be more unavailable in this world of availability? Is the flight inward perhaps not just escapism but a form of liberation? How can we free ourselves from norms and ideologies in the ‘reality of desire’?
What makes Disambiguation so exciting is that the performance seems to continuously go in two directions, as if it is speech and contradiction, fragment and whole, presence and absence of the subject all in one. An essential player in this is the sixteenth body in the performance: music and sound; the sound composition of Fabian Reichle. Music and sound are largely fragmentary and non-descriptive. Due to its fragmentary character, the audio is a subtle indication of absent time and space, of bygone moments and of a club, and reinforces the feeling of loss. Just like the bouncing movements, the sound evokes a feeling of stuttering, and the question of who and what is stuttering, a subject or an object? The two moments when the music is fully and up-beat feel like a discharge. That which the bodies may long for or long for is suddenly present or returns for a few moments. The two moments of silence are moments of absence as well as presence, they are moments of meditation, contemplation and inner peace as well as moments of emptiness, loss and intrinsic unrest.
The performance presents various contrasts, such as the contrast between what is present and what seems absent, between post-club and club, individual and collective, the black-clad dancers on the seemingly white floor, and so on. Unlike in a club, the lighting is white and bright instead of dark and muted. Because of the bright light, all movements and bodies are extremely visible, as in a glass world, panopticon, or transparent society where everything can always be seen. This visibility contrasts, on the one hand, with the subjective spaces evoked by the movements, in which each dancer is still shivering after a night at the club, and the apparent protection and intimacy of these individual spaces. The harsh lighting creates a lack of privacy and intimacy. Everyone is equally visible; all movements are at the mercy of the observing gaze of another. Through the light the bodies are anonymized and objectified. On the other hand, through the light the viewer is made aware again and again of the quantity of bodies in both the physical and the fictional space, and of the concept of a group, and how the individual movements are connected to each other in a group choreography.
A hint of melancholy hangs over all movements and sounds. The absence or lack of a fixed subjectivity or connectedness makes the idea of subject and collectivity visible. When the movements are attempts to retrieve the world of a club, the absence of this club is also made clear by each bouncing, fragmented movement. In this sense, the bodies are engaged in a Sisyphean struggle. What they try to grasp, eludes them again and again. Perhaps they are Sisyphus without a stone. But who and what is Sisyphus without his stone?

In the philosophy of Albert Camus, Sisyphus is the symbolism for the absurd condition of man, who rebels against the meaninglessness of existence. By accepting his punishment and identifying with his fate, he takes his fate back into his own hands. That is why we can happily imagine Sisyphus, according to Camus. The story of Sisyphus can also be seen as a return to the subject. Through the punishment, he was turned into an object; the gods and the stone determine the existence of Sisyphus. He was punished because he longed for life, the sea, the sun. The repetition of the act of pushing the stone up the rock again and again, first of all confirms Sisyphus' punishment and status. However, through the repetition, Sisyphus also comes to a (new) awareness of himself and starts to walk in the honest gait again.
In Disambiguation we see a similar evolution. The movements at the beginning mainly go towards the ground, as if the dancers are carrying an imaginary stone, be it the burden or the echo of something that is past, or at a distance. The trudging and shaking of the body as withdrawal symptoms, an attempt to retrieve something or to shape a new existence. Are these human movements or primal animal instincts? The asymmetrical movements contrast with the symmetry of the course in space, the movement on diagonals and lines, backwards, sideways and forwards. As time passes, the dancers increasingly adopt a sincere attitude. What was at first a kind of falling or collapsing has now become a walking. Through an increasingly sincere attitude, there is visible more and more focus. Where the gaze was introverted or empty at the beginning, the attitude is now increasingly open. Openness as a condition for connecting with the other and others.
Here Disambiguation touches on societal developments of hyper-individualization, increasing loneliness, depression, illness, being locked up during a pandemic or in digital bubbles, and the physical consequences thereof. The body that goes crazy, becomes overstimulated, becomes extremely stimulated and becomes overtired, that longs and burns out. The current struggle is therefore also a struggle for our bodies. Who and what are our bodies, who and what are we? Do we only have a body or can we be this body again? And how?
The performance does not provide an answer and in that sense remains fragmentary. That is precisely what makes this journey as a spectator so intriguing and infinitely exciting. The moments that mark the beginning and end of the performance are not the beginning or end of the movement, the struggle, the evolution of which the audience is a part.
Florian Hellwig, June 2025
Florian Hellwig is a freelance dramaturg, programme maker and associate professor at the Faculty of Theatre Studies at the University of Amsterdam. Before that, he was a lecturer, guest lecturer, tutor, mentor and committee member at several colleges and universities in the Netherlands. He is dramaturg of the performance collective URLAND, winner of the VSCD Mime/Performance Award 2022, among others. He has worked for more than 20 years in various disciplines: drama, performance, dance, mime and music theatre, with a particular focus on developing and supporting new makers. Since 2009, he has provided introductions, meet the artist talks and interviews at the Holland Festival.

ARTISTIC RESIDENCIES, CAMPUS
JUN 15, 2023
Elisa Zuppini
Macro Architectures
Massive virtual structures emerge in space, transforming and vanishing, surrounding the body. Architectures-of-feeling, generated by sensual suspensions, are organized by possibly unthinkable geometries through force fields. Nearly unrepeatable, they rise and envelop themselves in space, as if independent forces superimposed on the actual site. They produce synthetic realities that each body differently reengineers by itself. The actual space and the one of the mind merge into an indissoluble whole, yet almost provisional. In this sense, these subjective spaces appear to be extensions of individuals’ sense-perceptions, granting the subject the possibility of reorganizing their sense of “self” or “selves”. Technologies with which the body is endowed, but that are simultaneously autonomous from this, as if they were mere instruments, albeit the resulting sensations by these generated.
A rose, enwrapped by a transparent membrane that is also time. The background is that of a common office-like-milkwhite-shelf and a desk. The focus is on the rose. Time (the transparent membrane), ripples and crinkles like plastic on fire as if disappearing into nothing.
The expanse of the mind, once partly reengineered, motions forward through abstract thinking. Lately, I have been reflecting on architecture as the ultimate structural manifestation of reality, and in the relation between spatiality and cognition. The mind being the producer of images - but also responsible for how these become animated, in what seems to be a non-human sense of time and extension - subjectively shapes the ways of meeting “oneself” through internal or external forms.
Remains interesting the relationship between projecting and designing. Particularly, how design can be a “technology of the self”[1] or “selves,” with which, the subjects can reconfigure themselves and their environment. Consider a free fall or being immersed in a water pool. Now, look at the furthest point from you; punto di fuga. Visualize the vectors surrounding your body running to that point and beyond it, to a space you weren’t able to see and a time you were not able, at least not yet, to know; viaggia nel tempo. It’s through this virtual, but gravitational space, that one can start to envision.
Mass and Abstract Objects
Not only through multilayered outlines, but also through their distributed intentions, architectures themselves become tangibles vectors of construction that model a mass-object producer of other mass-objects, while involving the body in an ambiguous, and perpetual entangled relationship between being a creator and being nothing. These architectures disintegrate, collapse upon themselves, through their own meaning gap. Undisclosed forces are the ones that shape abstract objects. I understand these to be objects of thought, objects of the mind.
An object is an entity that one can seemingly possess, but it is also a document, a file, that one can revisit when it has been recorded. A concept, like a sensation that crystallizes, once recognized for us as such, tends to become an object that defines itself by the act of definition, just as a form that settles on a flow of continuous movement, one that seemingly fixed, expands. Motion and stillness in thiscoexist, albeit the object belongs to the quality of immobility, while everything else keeps moving nearly all the time. The object, as a conceptual construct, establishes our cognitive sphere.
Structures made and unmade, majestically, dizzyingly, appear recursively. New constructions and new heights, a painting on the ceiling of an old church, repeated into sameness, in a series, portraying Christ, or at any rate a Christian figure, resembles a surface floating with religious content. Emerging lineaments from the force field color the world of introspection. Micro scissoring sensus, between what we visualize, and how we move, but also between what we build and how we hold our breath.
Exteriorized Introspection: extended previously, internal structures of feelings. Miniatures and Self Disciplines (postures of the subject)
You may wonder how macro architectures refract through the sensing subject into miniatures. That I can’t tell. But I know that the macrostructures are inhabited by minor architectures and incomplete objects. These are produced from within. Their mechanics are quantum-like and therefore act as if seemingly incomprehensible. Occasionally, these fragment into small yet extended superimposed landscapes that are alternated by boundless voids. The futural aesthetics by these evoked deliver a sense of unity, even if provisional. The actual space and the one of the mind merge once again, into an almost indissoluble whole, yet, again this collapses and refracts into infinitely self-shaping, quasi-like sculptures, mere stuff, and tiny things.
Pouring in abundance, the reiterated minute thoughts divided and looped remain in the background. Occasionally, these behave as ornaments, details, that sit next to a unified sense of being. Other times, these act like decentered protagonists or an anarchic mass of bacteria, while feelings themselves, locked behind such thoughts, leak through as rarefactive golden liquid.
Vision: Post-Architecture and Aesthetic Core
Architectures and tangled furniture collapsing upon themselves, coiling up into ones that arise anew, but now more as archetypical symbols than objects. These are symbol-objects that extend into space. Their external anatomy is internalized. These become observable at their most aesthetic core, and even when these are rendered explicit and behave as if remaining inaccessible, they are not devoid of an aesthetic interiority.
Complete or partial darkness, absolute abstraction, crashing thoughts, floating mental objects. For fractions of seconds, we seem to experience the most condensed entropy. The bodies’internal space expands externally like an ocean wave that starts retracting swallowing back, that what belongs to an outside. Each item becomes part of the internal chaos, implosion, or even death, but also, nonsense, even if for just an instant of its prolonged lucidity. Yet, through such mayhem, almost reassuringly, a clear dense, plutonic, cold, and metallic mass, one that we are well familiar with, occurs within us.
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1. Foucault, M. (1988). Technologies of the Self: A Seminar with Michel Foucault. University of Massachusetts Press. This book is a collection of lectures delivered by Foucault at the University of Vermont in 1982. It provides a comprehensive exploration of the concept of technologies of the self.
Written by Elisa Zuppini © Author editing by Bruno Listopad
Monday, May 22, 2023
Written by Elisa Zuppini (2018)
Vertigo is an intensified relational field ruled by sensations, where the usual distribution of senses is displaced and wired. Its components, actual and virtual (human and non-human), are hypersensitive matter that enter in significant affective relations, generating unpredictable, fragmented and obliques mis/alignments through the sensory chaos.
Everything is matter. Everything senses everything, therefore everything is potentially in relation.
However the elements enjoy independent ownership and features and they distribute their relationships through selective sensory attention. Nevertheless, in turn, each element is considered as a porous mass of independent entities (open by thresholds in its precarious boundaries) that can agglomerate and reshape, functioning as a system where the will is entangled and complicated.They can get involved in relations in its totality as well partially, triggering infinite possibilities of relational movement. So doing, as well their features/materiality can potentially mix or even dissolve in the swirl.
The elements mutually function as performers, events, agents and attractors for each other, even for themselves (being self-related systems). Enjoying specific characteristics of its being a system (system of being a plastic cube, human matter, a virtual force, audience etc.) they have different and limited range of possibility and features of: materiality, movement and aesthetic. When entering in a relation with each other this range augment and stretches, transforming the way they behave and of how, themselves and we, perceive them.The re-orientation of each component, in the actual and abstract spatial dimension, is therefore destabilized. They are pushed to experience the vertiginous and to constantly re-align and recompose in unpredictable modality in order to filter the chaos and to resist to the verge of collapse. (Is important to already point out that this extend to the audience as an element in itself).
The idea is obviously not literal, the creation activates through imaging, sensing and visualizing as main practices. However we can say that those operations are material too.When speaking of the human body this course is more easily detectable and me, as the maker, can analyze the process in relation to my own body.But how this apply to non-human elements and even to the abstract ones? How do matter feels and move? How can we feel matter feeling?
In my work I try to create conditions and space for this unknown (to us) to manifest. In the role of maker I put myself as well in an hypersensitive state towards the elements. By observing their features and selecting the involved material, I allow a sort of collaborative creation. Also, by crafting and scoring certain part, juxtaposing and cutting away others, I leave wide but defined space/time where those relations can just exist, transform each other and transform the experience of the audience.
Not all the relations actualize, would be impossible. Moreover this is fundamental in order to make the space thick of potential, awaking a sense of desire. At the same time the relations will always overlap (in different intensity through the piece). The audience will be challenged to design its own experience, as well to operate a selection through their sensitive attention.
The final aim is not to show how the relation works. On the contrary I am interested in how all this manifest in an event, affecting the audience, making it feel part of it. Leading it in a vortex where sensations triumph, possibly, beyond language.
Written by Elisa Zuppini through 2018-2020
De.sy.re. (decentralized systems of relation) is a relational technology designed for performative bodies that operates between actual and virtual, human and non-human elements. The technology is based on the principle of decentralization, focusing on redistributing attention between zones. It functions through logics of sensation and features the body as a vibrant and transformative material interface, a decentralized system of embodying forces. It is a hypersensitive and multi-sensory tool for the direct experience of its environment, which is itself active and ever-moving.

De.sy.re. operates through an idea of space as relational fields, where all elements mutually function as performers, events, agents, and attractors for each other, including themselves (as self-related systems). By allowing micro and macro elements to enter into a relational movement, a system of systems is initiated, generating unpredictable, fragmented, and oblique (mis)alignments through sensory chaos. The practice builds on layered systems of relations, the outcome of which is only partially controllable. To facilitate motion, the system constantly requires bending, shifting hierarchies in the prioritization of relations, reconfiguring in form and function, and featuring every relation as unique.
The technology brings together a multiplicity of movement systems that are not necessarily consistent with each other. In this sense, the technology is in constant movement as well. It is not based on dogmatism but, by its very nature, on the constant transformation and re-understanding of its principles. The only principle that does not change is that of relation, even if it means non-relation. There is always more than one, even if the object in question is the body itself. At the same time, it does not reject unity.
De.sy.re. is a practice that questions movement and the body through material and virtual lenses. Through the technology, I attempt to rethink dance from a non-anthropocentric vision: movement, activation, and orientation as products of re-configurable systems of forces, where the entanglement with diverse types of elements becomes fundamental. It can be seen as a dance-performative (or even choreographic) practice but also as a tool for everyday life: for orienting and relating, and for opening our perceptual understanding to our environment. It enables filtering, blocking, or absorbing information, creatively engaging with our material body, and subverting micro power structures.
Through my research, I share workshops and teach in various contexts and academies across different fields, including dance, choreography, visual arts, and research groups.
I perceive the workshop space as an oscillation, a movement that opens a temporal and spatial frame of exchange while offering as a ground the principles of my practice and research. These revolve around concepts that delve into the affective dimensions of the body, its materiality, and the understanding of movement as a broad field of research. Consequently, I consistently adapt the structure of my workshops to align specifically within different specific study fields and contexts.
As an educator, mentor and artistic advisor I shared my expertise and conducted workshops at SNDO - School for New Dance Development, Rietveld Academy, ECD Expanded Contemporary Dance, Antwerp Royal Academy of Fine Arts, University of Pennsylvania, Artez Aki, OHT Nomadic School in The Alps, CAMPUS Choreographic Center, FAIIC, Jacuzzi and DT Danseteater Copenhagen.

Elisa Zuppini is an Italian-born choreographer and dancer based in Amsterdam and a graduated from the SNDO – School for New Dance Development. Her practice explores the intersection of movement, systems thinking, and contemporary philosophy. She approaches choreography as a form of relational and affective architecture, where spatial and temporal elements interact dynamically generating meaning.
Her work has been presented at a wide range of international festivals and institutions, including the Holland Festival, Dansehallerne (DK), Theater Rotterdam (Feeling Curious? Festival), Frascati Theatre, BASE Milano (FAROUT Festival), the Van Gogh Museum, Julidans Festival, GAMeC Modern and Contemporary Art Museum Bergamo, FLAM Festival, Tanzbiennale Heidelberg. She has been awarded residencies at CAMPUS (PT), Veem House for Performance (NL), and Lavanderia a Vapore (IT), among others. In May 2025, her latest large group piece, Disambiguation, featuring 15 dancers, premiered at Frascati Theater.
Elisa was recognised early in her career with the Young Talent in Choreography award from OPEN FLR (IT) in 2016 and received a scholarship for the danceWEB program (Life Long Burning) at ImPulsTanz (AT) in 2018. Since 2019, she has been part of Jacuzzi, a convergence of Amsterdam-based choreographers.
As a guest choreographer, educator and artistic advisor, she worked at institutions such as SNDO (School for New Dance Development), ECD (Expanded Contemporary Dance, University of the Arts), DAS Choreography, the Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp, Rietveld Academy, DT Danseteater Copenhagen, ArtEZ Uneversity of the Arts, Fontys Academy, OTH Nomadic School in the Alps, and the University of Pennsylvania.
Elisa Zuppini - Dance, Choreography & Performance
22nd December 1990, Ascoli Piceno (IT)
Lives and works in Amsterdam (NL)
Current member of Jakoozi, Amsterdam
Education
> SNDO Bachelor in Choreography
Theaterschool, Amsterdam (NL) 2014 - 2018
> EMC Electronic Music Course
Sae, Amsterdam (NL) 2019
> FAICC Professional Formation in Choreography and Performance
Teatro Campo Alegre, Porto (PT) 2014
> Professional Formation in Contemporary Dance, Ballet and Performance
Italy, Austria, France, Belgium, Turkey 1997 - 2013
Own works
> Disambiguation - official premiere at Frascati Theatre. With 15 dancers, Amsterdam (NL) 2025
> The Knot, solo work with Elisa Zuppini, fist presented at FLAM Festival, Amsterdam (NL) 2024
> Disambiguation, with 17 dancers from the program Expanded Contemporary Dance (Academy for Theatre and Dance), Amsterdam (NL) 2024
> Himalaya, solo work for one dancer, creation 2019 - 2023, premiere Theater Rotterdam, Feeling Curious? festival, Rotterdam 2023
> Miniatures, a duet work developed during FLAM residencies, and presented at Arti et Amicitiae in Amsterdam (NL) 2023
> Performing Landscapes, with 16 dancers from the program Expanded Contemporary Dance, Amsterdam (NL) 2022
> Dancing Plague commissioned by GAMeC Gallery for Modern and Contemporary Art in Bergamo, in an exhibition cureted by Pano Giannikopolis, 2022
> Synthetic Disjunctions, performed by Elisa Zuppini, premiered at Pleintheater, Amsterdam (NL) 2021
> Transmaterial 0X2 premiered at Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (NL) 2019
> STRAXXE site specific performance, at Picnic Pavillon in Venice (IT), May 2019
> TRANSMATERIAL premiere at Frascati Theater - 2018, Amsterdam (NL)
> LIIL premiere at Frascati Theater -2018, Amsterdam (NL)
> Fontana dei movimenti premiere at Veem House -2017, Amsterdam (NL)
> Room Xelle premiere at Theaterschool -2016, Amsterdam (NL)
> Singularities on the edges of nowhere, for 9 dancers, premiere at Villa Srozzi -2016, Florence (IT) - winner of the Young Talent development Open FLR
> Might be dancing / manifested perception premiere premiere at Theaterschool -2016, Amsterdam (NL)
> Over the East, near the West premiere at Theaterschool -2015, Amsterdam (NL)
Collaborations
> Landscaping research project by WhyNot, Elisa creates a duet performance with Nica Roses, premiere Amsterdam BosTheater (NL) 2021
> Bare Time dance performance, Elisa choreographs a performance in collaboration with Dramaturg Koen Bartjin, premiered at W139 Amsterdam (NL) 2019
> Reorienting The Fall video work, in collaboration with Visual Artist Chrystopher Tym, premiered at Cinedans, Amsterdam (NL) 2021
> The Performative Role of Jewellery, in collaboration with Jewellery Maker Lavinia Rossetti, research project at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Antwerp (BE) 2018-2021
> Solid Dance dance performance, in collaboration with Choreographer Sigrid Stigsdatter, premiere at One Night Stand Dansatelier, Rotterdam (NL) 2019
Fashion and video direction
> Movement director for Avoidstreet Fashion show 'Void,' Amsterdam (NL) 2023
> Movement director for Caterina Barbieri's music video Broken Melody, Milano (IT) 2022
> Movement Coordinator for Magliano's Fashion show SS23 Milano (IT) 2022
> Movement director for Avoidstreet Fashion show 'Piazzale Lotto,' Amsterdam (NL) 2022
Curation
> Body DROP event- The Material and Political Gesture of Djing and Dancing; curated in collaboration with Choreographer Noha Ramadan for ADE Amsterdam Dance Event, Amsterdam 2019
> It's waiting to be created improvisation evening, with Lester Arias and Nikki Niklas Bloomberg at Oorsprong, Amsterdam 2015
Awards/Scholarships
> DansWeb Long Life Burning, Elisa is selected to participate in a summer residency of 5 weeks at Impulstanz Festival Vienna (AT) 2018
> Awarded Young Talent in choreography 2016 by Open FLR, where Elisa is invited to make a work for 9 young professional dancers
Artistic Residencies awarded
> Residency at Conny Janssen Danst, Rotterdam, new creation for dancer and choreographer Dario Tortorelli
> Residency at Vallegaudia, supported by RAM – Residenze Artistiche Marchigiane (promoted by MiC and Regione Marche), Fall 2023, Pesaro, (IT)
> Residency at Armunia Teatri, supported by research grant Bodyscape for Danza Urbana, Summer 2023, Tuscany (IT)
> Residency at FLAM under_construction, FLAM Festival, Summer 2023, Amsterdam (NL)
> Residency (collective)"Atelier per lo spazio pubblico" at Lavanderia a Vapore, Spring 2023, Collegno (IT)
> Residency at Campus Choreographic Center, Spring 2023, Porto (PT)
> Residency at Veem House for Performance, supported by Green House, Winter 2023, Amsterdam (NL)
> Residency at Crevalcore, supported by research grant Bodyscape for Danza Urbana, Summer 2022, Bologna (IT)
> Residency at Lavanderia a Vapore, under the program Ricerca X, Fall 2022, Collegno (IT)
> Residency at Dock 11, in collaboration with composer M.E.S.H. James Whipple, February 2021, Berlin (DE)
> Residency at Dansmakers New Adventures, March 2020, Amsterdam (NL)
> Residency at ICK Amsterdam Dance Company, July/Sept 2019, Amsterdam (NL)
> Residency at Choreographic Center Heidelberg, May 2019, Heidelberg (DE)
> Residency at Teatro Campo Alegre, Sept/Oct 2017, Port (PT)
Teaching and sharing her artistic practice De.sy.re.
> SNDO, workshop and creation, Amsterdam 2025 (NL)
> Frascati Theater, Workshop on Diambiguation for Amsterdam Dance Event and WhyNot Festival, 2025 (NL)
> Jakoozi Dance Studio, Amsterdam 2025 (NL)
> Fontys Academy of Dance, Tilburg 2025 (NL)
> DT Danseteater Copenhagen, 2025 (DK)
> Expanded Contemporary Dance Academy, Amsterdam 2022/2025 (NL)
> OHT Nomadic School in the Alps, Trento 2023 (IT)
> Campus Choreographic Center, April 2023, Porto (PT)
> University of Pennsylvania with Dahlia Lì, October 2022, Philadelphia (NY)
> SNDO School for New Dance development, Amsterdam 2020/2021 (NL)
> Artez AKI, October 2021, Enschede (NL)
> Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp, October 2020, in the frame of Body and Material Reinvented researchers; Antwerp (BL)
> Rietveld Academy of Fine Arts, February 2020, Amsterdam (NL)
> FAICC professional course in choreography and performance, Porto (PT) 2020/2021
> Jakoozi Dance Studio, Amsterdam, 2018/2019
> ICK, workshop with ICK Dance Company, Amsterdam 2019
Works as performer for others (selected works)
> Museo De Agua by Rodrigo Sobarzo at ADE Amsterdam
2018, Amsterdam (NL)
> In many Hands by Kate Macintosh at Frascati Theater
2018, Amsterdam (NL)
> Renaissance by Marten Spangberg at Stedeljik Museum
2016, Amsterdam (NL)
> Magic Magazine by Ida Katinka at Frascati Theater- graduation work
2016, Amsterdam (NL)
> Maria Hassabi for Sndo at Doc zal
2015, Amsterdam (NL)
> Maktub Noir Dance Company
2012 - 2014, Florence (IT)
She presented her work at: Holland Festival (2025); Frascati Theater (2025): Dansehallerne (2025): FLAM Festival (2024): BASE Milano (2023); Theatre Rotterdam (2023); Danza Urbana Bologna (2023); Synergy festival, Amsterdam (2023); Veem House for Performance, Amsterdam (2023); GAMeC Gallery for Modern and Contemporary Art Bergamo (2022); ECD Expanded Contemporary Dance Academy Amsterdam (2022); Amsterdam Bostheater August (2021); Tanzbiennale Heidelberg Germany (2021), Julidans, Amsterdam (2021); Punt WG gallery, Amsterdam (2021); Critical Costume, Oslo (2020); Het Heem, Amsterdam (2020); NDSM, Amsterdam (2020); Kunstelicht art space, Amsterdam (2020); Dansmakers New adventures, Amsterdam (2020); ICK Fest, Amsterdam October (2019); Antidote Festival, Amsterdam (2019/2020); Groningen Friday Night, (2020); W139 Gallery, Amsterdam (2019); Van Gogh Museum Amsterdam (2019); De Apple art space, Amsterdam (2019); Club OT301, Amsterdam (2019); Arti et Amicitiae art space, Amsterdam (2019); Corrosia Dance Festival, Almere (2019); Spider Festival Ljubljana (2018); Uferstudio, Berlin (2018); Frascati Theater Amsterdam (2018); Dansmakers Amsterdam (2018); VRJIDA Groeningen (2019); Gelderland fabriek Culemborg, (2017); Villa Strozzi (Florence, IT); Theaterschool (Amsterdam, NL); Baudhuis Theater Amsterdam (2016); Teatro Campo Alegre Porto (2015); Magma Events, Florence (2013).
M E T A L C R A C K S
recovering unitary forms

https://www.instagram.com/elisazuppini/
Disambiguation probes the libidinal drive and the sensorial overload linked to the diversified milieus of nocturnal life in it's most alluring, enigmatic, and shadowed dimensions
Photography by Thiemi Higashi (FLAM Festival + Museumnacht 2024)
Disambiguation upcoming, official premiere
20th and 21st of May at Frascati Theater, Frascati 1
Amsterdam
Graphics by Bruno Listopad and Tea Teaaru
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Elisa Zuppini is an Italian-born choreographer and dancer based in Amsterdam, and a graduated from the SNDO – School for New Dance Development. Her practice explores the intersection of movement, systems thinking, and contemporary philosophy. She approaches choreography as a form of relational and affective architecture, where spatial and temporal elements interact dynamically generating meaning.
Her work has been presented at a wide range of international festivals and institutions, including the Holland Festival, Dansehallerne (DK), Theater Rotterdam (Feeling Curious? Festival), Frascati Theatre, BASE Milano (FAROUT Festival), Julidans Festival, GAMeC Modern and Contemporary Art Museum Bergamo, the Van Gogh Museum, FLAM Festival among others. She has been awarded residencies such as CAMPUS (PT), Veem House for Performance (NL), and Lavanderia a Vapore (IT). In May 2025, her latest large group work, Disambiguation, featuring 15 dancers, premiered at Frascati Theatre in Amsterdam.
Elisa was recognised early in her career with the Young Talent in Choreography award from OPEN FLR (IT) in 2016 and received a scholarship for the danceWEB program (Life Long Burning) at ImPulsTanz (AT) in 2018. Since 2019, she has been part of Jakoozi, a convergence of Amsterdam-based choreographers.
As a guest choreographer, educator and artistic advisor, she worked at institutions such as SNDO (School for New Dance Development), ECD (Expanded Contemporary Dance, University of the Arts), DAS Choreography, the Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp, Rietveld Academy, DT Danseteater Copenhagen, ArtEZ Uneversity of the Arts, Fontys Academy, OTH Nomadic School in the Alps, and the University of Pennsylvania.
By inhabiting liminal and viscous spaces, the performers explore multiple sensibilities, navigating within the condition of metathreshold (a ceaseless transition, where boundaries dissolve and transformation occurs), where ambiguity itself sculpts tangible states.
Photography by Thirmi Higashi (FLAM Festival + Museumnacht 2024)

Show: 30th April and 1st of May 2026, Himalaya at Frascati Amsterdam

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Residency: 16th to 22nd of February 2026, Elisa will be in residency at Frascati Theatre for starting her new creation, Amsterdam
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Workshop: 28th and 30th of January 2026, Elisa will share her research during an intensive workshop with the students of Fontys Dance Arts Academy. Tilburg
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Residency: 19th to 25th of January 2026, Elisa will be in residency at Frascati Theatre for starting her new creation, Amsterdam
Workshop/Creation: 3rd–11th December 2025. Elisa will lead a two-weeks workshop/creation with the 2nd- and 3rd-year students of the SNDO – School for New Dance Development, in collaboration with artist Toni Steffens. The project is based on a research archive on post-modern choreographer Pauline de Groot, with a public presentation of the research on 11th December. Amsterdam
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Guest artist: 21st-23rd November 2025. Elisa is invited to present her research at Lavanderia a Vapore for Research Camping. An initiative curated by Ricerca X. Turin
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Workshop: 15th-16th November. Elisa will teach the workshop 'De.sy.re. (Decentralized Systems of Relations) at Jakoozi, for the Jakoozi Workshops Fall Series 2025. Amsterdam. More info
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Workshop Disambiguation: 22nd October. Elisa will facilitate a workshop based on her group piece Disambiguation at Frascati Theatre, for Amsterdam Dance Event x WhyNot Off Venue. Amsterdam. More info

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Residency/creation: September/October 2025. Expansion of The Knot, Jakoozi. Amsterdam
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Creative meeting: 20th and 21st of October. Elisa will be part of a two days artist exchange on a creative initiative between Theater Rotterdam and Theater Kortrijk in Belgium. The session will take place at Theatre Rotterdam.
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Guest speaker: 22nd September. Elisa will be a guest speaker in the program Dance Dialogues, at Fontys Dance Arts Academy, for the programs Contemporary and Contemporary Urban. Tilburg
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Sharing: 13th September. Open studio presentation The Knot. At Jakoozi studio, Amsterdam
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Visit artist program: 9th to 13th of July at Santarcangelo festival with FPK, Elisa will be part of a selected group of artists to take part on a visiting program of shows and professional meetings during Santarcangelo festival. From an initiation of FPK (Fonds Podium Kunsten). IT/NL. Santarcangelo (IT)
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Visit artist program: 3rd to 6th of July at Julidans festival, Elisa will be part of a selected group of artists to take part on a visiting program of shows and professional meetings during Julidans festival, Amsterdam
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Show: 14th of June 2025, The Knot at Holland Festival, in the frame of 'Welcome to a Night in Asbestos Hall', Trajal Harrel private studio at Holland festival. Amsterdam

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Review: A Painting of Resignation, a review on Disambiguation by dance dramaturg and writer Fransien van der Putt, written for Theatrekrant (Critic's Choice). More info
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Show: 20th and 21st of May 2025, Disambiguation official premiere at Frascati Theatre, Zaal 1. Amsterdam. More info

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Show: April 13th, Rehearsal (The Knot) at Jacuzzi, for the Red Light District Festival, De Wallen. Amsterdam
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Auditions: 2nd April 2025, Elisa will work on a one day group creation with the participants of the auditions at Expanded Contemporary Dance, Academy for Theater and Dance in Amsterdam
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Show: 21st March, The Knot at Dansehallerne, for the program 'New Sh*t' curated by Sigrid Stigsdatter Mathiassen. Copenhagen. More info
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Workshop: 19th of March 2025, Elisa will share her research at Akademiet for Musik, Dans og Teater in Copenhagen
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Residency: During February and March 2025 Elisa is in residency at Jacuzzi and ArtEZ Arnhem, for a research creation with the dancer and choreographer Dario Tortorelli
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Guest speaker: 14th March 2025, Elisa share her research with the students of Expanded Contemporary Dance department in the context of Dance Dialogues, at the Academy for Theatre and Dance. Amsterdam (NL)
Teaching: 9th of December 2024, Elisa will teach her dance practice to the participants of the Intensive Course at SNDO - School for New Dance Development, in Amsterdam (NL)
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Show: 15th/16th/17th of November 2024, Plein Theater, Elisa presents her final research on Pauline de Groot's archive on invitation of Fransien van der Putt, Amsterdam (NL) More info
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Show: 2nd of November 2024, Disambiguation (extract) at FLAM festival in Amsterdam (NL) More info
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Show: 1st of November 2024, The Knot at FLAM festival in Amsterdam. More info

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Residency: 7th to 18th of October, Elisa is in residency at the studio Jakoozi, to research on her new solo work The Knot, Amsterdam
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Presentation: 5th of October 2024, within the context of the conference Performing The Archive at Netherlandse Dansdagen, Elisa presents part of her research on Pauline de Groot's archive, on invitation of Fransien van der Putt, Maastricht (NL) More info
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Show: 27th of September 2024, The Knot (research) at SCOOP festival with Jacuzzi, Copenaghen (DK)
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Show: 20th of June 2024, Himalaya at Spider Festival in Lubljiana (SL) More info
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Show: 19th, 20th, 21st, 22nd of June 2024, Disambiguation group work created for the Expanded Contemporary Dance, Academy for Theatre and Dance, in Amsterdam More info
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Teaching and creation: 8th of May to 22nd of May 2024, Elisa will teach her dance practice, and create a new group work for Expanded Contemporary Dance at the Academy of Theatre and Dance in Amsterdam
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Residency: 15th to 19th of April 2024, research residency at Conny Jansen Danst on new solo creation for choreographer and dancer Dario Tortorelli More info
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Auditions: 03 of April 2024, Elisa will work on a one day group creation with the participants of the auditions at Expanded Contemporary Dance, Academy for Theater and Dance in Amsterdam
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Residency: 10th to 23rd of March 2024, Elisa works on a new creation for the choreographer and dancer Dario Tortorelli, research residency at Jacuzzi, Amsterdam
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Dance Dialogues: 07 of March 2024, Elisa is invited to give a talk about her artistic career and research at Expanded Contemporary Dance, Academy for Theater and Dance in Amsterdam
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Advising/Dramaturgy: Nov 2023 - Feb 2024, Elisa will work as a dramaturgical advisor for Balder Hansen's solo Optical Neuritis, try out show at Theatre Pand P, Eindhoven. More info
Residency: 27th - 2nd November 2023, Elisa will be in residency at Vallegaudia, Pesaro; in collaboration with RAM – Residenze Artistiche Marchigiane (promoted by MiC and Regione Marche)
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Show: 20th of November 2023, Synthetic Disjunctions will be shown at Warm Bad Amsterdam, the Digital Edition
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Teaching and facilitating: 20th and 21st November 2023, together with Michael Scerbo, Elisa will facilitate two days workshop for the new Cinedans interdisciplinary project "Moving Media Lab"
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Show: 6th October 2023, Himalaya will be shown during Festival FAROUT, BASE Milano. More info
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Show: 3rd October 2023, Himalaya will be shown during Festival Feeling Curious?, Theatre Rotterdam. More info
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Residency: 18th-28th September 2023, Elisa will be in residency at Armunia, Toscana, for the second part of the research grant Bodyscape, erogated to her by Danza Urbana, Italy. More info.
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Fashion Show: 17th September 2023, VOID design by Eduardo Leon and movement direction by Elisa Zuppini, Sint Annentstraat 30, Amsterdam. More info
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Show: 9th September 2023, Himalaya will be shown during the festival Danza Urbana, Bologna, Fienile Fluò. More info
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Show: 31st August 2023, Synthetic Disjunctions will be shown at LOOM #3 Subbacultcha, Posthoornkerk, Amsterdam. More info
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Residency/Presentation: 10th-14th July 2023, Elisa is in residency at FLAM, Arti et Amicitiae Amsterdam, where the artist will work on a new creation. Presentation on Friday 14th
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Mentoring: 15th-27th June 2023, Elisa is one of the mentors at Nomadic School Little Fun Palace in the Alps, Trentino, Italy. More info
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Advising: May/June 2023, Elisa is advising the creation process of Asya Deynekina for her graduation work at SNDO School for New Dance Development. Premiere: 1st - 3rd of June Temple, Amsterdam
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Residency: 8th-14th May 2023, Elisa is one of the residents of the program 'Atelier per lo spazio pubblico' at Lavanderia a Vapore, Collegno (IT)
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Show: 23rd-24th June 2023, Himalaya will be shown during Synergy Festival. Amsterdam (NL). More info
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Residency: 27th March - 17th 2023, of April Elisa is in residency at CAMPUS choreographic center in Porto (PT) to develop her new creation. More info
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Teaching: 9th - 14th April 2023, Elisa will be sharing her practice and research De.sy.re. at CAMPUS choreographic center in Porto (PT)
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Teaching: 9th March 2023, Elisa will encounter the students of Expanded Contemporary Dance in Amsterdam to talk about her research and share her vision and experience as a choreographer
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Residency/Presentation: 6th - 17th March 2023, Elisa is in residency at Veem House for performance for the residency program GARDENING, made possible by Green House. Presentation on the 16th and 17th of March. Amsterdam. More info
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Teaching: 15th February 2023, Elisa is teaching her practice De.sy.re. at SNDO, class SNDO1. Amsterdam
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Advising: February - March 2023, Elisa is advising the graduation work 'Liquid hour' by Asya Deynekina at SNDO. Premiere at Frascati 9th, 10th, 11th of March. Amsterdam. More info
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Residency: 2022/2023, Elisa is recipient of the research grant Dancescapes, erogated by Danza Urbana. The grant will provide 2 residencies in Italy, between 2022 and 2023 in support of Elisa's research and creation. The first residency is taking place at Sementerie Artistiche in December 2022 Bologna (IT). The second residency will happen at Armunia Teatri in September 2023, in Tuscany (IT). More info
Residency: October - November 2022, Elisa is part of the residency project 'Ricerca X' at Lavanderia a Vapore in Turin, (IT). More info
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Fashion show: 8th October 2022, fashion show Piazzale Lotto, a collection made by Eduardo Leon for which Elisa is movement director. At Jacuzzi, Amsterdam. More info
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Teaching: 17th and 18th October Elisa will teach a workshop together with scholar Dahlia Lì, at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia (US). More info
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Residency: June 2022 - April 2023, Elisa is part of the program 'Nuove Traiettorie' which constitutes of residency programs, festival visits and network programs. Ravenna, Arboreto, Tuscania, Castiglioncello (IT). More info
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Advising: September 2022, Elisa will advise Alexander Porter for the project Emotijng developed at DAS Master for choreography, Amsterdam (NL)
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Fashion show: 19th June 2022, Elisa will be movement coordinator for Magliano Fashion House, collection SS23 - under the movement direction of Michele Rizzo. Milano (IT)
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Show: 4th June 2022, Elisa will perform at the music festival Lentekabinet in collaboration with producer and visual artist Agnes Mormirski. Amsterdam (NL)
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Advising: June 2022, Elisa will advise Lucas Lagomarsino for his work 'hey, rococò' at SNDO1, Amsterdam (NL)
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Show: 29th May 2022, the performance 'Intoxication, acidity, compression' that Elisa made in collaboration with Michael Scerbo, will be presented in occasion of the finissage of the exhibition 'Dancing Plague' curated by Panos Giannikopolous at GAMeC gallery for Modern and Contemporary Art, Bergamo, Italy. More info
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Workshop: May 2022, Elisa will lead a workshop with her practice at FAICC Professional Formation in Interpretation and Choreography, at Teatro Campo Alegre in Porto (PT)
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Advising: May 2022, Elisa will advise Alexander Porter for the project Emotijng developed at DAS Master for choreography, Amsterdam (NL)
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Show: 29th April 2022, Elisa creates Performing Landscapes - a performance with 16 dancers for ECD Expanded Contemporary Dance at Academy for Theater and Dance in collaboration with Whynot. Amsterdam, NL. More info
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Show: March/April 2022, Elisa's work is part of the exhibition 'Dancing Plague' at GAMeC Museum in Bergamo, curated by Panos Giannikopolous; Bergamo (IT). More info
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Testimonial: 24th March 2022, Elisa is leading a testimonial on her work and research at FAICC - Teatro Campo Alegre (Porto,PT)
Show: 18th November 2021, Synthetic Disjunctions will be shown at Pleintheater, Amsterdam. More info
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Show: 23rd October 2021, Landscaping with Nica x Whynot Festival will be presented in Vliegenbos, Amsterdam
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Teaching De.sy.re: 8th October 2021 at Artez AKI Academy For visual Arts, Enschede (NL)
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Show: 1st to 4th September 2021, Landscaping with Nica x Whynot Festival, will be shown at Amsterdam Bostheater. More info
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Show: 3rd&4th July 2021, Himalaya will be shown during Julidance Off Venue atJacuzzi, Amsterdam. More info
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Show: 18th July 2021, Himalaya will be shown during Tanzbiennale Heidelberg, Germany. More info
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Show: 6th May 2021, Bare Time at Punt GW Gallery, Amsterdam_A collaboration with Koen Bartjin. More info
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Advisory: April 2021, to Alexander Blum Bertelsen's work 'Endlings' at SNDO School for New Dance Development
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Teaching De.sy.re: March 2021 Guest teacher at SNDO School for New Dance Development 2nd year, Amsterdam
Show: 7th October 2020 Synthetic Disjunctions at Antidote 1on1 Festival, Kunstelicht Amsterdam Noord
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Show: 28th September 2020_Synthetic Disjunctions research presentation at Dansmakers Amsterdam
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Show: 17th June 2020_Synthetic Disjunctions site specific at Antidote Festival 1on1, at NDSM, Amsterdam
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Teaching De.sy.re: 10th-15th February 2020 at FAICC professional formation in choreography, at Teatro Campo Alegre, Porto (PT)
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Teaching De.sy.re: February 2020 Guest teacher at Rietveld Academy, VAV department, Amsterdam
Show: 18th and 19th December 2019, Bare time at W139, Amsterdam
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Show: 4th November, Transmaterial 0X2 at Arti et Amicitiae, Amsterdam
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Show: 27th October 2019, Himalaya at ICK Fest, Amsterdam. More info
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Show: 17th October 2019, Himalaya try-out at Body DROP event, ICK x ADE, Amsterdam
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Event: 17th October 2019, Body DROP - the material and political gesture of Djing and dancing, Amsterdam. More info
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Residency: July/August 2019, Elisa is in residency at ICK Dans Amsterdam to develop her new piece
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Show: 19th of May 2019, STRAXXE, a site-specific piece that Elisa created for Pic-nic Pavillion, with Federica Dalla Pozza
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Residency: 1st to the 15th of May, Elisa is in residency at Heidelberg Choreographic Center to develop her new work with the performer Federica Dalla Pozza. In residency also with fashion designer Eduardo Leon and dramaturg and artist Bruno Listopad. Germany
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Teaching: 10th to the 17th of February 2019, Elisa will lead a workshop to the ICK company in Amsterdam
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Show: 13th March 2019, LIIL at Almere festival, Corrosia Theater(NL)
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Show: 18th September 2019, LIIL at Spider Festival in Lubljiana (SL). More info