Faculty

Originally from Little Rock, Arkansas, Scott McGehee moved to Italy as a Fulbright Fellow in 1995 and has lived in Italy since. He received his Doctorate in European Intellectual History from Boston College in 1996 and is the President and Founding Director of the Accademia dell’Arte.

Scott’s research interest centers on the convergence of radical social thought with the organization of aesthetics perception and artistic expression. He has been active in the formation of the CrisisArt Festival and contemporary social movements including Occupy Wall Street. He continues to work on projects that explore the potential for collective and collaborative creation and has written on the subversive character of the Commedia dell’Arte. (Link Essay: “the-pre-eminence-of-the-actor-in-renaissance-context-2.)

Scott gives lectures and seminars throughout the year at the Accademia on various topics including the history of cabaret, understanding Commedia politically, the commodification of artistic experience and related topics.

Hobbies are many, none of which are well developed, but he does have a knack for writing bad pop-songs.

Actor, director, scholar, and theatre educator, Giangiacomo Colli received his formal acting and directing training with two of the major figures of post-World War II Italian theatre, Vittorio Gassman and Orazio Costa. An accomplished practitioner of Commedia dell’Arte, he was introduced to this popular form of theatre by his father, a renowned theatre and television director, and then perfected his skills under Carlo Boso. His theatre formation also includes workshops with Joseph Chaikin, Shiro Nomura, Jerzy Grotowski, and Chuck Mike, among others.

Alongside his professional career, Giangiacomo graduated from the University of Rome in theatre history, received an M.F.A. in directing from the University of Hawaii, and a Ph.D. in drama from the University of Toronto. He has taught in Canada at the University of Toronto, Sheridan College, and Brock University, and in the US, at Franklin & Marshall College, Texas State University-San Marcos, and Middlebury College. Since 2014, in Italy, he has collaborated with the Master of Social Theatre at the University of Rome; the Training Course for Actors “Orazio Costa” at the Pergola Theatre, in Florence; the Rome–based association Teatroavista; and has developed his own devising technique, Il fattore umano, based on collaborative dramaturgy. Giangiacomo is also the author of a volume on Orazio Costa’s holistic acting training, a few articles, and an educational play on Commedia dell’Arte.

Dory Rebekah Sibley is the Undergraduate Programs Associate and the professor of Voice and Ensemble Performance at the Accademia dell’Arte. She is the Co-Founder of the NYC based physical theatre company Tut’Zanni Theatre Company. Already in their fifth year, Tut’Zanni has performed and taught all over the world. She is also a founding member of the all-woman clown troupe Women From Mars and recently toured their ‘clown-noir’ cabaret SILENT REFLECTIONS through Italy and parts of the USA. Dory is one of the pioneer teachers of Voice in the Mask work and currently teaches and develops new projects in collaboration with colleague Torbjörn Alström, Head of Puppetry, Masks and Animation at the Frölunda Kulturhus in Gothenburg, Sweden.

Dory is currently a candidate for certification as a teacher of Fitzmaurice Voicework® and has over ten years of experience in various voice and bodywork fields including Roy Hart Experimental Voice, classical voice and opera theatre, Alexander and Feldenkrais techniques. She completed her teaching certification in the Elemental Body Alignment System (EBAS) in 2013. She was an ArezzoFestival organizer for over 4 years, was the CrisisART Festival Collective Facilitator from 2012 – 2014 and serves as President of the ADA Alumni Association. As a freelance artist, she continues to perform her original devised work in the USA and Europe. Learn more about Dory’s ongoing projects and pedagogy on her website: www.doryrebekah.com

Ginevra Scaglia was trained at the Ecole Internationale de Théatre Jacques Lecoq graduating in 1996. Subsequently she specialized in Movement Studies at LEM, Ecole Jacques Lecoq and followed a series of workshops with notable practitioners including Pierre Byland and Phillippe Gaulier (clown), Théatre de Complicité and Théatre du Soleil.

She is a co-founder of Ishka Theatre Company in Dublin and PlayEnglish Theatre Company in Torino. She has performed in Physical Theatre performances on tour in Ireland, the UK, Italy, Germany, Czech Republic, France, Belgium and China: “Red Day” with Ishka Theatre company was presented at the Dublin Fringe Festival, The London Mime Festival and the Edinburgh Festival. In collaboration with Paola Valla she directed “Romeo and Giulietta” for Sinequanon Company, which toured extensively in Italy (Sardinia, Piedmonte and Aosta).

As a teacher she has led workshops and long term training modules in Torino (Atelier Teatro Fisico Philip Radice, Quinta Tinta Impro School, Columbus Cionema Acting School) as well as in Dublin (Down to Earth Theatre Company). In 2013 she was appointed as Pedagogical Assistant at the Ecole de Theatre Jacques Lecoq.

Mitsuru Sasaki was born in Japan in 1944. In 1965 he studied Ballet under Hironobu Oikawa and Midori Takato, and Butho with Kazuo Ohno. In 1980, Mitsuru joined Folkwang Tanzstudio, a graduate program at Folkwang University in Germany, as a dancer and choreographer. Founded by Kurt Jooss, this program was also home to other dance moguls such as Pina Bausch, Reinhild Hoffmann, and Susanne Linke. Mitsuru studied modern dance with Hans Züllig, ballet with Brian Bertscher, and modern technique with Jean Cebron at Folkwang University. In 1988, he founded SASAKI Dance Co. Since 2005 he has been responsible for the contemporary Butoh class at the Accademia dell’Arte.

Nhandan Chirco is a performer, director, teacher, and choreographer. Her work has been presented at numerous festivals and institutions throughout Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Germany, France and Austria. From ’94 to ’98 she was part of the artistic team at the Workcenter of Jerry Grotowski and Thomas Richards; afterwards she collaborated with directors Branko Popovic, Tomi Janezic and Zlatko Sviben. She worked as a performer and pedagogue with the choreographer Maja Delak, with contemporary dance company EN-KNAP in Ljubljana and collaborated in artistic creations with different choreographers.

Since ’99 she conducted numerous seminars collaborating with Universities of Urbino – Italy and of La Valletta – Malta and in numerous theatre institutions in Europe and beyond. In 2004 she taught the course Body and Voice Work in the post-graduate specialisation course Body Unlimited – University of Novi Sad, and she also taught the undergraduate course Body Work at the University of Osijek in Acting Department.

From 2009-2013 she developed the project STREAMLINE and the performances Quanta, More, Queens, and Hidden Sessions – from #00 to #14. She graduated in “Live Performing Arts” at DAMS in Bologna where in 2013 and 2014 she held theoretical lessons titled “On Live Creation.” In 2012 she launched the platform F.A.C.K. for the experimentation of new cultural and artistic modes of production. In 2014 she completed the artistic project ET L’EUROPE ALORS in collaboration with ZaLab filmmakers group.

Samuel McGehee, originally from Boston, grew up in Tuscany where from a young age he was engaged in music, circus arts, street performing and physical theatre. Sam was awarded his bachelors degree in music and philosophy from Sarah Lawrence College in NYC in conjunction with BHU in Varanasi India. He also attended the MFA program at the ADA. Sam’s interdisciplinary approach has brought him to collaborate with a variety of projects and people, including painters, poets, musicians, dancers, actors, folk research and pedagogy. Sam has performed in Italy, Germany, Greece, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland and India; he has also led workshops in many of these places. Sam was an original member of the experimental rock band Sycamore Age (It) with whom he toured for over four years. Now he lives in the south Bohemia (CZ) as member of physical theatre company Divadlo Continuo. Sam is interested in poetry, composed theatre, experimental music and movement.

André Casaca is one of the most popular professionals of physical theatre and clown in Italy. He’s Brazilian and a resident of Italy since 1995. The Lume Teatro (Lume Theatre – Campinas, Brazil) and Yves Lebreton were fundamental to his preparation and formation. Actor, theatrical researcher, clown, director, and founder of the method called “Body Comic Identity”.

Engaged in theatre for more than 25 years, his artistic and pedagogic method is recognized in Italy and abroad in university theatrical studies. He is the artistic and pedagogic director at the Teatro C’art Comic Education Onlus (Castelfiorentino, Italy) and he collaborates with many theatre schools. www.teatrocart.com

Born in the South of Germany Sabine Fichter studied Modern/ Contemporary dance in Duesseldorf, Berlin and at the European Dance Development Centre (EDDC) in Arnhem (Netherlands). For ten years she had been working as a dancer with companies such as Neuer Tanz, Frey Faust Dance Company, Telos Dance Company and Exis Dance. She has presented her own choreographic work in Germany, Brazil and Argentina.

In 1997 she was certified as a Movement Analyst (CMA) by the Laban/Bartenieff Institute of Movement Studies (LIMS, New York) and is now a guest teacher on the European CMA training. In 2004 she received her Master Degree in LMA and Somatic Studies from Surrey University, UK. Since then she has taught somatic based movement classes, composition and Laban Movement Analysis at London Metropolitan University, the University of Limerick, Ireland and the Palucca Dance University in Dresden, where she has also been a research associate for InnoLernenTanz, a project which investigates innovative teaching and learning strategies.

She has been working as a somatic practitioner/movement therapist with children and adolescents at the Psychiatric Department of the Carl Gustav Carus Hospital, Dresden, for the past 18 years. Her main focus in the therapeutic work is on body oriented therapy for patients with eating disorders and body image issues.

Sašo Vollmaier is a pianist, composer, performer and teacher. He graduated from the Academy of Music in Ljubljana (Slovenia) in 2008 – professor of piano. In 2005 he met PanTheatre (France). He joined the Slovenian avant-garde music group Laibach in 2007 – 2013 as a keyboard player. In 2013 he moved to France where he meets Viviane Gay, an actress with whom he started developing his presence on the stage as a performer trough his voice, movement and music. The voice work brought him to Malérargues (France) again where he started to give classes, collaborating with other voice teachers and giving the concerts and performances. In the same year he begins to direct the performance called “Generation”. This project allows him to meet the Roy Hart Theatre in terms of the power of the presence, fragility, expression, authenticity, curiosity…

Vollmaier teaches musical aspects, encourages the students to invent their own language, working on presence, voice and movement. In 2014 he started to collaborate with Susanne Weins – performance artist, giving the voice/movement workshops in Düsseldorf and creating their own theatre productions (Bewegte Oktaven, Fragile Breath, Melancholia,…) most of them directed by Sabine Seume. He works as a voice teacher mainly in France, Germany, Italy and Brazil.

“Electric Unicorn” is the name of electro-acoustic project created by three completely different personalities (I. Leitinger, L. Jamnik, S. Vollmaier) in 2013 with different musical backgrounds.

Vollmaier’s accomplishments include theatre and cartoon scores, choral arrangements, marching orchestras, big bands, playing as a studio musician (Laibach, Bratko Bibič, Silence, Funtango, radio/TV broadcastings,…)

Andrea Cavarra studied at the Scuola Internazionale dell’Attore Comico in Reggio Emilia where studied under Antonio Fava. After graduation, he worked at the school for three years. In 1998 he co-founded the company Teatrovivo where he worked for 6 years as an actor, assistant director, scenographer, mask-maker and theatre teacher. From 1999 to 2000 he was the Commedia dell’Arte consultant for the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford. In May 2001, he began studying leather mask construction under master mask-maker Stefano Petrocco and became his official assistant in February 2004, working for three years at the studio Pathè-Albatros in Montreuil, Paris directed by Carlo Boso.

Besides acting he currently works as a scenographer and mask-maker for many different companies including Teatro della Tosse – Genova, Teatro Stabile delle Marche – Ancona, Teatro del Butatto, Quelli di Grock and Scimmie Nude. In 2008 he constructed masks for “The Merchant of Venice” under the direction of Massimiliano Civica who also won the Ubu award for Best Director that year. In 2009 he was the scenographer for “Mistero Buffo” by Dario Fo under the direction of Paolo Rossi.

He is currently the President of Zorba Officine Creative, a popular theatre and theatre maker association. Under this initiative he created the Operativi Creativi Ansaldo project at the Officine Creative Ansaldo, an eight-year experiment during which a series of working art studios organize workshops, courses and seminars that are open to the public. One of the most important projects is the studiARTeatro, the first theatre school festival in Milan, created and directed by Andrea with fourteen different schools in participation including three from Milan proper.

In addition, he conceived La Sagra dell’OCA, a festival that brings together the culinary and artistic culture within the quartieri. He opened the l’Atelier del Teatro e delle Arti within the Arte Passante in the mezzanine of the Republic, which Andrea currently manages as well.

Leonidas Martin is a professor at Barcelona University where he teaches new media and political art. For many years he has been developing collective projects between art and activism, many of them well known internationally. He also writes about art and politics for cultural blogs, journals and newspapers. As a video maker he has created several documentaries and movies for television and internet. As a co-founder of three art and activist collectives Las Agencias (2001-2003), Yomango (2003-2007) and Enmedio (2007-current), he has designed and coproduced a number of Artivist and guerrilla-communication projects including, Pret-a-Revolter and The Reflectors among others.

www.leodecerca.net
www.enmedio.info

Janez Janša is contemporary artist who in 2007 together with two other Slovenian artists changed his name into the name of the conservative, two times prime-minister of Slovenia. Before and after this radical artistic gesture Janša has been working as theatre director and performer of interdisciplinary works that focus on the relation between art and the social and political context surrounding it, reflecting the responsibility of the performers as well as the spectators. Many of his works deal with the very status of performance in neoliberal societies. He created e.g. (together with Peter Šenk) a Refugee Camp for the Citizens of the First World (2004) and devised We are all Marlene Dietrich FOR (with Erna Ómarsdóttir, 2005) as a performance for soldiers in peace-keeping missions in the tradition of famous army entertainment shows. In his exhibition Life in Progress (2008) the audience itself reenacted famous historical performance art actions. For Janez Janša artistic practice, theoretical reflection and political involvement are not separated: He is also the director of Maska, a non-profit organization in publishing, artistic production and education, based in Ljubljana, Slovenia and edited several books on contemporary dance and theatre. He is author of the book on early works by Jan Fabre, (La discipline du chaos, le chaos de la discipline, 1994).

He is currently fellow at the International research center Interweaving Performance Culture at the Freie Universitaet in Berlin and Honorary Visiting Professor in the Department of Drama, Theatre and Performance at the University of Roehampton, London.

Tomi Janežič has been listed by international critics as one of the most interesting European theatre directors of his generation, and has been internationally recognized as one of the experts in the field of acting creative techniques.

He obtained his degrees in theatre directing from the Academy of Theatre, Radio, Film and Television in Ljubljana (Slovenia), and was later educated in Slovenia and abroad, particularly in the field of various acting techniques and psychodrama. Janezic is also a certified psychodrama psychotherapist and studied Group Analysis.

Janežič teaches theatre directing at University of Ljubljana. He lectured and participated as an invited artist in almost twenty different countries around Europe, in Russia and United States.

His performances have toured on international theatre festivals in Vienna (Wiener Festwochen), Brussels (Kunstenfestivaldesarts), Moscow (Golden Mask, Moscow Footlights), Belgrade (BITEF), Sarajevo (MESS, Sarajevo Winter), Zagreb (Eurokaz, Gavella Evenings), Firenze (Fabbrica Europa), Nitra (Nitra International Theatre Festival), Budapest (Budapest Spring Festival), Rotterdam (Paradise Regained), Munich (Tanzwerkstatt Europa), Skopje (MOT), Ljubljana (Exodos), Timisoara (TESZT), Sfantu Gheorghe (Reflexfest 3), St. Petersburg (Balkan Theatre Spaces), New York (Performance Mix), Tanzhaus Düsseldorf, Rijeka (International Small Scenes Theatre Festival), Ohrid International Festival, Dubrovnik Summer Festival, Piatra Neamt International Theatre Festival, Novi Sad (Sterijino pozorje), Užice (Yugoslavian Theatre Festival), Split (Split Summer Festival, Marulić Days), Maribor (Borštnik Meeting), Podgorica (Biennial of Montenegro Theatre) etc.

He has received over thirty international prizes and awards, among them two MESS Golden Laurel Wreath awards, BITEF audience award, award of the jury of international association of critics, four Sterija awards, Bojan Stupica award etc. and has been recently nominated for Russian Golden mask award for best directing and best performance and Norwegian Hedda Award for best directing.

Iztok Kovač is a choreographer, teacher and dancer in Ljubljana, Slovenia. In the 1990s virtually out of nothing established the notion of the Slovene contemporary dance in the cultural space of Europe and beyond. In 1993 he established the international dance company En-Knap in Leuven, Belgium, under the wings of Klapstuk Festival; a year later the group moved its headquarters to Ljubljana, where he established EN-KNAP Productions. After 14 years of project-based work, in 2007 Kovač founded the international dance company EnKnapGroup, the first permanent ensemble for contemporary dance in Slovenia, thus beginning working on a repertory basis. Two years later EN-KNAP Productions was entrusted the management of the Španski Borci Cultural Centre in Ljubljana, where Iztok Kovač is the artistic director, and programmer of the domestic and international programme. In addition to 34 own projects, artistic direction and pedagogical work, his opus includes also six dance films. In 22 years, his EN-KNAP has introduced and established its own esthetics inside the European space and formed its trademark, into which many acclaimed coproducers have invested from the outset. For his work, Iztok Kovač has received prominent domestic and international awards.

Kevin Crawford is a founding member of the Roy Hart Theatre company. He toured extensively with the company for over twenty years, and acted as a “gerant” of the troupe for a four-year period before moving to Ireland in 1993, where he was a member of faculty at the School of Drama, Trinity College. In Ireland he collaborated with a large number of theatre, dance and musical groups,as well as regularly contributing to programs at University College Dublin and University College Cork. He has been a guest facilitator at the Abbey (National Theatre of Ireland), The International Workshop Festival(London), The Lir, National Academy of Dramatic Art, (Ireland), and CIRA, (Strasbourg). In 2001 he was awarded an MA in Voice Studies from the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama.

On his return to France in 2002 Kevin was appointed Lecturer at the Université d’Artois before joining the Accademia dell’Arte in Arezzo, Italy as a founding member of faculty. From 2009-2016 he directed the MFA in Physical Theatre at the Accademia. Directorial credits include “Wolf’s Bride “ for Kuopio City Theatre (Finland), “The Bacchae” and “Oedipus” for the Samuel Beckett Centre (Dublin) and “Bartholomew Fair” for the Baker Theatre (Muhlenberg College, United States). He wrote and recently performed “Montee” in collaboration with Caroline Boersma, Cellist, with performances in the US, Italy and France.

Gianni Bruschi is one of the founding members of Spazio Seme in Arezzo (Tuscany) where he is artistic director and where he teaches theatre, voice, and expressive movement. A singer and actor, he has trained with many Italian and foreign artists. He directs ensemble work related to voice, theatre, and dance in the Italian expressive culture, and he has held concerts in festivals around Italy and various Mediterranean countries such as France, Egypt, Albania, Greece, Morocco, Tunisia, Spain and India.

He studied Belcanto and Opera with Slavka Taskova Paloetti, with whom he collaborated at the Fondazione Guido d’Arezzo. He got a degree in Italian Literature and history of the theatre at the University of Siena; he got the status of “expert of education” on professional profile of Tuscany Region related to European Community. He is achieving a degree as a counselor at the Institute of Psychosynthesis of Roberto Assagioli in Florence.

Andrea Caban is an Associate Professor and Head of Voice & Speech in the Theatre Arts Department at CSU Long Beach, Associate Director of Knight-Thompson Speechwork and Associate Specialist in the UCI Department of Neurology. She is the accent expert on HowCast.com demonstrating over 35 accents, a theatrical production coach, a regular speaker coach for TED, and a community based theatre maker. An award winning solo artist, Caban has performed her original works in Colombia, the UK, South Africa, Costa Rica, Spain and across the US. She has adapted actor voice and accent training for the care of people living with ALS to prolong the ability to speak without assistive devices.Caban’s writing on this subject earned her the VSR 2018 Dudley Knight Award for Outstanding Vocal Scholarship. AndreaCaban.com. MFA, UC Irvine.

Tomaž Grom is a double-bass player and composer from Slovenia. As an improviser he is dedicated to exploring an extended range of techniques of playing the double bass, including in combination with electronic media. His creativity is noted for its continuous experimentation with his own sound potential guided by the principle of spontaneity. Grom performed in the most varied ensembles of diverse musical genres.

He has made music for a number of theatre, dance and puppet performances. Two of his performances, Bruto/Gross and Ništrc/Off-cuts have made it into Artservis collection (project SCCA – Ljubljana).

Since 2006 he has been involved in conceptualizing and leading workshops in the field of electro-acoustic and music improvisation entitled Maksimatika/Maximathics, and from 2009 the workshop called Search and reflect (unidiomatic improvisation). He is the artistic director of Zavod Sploh, an associaton devoted to the production of music and performing arts as well as to education and publishing in the field.