DAF Dance Arts Faculty

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. DAF has progressively built a presence in Europe that goes beyond the dimension of a simple training project, establishing itself as a recognizable, stable, and active cultural organism within the international dance system. Its institutional identity emerges from the continuity of its work, the quality of its relationships, and a network of direct collaborations with theatres, directors, and partners who engage every year in a concrete dialogue with the development process of young dancers. Rather than belonging to a pre-existing structure, DAF has generated its own institutional architecture: a geography of exchange, observation, and legitimization that consolidates its role within the contemporary European landscape.🌏

. DAF is today a unique model within the international landscape: a system in which twenty premières take shape every year, twenty original creations conceived for the students of the International Program. A strategy that has redefined the meaning of choreographic creation within a study path, transforming it from a final episode into an active principle of development, selection, and transformation of the performer. An internal repertory organism close to the real physiology of a theatre, where the creative process is not simulated, but activated in the very moment choreographic thought begins to generate itself💎

. DAF was founded eighteen years ago as a response to a structural void: not a study program, but a system of thought applied to the artistic development of the performer. An environment where body, perception, and consciousness are organized to move through languages, training systems, and choreographic structures without being reduced to a predictable form. Not merely shaping dancers, but artistic organisms capable of receiving, decoding, and transforming the creative process into presence, identity, and thought.✨

. 𝗜𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗻𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝗟𝗶𝗻𝗲-𝘂𝗽 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟱/𝟮𝟲✨💎 𝑵𝑬𝑾 𝑪𝑹𝑬𝑨𝑻𝑰𝑶𝑵𝑺 𝑩𝒀: ANNE JUNG PHOEBE JEWITT MAURO ASTOLFI GIOVANNI NAPOLI CHARLIE SKUY GIULIANA MELE CHARLES BRECARD LESLIE TELFORD TRAVIS CLAUSEN-KNIGHT ALESSANDRA CHIRULLI MARIOENRICO D’ANGELO NOEMI DALLA VECCHIA & MATTEO VIGNALI ALESSANDRO PIERGENTILI ETAY AXELROAD VINCENZO DE ROSA FRANCESCA FRASSINELLI MARIA COSSU BEATRICE BODINI SUBIN CHO YINGYU LYU

𝗗𝗔𝗙 𝗦𝗧𝗨𝗗𝗘𝗡𝗧𝗦 𝗜𝗡 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗪𝗢𝗥𝗟𝗗 We are happy to share a new important step in the journey of the students of our international program. Olson Blake Michael has begun his professional career with TANZ HARZ, the company directed by Tarek Assam at the Nordharzer Städtebundtheater Halberstadt/Quedlinburg in Germany. Within TANZ HARZ, Blake becomes part of an already active continuity, sharing the same professional context with other former DAF students who have been working steadily within the company for several years. His presence does not appear as an isolated episode, but as part of an artistic trajectory that continues, over time, to find concrete confirmation. Our warmest thoughts and most sincere wishes go to Blake for this new artistic adventure.😍🍀 . . @blake_the_boar @tanzharz

. 𝗗𝗔𝗙 𝗦𝗧𝗨𝗗𝗘𝗡𝗧𝗦 𝗜𝗡 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗪𝗢𝗥𝗟𝗗 We are happy to share a new important step in the journey of the students of our international program. Martina Benuzzi has begun her professional career with TANZ HARZ, the company directed by Tarek Assam at the Nordharzer Städtebundtheater Halberstadt/Quedlinburg in Germany. Within TANZ HARZ, Martina becomes part of an already active continuity, sharing the same professional context with other former DAF students who have been working steadily within the company for several years. Her presence does not appear as an isolated episode, but as part of an artistic trajectory that continues, over time, to find concrete confirmation. Our warmest thoughts and most sincere wishes go to Martina for this new artistic adventure.😍🍀 . . @martina.benuzzi @tanzharz

. ✨𝗗𝗔𝗙 𝗜𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗻𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝗔𝗿𝘁𝗶𝘀𝘁𝘀 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟱/𝟮𝟲📍 | 𝗬𝗶𝗻𝗴𝘆𝘂 𝗟𝘆𝘂 From May 19 to June 1, DAF welcomes Yingyu Lyu, a Chinese contemporary choreographer and dancer based in Paris. Trained between China and France, Yingyu Lyu develops a research practice in which the roots of Chinese classical dance meet the practices of European contemporary dance, shaping a physical language that is precise, fluid, and deeply personal. Her work has been presented in international contexts including Centre Pompidou, Fabbrica Europa, Florence Dance Festival, Cannes Dance Festival, Tunis Opera Dance Festival, and the Opening Ceremony of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. In 2025, she received the Best Performer Award and the Audience Award at SOLOCOREOGRAFICO Frankfurt. DAF’s choreographic residencies take shape as true cognitive laboratories, where dance moves beyond the dimension of physical practice to become a field of inquiry, a tool of observation, and a device for constructing thought. The creative process unfolds as a system of research, capable of generating original mechanisms and activating a real dialogue between artist and dancers, where the experience is never linear, but constantly renegotiated. Each season presents itself as a perceptual experiment: an interweaving of trajectories that meet, transform, and rewrite themselves, continuously opening new fields of possibility. In this space, dance takes on the value of a language of knowledge, resonating with the deepest tensions of contemporary culture.

Strength, connection, and power: the dancers of the DAF NEXT International Program.#mauroastolfiworks#contemporaryart#contemporarydance#danceartists#danceartsfaculty#danceacademy#dancer#

. A double bill created by two unique artists, Maria Cossu and Giuliana Mele, for the DAF International Program.✨ . . 🎥 @lukettodema

. ✨𝗗𝗔𝗙 𝗜𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗻𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝗔𝗿𝘁𝗶𝘀𝘁𝘀 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟱/𝟮𝟲📍 | 𝗙𝗿𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗲𝘀𝗰𝗮 𝗙𝗿𝗮𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗲𝗹𝗹𝗶 Resident artist within the DAF International Program, Francesca Frassinelli returns this year for her regular appointment with the students of the professional project, after a season that has brought her as a guest artist to some of the leading European theatres. Her return is not simply another presence in the season’s calendar, but the continuation of a creative relationship that, year after year, builds an increasingly profound connection with the dancers of the international program. A new original creation brings her back into the studio as an active part of a process in which choreographic work is not limited to the transmission of material, but becomes a true experience of passage: a place where the body is observed, questioned, and reorganized. DAF’s choreographic residencies take shape as cognitive laboratories, spaces where dance moves beyond the dimension of physical practice to become a field of inquiry, a tool of observation, and a device for constructing thought. The creative process unfolds as a system of research, capable of generating original mechanisms and activating a real dialogue between artist and dancers, where the experience is never linear, but constantly renegotiated. Each season presents itself as a perceptual experiment: an interweaving of trajectories that meet, transform, and rewrite themselves, continuously opening new fields of possibility. In this space, dance takes on the value of a language of knowledge, resonating with the deepest tensions of contemporary culture.

. ✨”𝙍𝙊𝙈𝙀𝙎𝙏𝘼𝙏𝙀 𝘿𝙖𝙣𝙘𝙚 𝙄𝙣𝙩𝙚𝙧𝙣𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙖𝙡 𝙒𝙤𝙧𝙠𝙨𝙝𝙤𝙥 2026”✨ From July 27 to August 1, the studios of Dance Arts Faculty in Rome host the twelfth edition of Romestate Dance International. An event dedicated to the encounter with artists active within the international dance scene, each bringing distinct practices, visions, and approaches to interpreting and developing movement. For several days, the DAF studios become a shared environment for work and research, offering the opportunity to closely observe creative processes, bodily sensitivities, and the different approaches through which contemporary dance is conceived, developed, and transmitted today. @romestate_dance_international @danceartsfaculty