Arteles Catalogue 2023-2020

Back to Basics program / AUGUST 2023
Giada Matteini
USA / Italy
www.wadedance.org
About
I am a multi-hyphenated creative being, cultural manager and
entrepreneur, inhabiting conflicting cultures that both enliven
and haunt me. I was born in Florence, Italy, but I have been
living in New York City for almost three decades now. Dance
is my first love and I have spent most of my life manipulating
movement in its many forms as a performer, choreographer,
curator, producer, and educator. I have been teaching all over
the world, taking my favorite travel companion (my son) along
with me to the Americas, Europe, and Asia.
Intersections fascinate me; the women-led multifaceted
performing arts company I founded, WADE, intersects with
research, restorative justice strategies, women’s rights
and social action. The more unexpected the intersections,
the more interested I am: classical ballet with radical love
and self-care, soft jazz with ice hockey, grind culture
with authentic connections. I wander between art forms,
geographical borders and languages, centering in my
purpose every day and finding myself in awe of the crooked,
knotted, and gnarled beauty of trees.
WADEintoLOVE
The book, part love letter to New York City, part selfdeprecating
memoir, chronicles the journey that led me to
create WADE, a company born by transforming my grief
into an act of love. It speaks of my experience with violence
both in the childhood and marital home, how dance has
continued to be intertwined with these experiences offering
solace, healing and the strongest impetus to end the cycle
of violence. It wants to offer an in-depth explanation through
biographical essays of why a survivor would want to invest
time in working with perpetrators of violence. And finally, it
highlights the choices I have made along the way to create a
pedagogical approach to ballet based on somatic awareness
and radical love.
In my DreamSpace, all men stand up to sexism and violence.