Bios of Facilitators
With a background in tango/contact/contemporary dance improvisation and phenomenological philosophy, acquired between Europe and Australia in the last fifteen years, Raffaele Rufo (IT) works across the fields of dance and somatics through practices of research, training, teaching, writing, performance and activism. In 2020 he was awarded a PhD for the study of touch in tango as a somatic-improvisational experience of listening between the dancer’s inside and outside worlds. His research was published in the Journal of Dance and Somatic Practice, the Journal of Embodied Research and the book collection Thinking Touch in Partnering and Contact Improvisation. His recent experiences also include teaching and facilitating the teachers gathering at the International Festival of Contact Improvisation and Tango in Wuppertal (Germany), curating the session on The Public and Touch at the Melbourne Conference of Public Pedagogies, leading movement and creativity workshops for Melbourne University’s Master of Entrepreneurship, and performing The Tango Touch at La Mama Theatre and the Melbourne Fringe Festival. Raffaele’s current creative and pedagogical projects interweave somatic-improvisational movement and ecological thinking to develop a phenomenological approach to ecosomatic research that engages sensory perception as an experience of reciprocity between body and earth. His goal for the future is to create and disseminate new techniques and perspectives of embodiment which support and promote the role of dancers and movers as grassroots agents of ecological consciousness and cultural change. More infos at www.raffaelerufo.com.
Nathalie Mann (FR) is active as a dancer, Contact Improvisation, Tango and somatic education teacher (Body-Mind Centering) and organizer. She is the driving force behind TangOdyssée, and the "Rencontres Tango-Contact" (France). She dedicates herself to open up safe spaces for experimentation, at the crossroads of dance, communication, and somatic practices. The encounter with Non Violent Communication ten years ago slowly matched with her constant dialogue with the environment and the field of physical forces of "Life Improvisation" dancing. By recognizing the conditions of our living body, having earth and gravity as constant partners, her work focuses on experiencing how we engage, listen and respond to the stimuli we sense. Learning through play, touch and movement, she seeks pathways for finding security, realignment, and stillness, to be able to let go, fall, follow the flow and the momentum. Combining multiple focus and specialties, she is deeply interested in the rituality of performance, and healing through dance. More Infos at https://www.tangodyssee.com/.
Valentina Vitolo (IT) is a creative teacher, dancer and performer with strong movement and communication skills capable of creating stimulating and personalised learning environments through motivation, confidence and enthusiasm. Valentina has 20 years of pedagogical and movement experience in teaching mathematics and science in middle schools and in teaching the Argentine tango dance in Milan (Italy). With the birth of her two children in 2013 and 2016, she started falling in love with the study of developmental movement. In 2017 she met and was trained in the practices of Contact Improvisation and Contakids based respectively on the movement-connections between two or more adult bodies and between parent and child. This led her also to dance and research the connections between Contact Improvisation and Tango. In 2020 Valentina became a Feldenkrais certified practitioner. The encounter with the Feldenkrais method changed her life profoundly by bringing a deeper bodily awareness and a deeper well-being. Valentina’s current research and practice focuses on discovering the connections between the human body and nature through the somatic movement and dance with the aim to develop a method that helps people awaken their inner animal in spiritual harmony with nature. More Infos at https://www.facebook.com/movimentometodofeldenkrais.
Tiago Gambogi (BR/UK) is a “Brasilian Extraordinaire” - a dancer, actor, clown, pole dancer, artivist and lecturer. Over the last 20 years, he co-directed f.a.b. - The Detonators as well as working with artists such as Nigel Charnock, Earthfall, Ben Duke, Angela de Castro, Grupo Oficcina Multimédia and The Institute for Crazy Dancing He has created 25 performances, 11 films, directed 8 shows, has performed in 15 countries and is sought-after lecturer and workshop facilitator. Tiago’s daring and playful approach has led him to appear as his guerrilla clown on the BBC’s Jonathan Ross show, pull a 5-metre wooden canoe inside an office building in the Amazon, make the front cover of The Daily Telegraph and other national newspapers for his arrest regarding environmental issues. His Project Trans-Amazônia www.transamazonia.wordpress.com - a true ‘Brazilian odyssey’ - led him to teach, perform and travel the Transamazon Highway (BR-230), crossing 30 localities (cities, small towns, villages, indigenous settlings) across seven Brazilian states. Tiago’s transdisciplinary holistic work encompasses improvisational contemporary dance, clowning, performance art and site-specific art approaches to create a powerful new artistic hybrid form dealing with the performative and the non-performative in pursuit of new creative responses and a dialogue with companies involved in socio-environmental crises. His Artivist PhD proposal has been accepted by Birmingham City University. More infos at www.transamazonia.wordpress.com.