Former Environmental Biotechnologist, Daniela Marcozzi is an Italian theater performer, director, trainer and researcher based in Berlin since 2015, where she launched the company Marcozzi Contemporary Theater
(MCT Company e.V.).
The poetics of Daniela Marcozzi  emerges from the synergy between the Grotowski's training (in the form of body-voice training and Plastique sequence as transmitted by Peter Rose), physical theater, contemporary dance, vocal work and scientific studies on emotions, embodiment, physiology and ecology.

The core-group of artists who are now part of the MCT Company contributing to the conceptual, artistic and logistic development of the projects are Cecile Rossant, Melissa Derio, Stephanie Day, Jacob Boeno.
Many other artists have collaborated and are still collaborating with the company, the composers and musicians Luigi De Cicco and Hannes Buder, the performing artist Francesca Sarah Toich, the performer Chiara Gistri.

The core-practice of Daniela Marcozzi lies on the 'Urgency of Expression', understood as a source of unconditional energy, the driving force necessary to express oneself in order to survive on a biological, cultural, artistic and political level. 
In Daniela's practice, urgency manifests itself as a condition of physical, emotional and spiritual off-balance, a condition in which the artist continually negotiates their own presence and scenic action in adaptive dialogue with the outside world, channelling the survival impulses to the performative action.
This condition is called Artistic Survival Mode.
As a spiritual-physical act, the performing arts represent for Daniela Marcozzi a revolutionary tool to explore human nature and the impulse to express and share oneself.


LONG BIO
Former Environmental Biotechnologist, Daniela Marcozzi is an Italian theater performer, director, trainer and researcher based in Berlin since 2015, where she launched the company and project “Marcozzi Contemporary Theater” (MCT Company e.V.).
The poetics of Daniela Marcozzi  emerges from the synergy between the Grotowski's training (in the form of body-voice training and Plastique sequence as transmitted by Peter Rose), physical theater, contemporary dance, vocal work and scientific studies on emotions, embodiment, physiology and ecology. She started her education in the performing arts in 2002. For six years she conducted an apprenticeship with the Theater Company “Il Rinoceronte” in Perugia, Italy, with the artistic direction of Gianluca Iadecola. She worked and studied as actress, performer, director and trainer, performing in Italian venues and festivals and leading theater workshops and regular courses to adults and children. She studied theater with Mamadou Dioume (actor of Peter Brook), Thomas Richards (Workcenter Grotowski), Vincenzo del Prete and others. She studied contact dance, butoh, and contemporary dance in Perugia with “Dance Gallery”, in Bologna with “Leggere Strutture” and in Tuscany with Raffaella Giordano, “Sosta Palmizi”; Physical theater with “Circo Minimo”, Antonio Villella and Spazio Nu in Pontedera; Biomechanics with Tony De Maeyer, Berlin; Mime Corporel with Oliver Pollak, Berlin; Grotowski body-voice and Plastique training with Peter Rose in Berlin.
In 2018, as part of the Master of Arts in Artistic Research, Accademia Teatro Dimitri (CH), Daniela Marcozzi developed “The Urge of Being” a training program for performing artists.
Grounded on the dialogue between Science and Art, “The Urge of Being” aims to investigate the relation between physical theater and recent biological and neuroscientific theories of emotions, feelings and embodiment, such as Biochemistry of Emotions by C. Pert and the studies of A. Damasio. The driving force of this work is Urgency, understood as the push to survive at any level. This practice leads the performer to work in what Daniela has defined as Artistic survival mode, a condition in which the performer consciously generates their own urgency and works with inner impulses in dialogue with the external environment.
Daniela facilitated the workshop in different cities (Vienna, Berlin, New Orleans, Locarno, Rome, etc.) and it’s still an ongoing activity.
From 2015 to 2019 she created the “Trilogy of Power”, a progression of solo-performances focused on the influence that political power has on the individual. The Trilogy is still touring in and out of Europe.
With her solo and collaboration works, Daniela Marcozzi has performed (among other venues) at PS122 in NYC; Artklub in New Orleans; English Theater, ACUD Theater, Expedition Metropolis Theater, ada studio, Alte Münze, HAU in Berlin; Mousonturm in Frankfurt am Main, Teatro di Innovazione Florian (Pescara); Milano and Roma Fringe Festival; Tanz Unplugged (Winterthur); Festival of alternative theatrical expression (Zagreb), Sofia Underground Festival, etc.
In 2017 and 2018 she curated the performing arts section of the COFFI Festival with the patronage of the Institute of Italian Culture in Berlin.
Since 2020 she is part of the programming team of Expedition Metropolis Theatre.
Major artistic collaborations include the performer and director Angelica Liddell for the piece “St. Paul in La carta” at Mousonturm, the visual artist Dara Friedman for “Dichter”, Berlin Art Week, and for “Temple Door” at Kunstverein Harburger Bahnhof, the collective “The New Wild” (NYC) for the immersive performance “Everybody is gone” in Alte Münze, and with the musician and composer Luigi De Cicco in many artistic residencies and projects.
Since 2018 Daniela has been collaborating with the University of the Arts of Zurich to refine the research “The Urge of Being” and to develop the follow-up project “On Urgency”, a methodology of artistic research that consists in distributing surveys to a target group and to create performative narratives inspired by the replies. In the survey the people are asked about their own urgency and the urgency of the place they live in.
From 2020 to 2022 Daniela and the component of MCT Company developed the quadrilogy “On Urgency”: “On Urgency pilot” to create the methodology, “On Urgency*Nesting” to research the relation between humans and the environment, “On urgency*REFO” to explore how the community of people living at the Reformationkirche Moabit Berlin related to their environment and “On Urgency*Abruzzo”. Pushed by the urgency of water pollution in her home town Pescara, Daniela organised and led the international residency “On urgency*Abruzzo” along the coasts of Abruzzo (IT). Funded by the Expedition Metropolis Theater through German federal fundings and by several Italian Municipalities, MCT Company and local artists created site-specific installations, performances and concerts inspired by the survey’ answers of local people.
In 2022 Daniela began collaborating with the performing artist Francesca Toich, specialised in Commedia dell’Arte; in collaboration with the mask-makers Sartori Family (Padova, IT), MCT Company presented the performance ‘monstrous’ in ACUD Theater Berlin. Monstrous has been funded by DAKU Takehear, Prozess Förderung and its research phase by the Recherche Förderung. Monstrous is set in an eco-dystopian in which, under the pressure of a regime, women are inseminated with endangered species.



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