Marco Berrettini
Dance outside the mainstream
Swiss Performing Arts Award 2022
The Italian dancer and choreographer Marco Berrettini was born in 1963 in Aschaffenburg, Germany. He has been working with his company *MELK Prod. in Geneva since 2002. He discovered dance in discotheques in the 1970s and won the German disco dance championship in 1978. After taking lessons in jazz dance, modern dance and ballet, he studied first at the London Contemporary Dance School before completing his dance training at the Folkwang Academy under Hans Züllig and Pina Bausch. While there, he developed an interest in dance theatre and choreography. *MELK Prod. is supported by the City and Canton of Geneva as well as the Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia under the terms of a cooperative promotion agreement. In 2017 he received a Swiss Dance Award in the “Current Dance Works” category for “iFeel 3”.
Marco Berrettini has created over 30 works to date, which are outside the mainstream of contemporary dance. He is very much open to other forms, and also draws inspiration from ballet by the likes of Georges Balanchine. His activities range from stage choreographies to performances in museums, cooperations with film-makers and installations with visual artists. A characteristic feature of many of his works is his humour, as with “No Paraderan” (2004), in which he draws on Jean Cocteau’s celebrated ballet “Parade” to question his own profession. In the “iFeel” series (2009–2017) he explores a variety of texts and world views. Each piece is an investigation of new artistic constellations. In “Music all” (2021), which made a guest appearance at the 2022 Swiss Theatre Encounter, he stands together on stage with two other powerful performers to flirt with the showbiz of music hall.
Dancer and choreographer Marco Berrettini has created more than 30 works to date. An attentive and sensitive author, he enthusiastically explores what it means to be human, skilfully combining unexpected characteristics of various idioms including art, politics, philosophy and culture. Marco Berrettini is full of surprises and never banal. His choreographies break free from the constraints of conventional contemporary dance. In his works, he investigates the potential for creating new artistic constellations where every element is connected to the others to open up exceptional, surprising perspectives in which we can immerse ourselves.
Nunzia Tirelli, jury member
