ANDREA CARRUCCIU

Photo Christopher Meimoon

Andrea Carrucciu: On Movement, Macbeth, and the Body as Creative Tool

Andrea Carrucciu is an Italian dancer, choreographer, and movement director whose career has taken him from La Spezia to Rotterdam, Geneva, London, and Shanghai. A former principal with Balletboyz and Punchdrunk, and a collaborator with luxury houses including Bulgari, Hermès, Moschino, and Stella McCartney, Andrea is one of the most versatile and emotionally committed movement artists working today.

Interview by Leila Antakly

Andrea your path into dance is rooted in your hometown. Can you tell us about your training and early career?

I originally trained with teacher Loredana Rovagna in La Spezia, Italy, before going on to study at CODARTS in Rotterdam. From there I joined Ballet Junior de Genève in Switzerland, where I performed works by Alexander Ekman, Hofesh Shechter, Stijn Celis, and others — a formative period that exposed me to a remarkable range of choreographic voices early on.

After Geneva, I moved to London to join Balletboyz — a nationally and internationally acclaimed company — performing pieces by Ivan Perez, Russell Maliphant, Liam Scarlett, Christopher Wheeldon, and Javier de Frutos. Most recently, I relocated to Shanghai to work with the immersive theatre company Punchdrunk on the celebrated production Sleep No More, where I perform the principal role of Macbeth.

Alongside his stage work, Andrea Costanzo Martini is active in the commercial and fashion world as both dancer and choreographer, creating and performing for NOWNESS and other leading fashion platforms. His clients include Bulgari, Hermès, Moschino, and Stella McCartney.

Who are your greatest inspirations and influences?

Since I was a child, the names that definitely shaped my vision of dance were Jiří Kylián and Pina Bausch. Two very different artists, but with many similarities — an outstanding quality of movement and a tremendous emotional charge in everything they made.

Today, I try to find inspiration in everything that surrounds me: music, nature, yoga, books, fine and contemporary art, television, fashion, people. Anything can be a source of inspiration.

Walk us through your creative process.

My process is very different each time, depending on the project or the show I'm working on in that moment. But perhaps the starting point is always the same: understanding the task and analysing what approach I need in order to achieve the most beautiful, interesting, and exciting result I can.

I also love to decompose shapes and try to create new, interesting ones — with my own body, or with the bodies of the dancers I work with. I need to be excited by my own work. I need to find emotional attachment in everything I do, and that is why I am proud of each and every piece I have made.

How has the pandemic changed your creativity, and how do you see the world moving forward?

What was extraordinary about this period is that it challenged everyone, in every single part of the world, at the same time. No exceptions. We were forced to stop and postpone every plan and every certainty we had about the near future. You suddenly realise how important the small, simple things in your life are — things you never noticed before, but that now feel vital precisely because they have been taken away.

For creatives, it has been an especially hard year. Theatres closed overnight, and for dancers in particular — whose work is deeply physical and often requires touch and contact with other people — it felt like being truly stuck. Throughout that time, many of us turned to social media to share our art, and a new digital era emerged on a scale that had never been seen before.

Andrea worked remotely on projects in Shanghai and across Europe, choreographing from his living room and dancing in front of his bedroom window to create a silhouette series shared throughout the lockdown period via social media.

It feels as though this period of enforced stillness has built up such a reservoir of frustration and longing that, when the time comes to return to our new lives, there will be an explosion of creativity — and a fierce passion to do extraordinary things.

Andrea, in your opinion who are the icons of our time.

Icons always change, especially now, when everything moves very, very fast. It is stressful, but also exciting, to keep pace with it.

Is there a quote you would like to share?

"Dance, dance, otherwise we are lost." — Pina Bausch.

This is one of my favourite quotes, and very well known among dancers. In these difficult times, it resonates like a mantra — and a motto.

Thanks for joining us today, Andrea, for more interviews please feel free to search on a category and explore our incredible archive here at Antakly Projects.

Follow Andrea here

VIMEO: vimeo.com/andreacarrucciu

Self-portrait Silhouette