Maria Concetta Cariello is a freelance dance practitioner, performer, and contemporary dance educator.
 

Her creative interest falls on the body wisdom as the source of every creative process, organically drawing from within by tuning into the elements of breath, vocalization, movement, and stillness.

In recent years, she has embraced a nomadic path that leads her to travel to different geographic and interior places, and that initiated her into a deeper exploration of the self, of personal development through the connection with nature, meditative and somatic practices, and Contact Improvisation.

As a dancer, Concetta has experience in both stage and site-specific works. She has performed various works by Gil Kerer, Willi Dorner, Kiori-Kawai, Marie Keiser-Nielsen, Azul Teatro Company, La Fura dels Baus Company, ResExtensa Dance Company, Contact Dance Company, and others. 

As an emerging dance creator, she choreographed ‘I Cannot Walk Around My Body, I Cannot Leave It Behind’ for 5 dancers (2018); her own solo research ‘PRIMA MATERIA: A Study On My Bodies’ (2019-20); the solo ‘Non-Linear Body/ies’ for the company ZfinMalta Dance Ensemble (2020); and co-created with the Lentua Collective ’21 ‘A Nature Corner’ commissioned by Joutsentanssi Festival, Finland (2021).

In 2021, she directed and produced her first independent short dance film ‘GIRGENTI – Timeless Dances On The Hill’ for and with 3 dancers, presented in Malta, Italy, and Finland.

Originally stemming from a ballet background, Concetta has realigned her focus training in contemporary dance and obtained a BA in Dance Studies at the School of Performing Arts, University of Malta, jointly with an Erasmus program at the BCDA – Budapest Contemporary Dance Academy.

Her previous background in Building Engineering-Architecture has provided her with a passion for architecture and design, which also enriches her approach to dance and space composition. Drawing from this, in 2018, she started ‘Archi-Humans Go Public’, a research project that puts in conversation dance and public spaces, funded by Arts Council Malta.

She is co-founder of Sirius Dance Collective (2019) and Nomadic Dance Collective (2021). She is part of the Co-Creation Center, a multidisciplinary research group aiming to develop a methodology and a model of Conscious Co-Creation to accompany teams toward the manifestation from the source by accessing the unified field.

As a movement facilitator, she has held contemporary dance classes and creative workshops in various countries mainly Italy, Malta, Turkey, Georgia, and Finland. She is currently working closely with Nomadic Dance Collective: a collective of dance/theatre/voice facilitators – with co-founders Adam Koan (USA) and Kiori Kawai (Japan) - that organizes workshops and retreats in nature, completely dedicated to the research and refinement of the performative act, of a hybrid matrix combining the different fields of work of the collaborators: mainly butoh, improvisation and CI, and contemporary dance.

In her contemporary dance classes, she offers a space where to cultivate and nurture the physical, emotional, and mental bodies using a combination of improvisation, games, floorwork, and set phrases in order to challenge: the physical body in terms of coordination, strength, and elasticity of the movement; the emotional and mental body in its fluctuations as an ongoing inquiry of our inner states. Her contemporary dance classes are integrated with some elements from meditation practices, and somatic principles, stressing the importance of the breath within the movement, the sound, the playfulness, and the use of weight in relation to the floor.

She is a certified Traditional Thai massage therapist and Reiki of I and II level; and LIFE AWARENESSTM certified breathwork instructor.