FRANCESCA PENZO
A choreographer, performer, and curator, she works to create spaces for sharing and activism, focusing on themes related to intersectional feminism, body alliances, and a focus on the need for access and equal opportunities for structurally disadvantaged people. A graduate of the Paolo Grassi Academy in Milan, she has gained experience in the field, both in Italy and abroad, as a performer and co-produced creator. She is co-founder of the company Fattoria Vittadini in Milan—winner of the 2018 Hystrio Corpo a Corpo award—and president of Micce in Bologna. She coordinates the Fattoria Indaco project, a professional dance and performing arts company based in Bologna. She is the artistic director of the Rassegna Creazioni Femministe in Bologna. Her degree in Cultures and Human Rights from the Faculty of Political Sciences in Bologna has allowed her to develop expertise in legal issues in migration contexts and gender issues. She is an artist associated with the theatrical network "La scena che educa" of the cultural association Altre Velocità, with which she has collaborated for years as a theater and dance expert in workshops for teenagers aged 13-18. She collaborated with ERT Emilia Romagna Teatro on the project "FUORI!", curated by Silvia Bottiroli, and as a collaborator with Brazilian director Carolina Bianchi.
Together with a team of multidisciplinary artists, she is developing a choreographic project defined as documentary choreography, a performative language where choreographic composition and the documentary genre, through interviews, become a method of resonance for voices and bodies. Experimented for the first time during the creative process of Metis (2023), a performative and sound action that investigates the geography of gender, documentary choreography generates an aesthetic born from the encounter between the personal and concrete language of everyday life testimonies and the poetic language of choreographic composition. The project has been presented internationally under the name The Metis Method, within the European program PERFORM EUROPE 2024/2025.