A choreographer and performer, Andrea Costanzo Martini began his training in Italy before going on to study classical dance at the Heinz-Bosl Stiftung in Munich. He began his professional career as a dancer at the Aalto Staats Theater in Essen and then he joined the Batsheva Ensemble in 2006, moving after just two years to the main company, the Batsheva Dance Company, where he performed works by Ohad Naharin and Sharon Eyal. His career as a performer continued with some of Europe’s leading contemporary dance companies, including the Cullberg Ballet in Stockholm (2008–2010), where he performed works by Benoît Lachambre, Alexander Ekman, Crystal Pite, Jefta van Dinther and Tillman O’Donnell. During his time at the Cullberg, he created his first major choreography for six dancers, For Men Only.
In 2013, with What Happened in Torino, he won First Prize at the Stuttgart Solo Dance Festival and started devoting himself to creating his own choreographies, characterised by a fusion of extreme physicality and theatrical storytelling and a constant engagement with the audience, using irony and humour to subvert expectations on the language of dance.
Since 2007, he has been a certified Gaga Movement teacher and currently teaches at the Gaga Centre at the Suzanne Dellal in Tel Aviv. He is a guest teacher for the Batsheva Dance Company, the Cullberg Ballet, the Royal Swedish Ballet and other companies. 

We went to meet him because, from the next academic year, he will be the artistic director of Re.Search, a professional training project dedicated to contemporary creation and research at Silvana Ranaudo’s NOD-Nuova Officina della Danza in Turin.

Martini, could you briefly tell us about Re.Search, the project launched by NOD of which you are the artistic director?
Re.Search is a professional program dedicated to dancers who wish to gain direct experience of the creative processes of international choreographers within a research environment supported by a customized mentoring path.
The program is structured in quarters with five-week cycles led by leading figures from th international choreographic scene and followed by open sharings with the public.
Dancers will therefore have the opportunity to experience creative processes similar to those they will experience in their professional lives, acquiring tools and perspectives that only choreographers immersed in their own artistic research can transmit. The classes will be accompanied by personalized and individual mentoring sessions aimed at helping students define clear goals and approach them with strength, determination, and independence.
What kind of professional figure do you aim to train with Re.Search?
Performers who are ready and prepared to enter the complex world of contemporary dance, aware of their own value and of the contribution they will bring to the creations of the choreographers and companies they will collaborate with.

How did you choose the teachers involved in the program? Can you tell us a few names?
I tried to offer participants a range of experiences centered on the performer’s physicality and on the wide spectrum of expressive possibilities that the body can offer. With some of the artists who will teach in the program I have personally collaborated in the past, such as Noa Zuk, Ohad Fishof, Marcat Dance (the duo Mario Bermúdez Gil and Catherine Coury), and Bosmat Nossan, with whom I danced in Batsheva.
At the same time, I wanted to give space to the theatrical dimension, which in my opinion is too often neglected in contemporary dance education today. This is the case with Mats Van Rossum and Becky Laufer, awarded at RIDCC 2025, who combine movement, drama, and comedy in a unique way.

You are a certified Gaga teacher. Are you going to give classes during Re:Search?
Certainly. Throughout the year I will give Gaga classes, a language that has been fundamental for me as a dancer, and I will also lead meetings that will allow me to prepare participants for the creative processes, and to follow their progress. I will also create a work for the group during one of the working sessions, offering tools and perspectives accumulated during my years as a choreographer.

How does this project fit within your career as both an artist and an educator?
Being invited to direct Re:Search is first of all a honor. In my experience, teaching and creation have always gone hand in hand, so I experience this step as a natural moment in my path. Passing on the desire and passion for this art form is not only a responsibility, but also one of the greatest satisfactions I can experience as an artist. At the same time, I am interested in encouraging curiosity, critical thinking, and independence in dancers—qualities that are fundamental in building an authentic artistic path.

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