Daniela Marcozzi (Bologna, Italy, 1983) is a performing artist, director, and interdisciplinary researcher with a hybrid background in environmental sciences and performing arts. She is an artistic and scientific expedition designer and facilitator, a certified WWF whale watcher guide, she holds a Master’s degree in Environmental Biotechnology and a Master’s degree in Artistic Research from the Dimitri Theatre Academy in Switzerland. Her work integrates scientific inquiry, deep ecology, and body-based performance methodologies. Based in Berlin since 2015, she is the founder and artistic director of Marcozzi Contemporary Theater.
Her poetics arise from the fusion of Grotowski-inspired training (body-voice training and Plastique Sequence as transmitted by Peter Rose), physical theater, contemporary dance, vocal work, and scientific research into emotions, embodiment, physiology, and ecology.
She has conducted extensive field research in the open sea in Italy, Greece, and Baja California, Mexico.
At the heart of Daniela’s practice is the Urgency of Expression, a primal, unconditional energy driving artistic and human survival on biological, cultural, and political levels. This urgency manifests as a state of emotional, physical, and spiritual off-balance, where performers adapt to external stimuli while channeling their impulses into performative action.
For Daniela, performing arts are a revolutionary act a spiritual and physical exploration of human nature and the deep impulse to express and connect.
She has created numerous solo performances and ensemble projects. Her work is characterized by the use of a wide range of artistic languages, aiming to create complex and orchestrated performative experiences that integrate dance, theatre, textual dramaturgy, physical actions, singing, vocal experimentation, and live music. She has presented her work at numerous festivals and venues across Europe and internationally, including PS122 in New York, Artklub in New Orleans; English Theater, ACUD Theater, Expedition Metropolis Theater, ada studio, Alte Münze, and HAU in Berlin; Mousonturm in Frankfurt am Main; Florian Innovation Theater in Pescara; Milan and Rome Fringe Festivals; Tanz Unplugged in Winterthur; Festival of Alternative Theatrical Expression in Zagreb; Sofia Underground Festival; The Institute of Experimental Arts in Athens; and others.
Her collaborators have included New York-based director and performer Peter Rose, a former student of Jerzy Grotowski; director Angélica Liddell; visual artist Dara Friedman; activist and artist Leah Bachar of the Living Theatre; performers and musicians Hannes Buder, Stefano Ciardi, and Luigi De Cicco; and performer Francesca Sarah Toich.
Daniela regularly teaches courses and workshops at TanzFabrik, Dock11, and Mime Centrum in Berlin, Schule des Theaters in Vienna, and in other international contexts.
For many years, Daniela has been conducting theoretical and field research into the embodiment of the more-than-human, drawing on the sensory and physical characteristics of marine mammals. This practice is rooted in extensive open-sea fieldwork, expeditions, workshops, residencies, and research projects in Italy, Greece, and Baja California. Her research includes close observation of grey whales, studies of cetacean sensory evolution, and somatic approaches inspired by non-human perceptual systems. With other international artists and scientists and researchers, Daniela founded in Italy (Tuscany) the cultural association M.A.R.E. (Movimento Artistico Ricerca Ecologica).