Sfera relies on a chaotic mixing of individuals, conditioned by immediacy and loss of definition between bodies. An immediate body has no time to be deciphered, simply produces an environmental intention, and squanders words and gestures to make more space. Choreography exposes itself for what it is: an atmospheric event, predisposing physiological alliances and new forms of intimacy for the manifestation of dance. We might be the perfect inhabitants of a crowded bus adrift or a chorus synchronized with the tides - they are privileges of the stage - but in reality we seek an unnamed quality out of an irresistible desire for proximity.
mk. The mk group has been involved in choreography and performance since 2000 and revolves around an original core of performers and shared, cross-disciplinary projects, including an ongoing collaboration with musician Lorenzo Bianchi Hoesch..
The group is immediately invited to the most important festivals of the new scene in Italy and abroad. Among the productions of recent years Veduta (2016) proposes an immersive investigation of landscape and perspective, adaptable to any urban horizon. Bermudas, a work on perpetual motion and pure movement with more than 60 performances to its credit, received the Danza&Danza prize as best Italian production 2018 and the UBU 2019 prize as best dance performance in the Bermudas_forever version.
Parete Nord is an international collaboration co-produced by Torinodanza 2018 and hosted at the Teatro Argentina in Rome, the Triennale in Milan and the Pergola in Florence, among others.
With Anatomical Pieces begins a new cycle of investigation open to the public in all its phases, built around the research work in the rehearsal room and the group's stable co-habitation at Teatro India in Rome for the project Oceano Indiano 2020-21, a co-habitation from which the collective project Radio India - Premio Rete Critica 2020 and Premio Speciale Ubu 2021 - was also born.
The performance EDEN, conceived in 2020 by the BolzanoDanza/Tanz Bozen Festival, with choreography by Carolyne Carlson, Michele Di Stefano, and Rachid Ouramdane received the Danza&Danza Special Prize of the Year and evolved independently into a series of site-specific programs, including the version designed for the installation of Eva Jospin's sculpture côté cour / côté jardin at Reggio Emilia- festival APERTO in 2021
In 2021, mk, in collaboration with Lorenzo Bianchi Hoesch and Iraqi-born American singer Amir ElSaffar, presents the new production Maqam at the Aperto Festival in Reggio Emilia and later at Torinodanza. The show is the first event of Ring - a network project of four Italian festivals that aims to support each year the production of an artist and his company and to include it in the programming of each of the partners (in addition to the aforementioned festivals, FOG Triennale di Milano and BolzanoDanza).
The circuiting of performances is accompanied by an intense activity of conferences, workshops and experimental proposals, including the Platform of Balinese Dance at the Santarcangelo Festival (2014 and 2015), projects for the 2013-14-15 BiennaleDanza and BiennaleTeatro 2019, an ongoing dialogue with the Scuola Paolo Grassi in Milan, the Anghiari Dance Hub, training and research workshops for the Scuola del Teatro Stabile in Turin and for the IUAV University .
Michele Di Stefano has received choreographic commissions from Aterballetto, Korean National Contemporary Dance Company, Nuovo Balletto di Toscana and the Ballet de Lorraine for a new creation in 2023. He is a consultant for dance programming (GRANDI PIANURE) at Teatro di Roma, co-curator with Francesca Corona of the Giacimenta project for Matera 2019 and creator of the TROPICI (Angelo Mai) and BUFFALO (Palazzo delle Esposizioni, MACRO Roma and Museo Nazionale Romano) performance cycles. In 2018 he curated the outdoor section (Outdoor) of the BolzanoDanza-Tanz Bozen Festival.
In 2014 he received the Silver Lion for Innovation in Dance at the Venice Biennale and in 2018 the Nico Garrone Award.
He is an associate artist at the Milan Triennale for the three-year period 2022-24.
In 2012, Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems, by Michele Di Stefano and Margherita Morgantin, a text of choreographic instructions and weather reports, was published by Quodlibet.
Since 2010, the group has received a MiC-Italian Ministry of Culture grant.
