Bio
Paolo CingolaniPaolo Cingolani is an Italian dance artist, performer and teacher specialising in Instant Composition and improvisation.
His artistic practice has been shaped by more than twenty-five years of study with internationally renowned artists including Julyen Hamilton, Steve Paxton, Lisa Nelson, Nancy Stark Smith, Kirstie Simson, David Zambrano, Ruth Zapora and Daniel Lepkoff. Since 2012, he has been a member of Allen’s Line, the company directed by Julyen Hamilton, performing internationally in theatres, festivals and cultural institutions across Europe.
For over twenty years, Paolo has created and performed works in theatres, museums, galleries and site-specific environments. His research explores the meeting point between choreography and theatrical improvisation, where movement, language and philosophy become tools for composing in the present moment. Each performance is conceived as a unique encounter between performer, audience and space, where composition emerges through listening, perception and imagination.
Alongside his artistic work, Paolo has been teaching dance, improvisation and Instant Composition since 2006 in schools, universities and international festivals throughout Europe. His pedagogical approach integrates contemporary dance with phenomenology, anthropology and embodied awareness, encouraging performers to develop creativity, presence and compositional sensitivity.
For more than thirty years, he has also studied and practised the traditional Chinese disciplines of Taiji Quan and Qi Gong under the guidance of Master Dao Gong Wu. These practices form an essential foundation of his daily training, cultivating clarity of mind, structural alignment and freedom of movement.
In addition to performance, Paolo’s research extends to writing and video. His background in Anthropology and Sociology informs an ongoing exploration of the relationships between body and mind, culture and environment, perception and imagination. Video functions both as a choreographic tool for investigating movement and as an artistic medium in its own right.
the roots of my practice
His training is based on over 25 years of study and practice with internationally renowned teachers such as Julyen Hamilton, Steve Paxton, Lisa Nelson, Nancy Stark Smith, Kirstie Simson, David Zambrano, Ruth Zapora and Daniel Lepkoff. Since 2012, he has been a member of Allen’s Line, Julyen Hamilton’s Company.
