mk is a choreography and performance group active since 2000, built around a core ensemble of performers and a network of shared, cross-disciplinary projects, including an ongoing collaboration with musician Lorenzo Bianchi Hoesch. From its early years, mk has been invited to major festivals of contemporary performance both in Italy and abroad.
Recent productions include: Bermudas (2017/2018), a work on perpetual motion and pure movement, with over 60 performances to date. It received the 2018 Danza&Danza Award for Best Italian Production and the 2019 UBU Award for Best Dance Performance for its durational and participatory version Bermudas_forever. Parete Nord (2018), an international co-production led by Torinodanza, was presented at major venues including Teatro Argentina (Rome), Triennale Milano, and Teatro della Pergola (Florence).
With Pezzi anatomici (2020), mk launched a new research cycle open to audiences throughout its development, grounded in rehearsal work and the group’s long-term residency at Teatro India (Rome) as part of the Oceano Indiano project (2020–21). This residency also led to Radio India, a collective project awarded both the Rete Critica Prize 2020 and the UBU Special Prize 2021.
The performance Eden, conceived in 2020 by Festival BolzanoDanza/Tanz Bozen with choreography by Carolyn Carlson, Michele Di Stefano, and Rachid Ouramdane, won the Danza&Danza Special Prize and evolved into a series of site-specific programs, including one developed for Eva Jospin’s sculptural installation côté cour / côté jardin at Festival APERTO 2021 in Reggio Emilia.
In 2021, mk premiered Maqam at Festival Aperto and Torinodanza, in collaboration with Lorenzo Bianchi Hoesch and American-Iraqi singer Amir ElSaffar. This work launched Ring, a network initiative by four Italian festivals (with FOG Triennale Milano and BolzanoDanza) that supports an artist’s production and tours.
Sfera (2022), produced in collaboration with ORBITA | Spellbound contemporary dance production center, Short Theatre Festival, and Crossing the Sea (with support from Regione Lazio), explored language as a tool to expand choreographic gesture beyond the codes of dance-theatre, using vocal emission and dynamic articulation.
Also in 2022, the project Piscina Mirabilis was presented at Triennale Milano, BE Festival (Birmingham, UK), and Museo Pecci (Prato), Teatro di Roma among the others. This large-scale choreographic environment welcomed dancers, performers, actors, athletes, and diverse bodies and presences. A space dedicated to pre-performance ritual – before training, before warm-up – a place for unmediated physical presence and shared risk, where power structures are suspended. A “pool” to return to, beyond discourse.
In 2023, Atmosferologia reimagined the urban performance Veduta, centered on perspective and the morphology of Italian cities, turning the urban landscape into a liminal space floating between present and possible.
In 2024 mk focuses on the new production Panoramic Banana – Album of the Inhabitants of the New World, co-produced by LAC Lugano Arte e Cultura, Triennale Milano, Théâtre du Briançonnais (France) and Operaestate Festival Veneto. The project includes a lab with the Mendrisio Academy of Architecture, a scenographic installation, work-in-progress previews in Bassano del Grappa and residencies in Milan, Rovereto, and Rome, leading to the premiere at Triennale Milano in October.
Alongside performance work, mk develops a rich program of talks, labs, and experimental initiatives. Highlights include the Balinese Dance Platform at Santarcangelo Festival (2014, 2015); projects for Biennale Danza (2013–15) and Biennale Teatro (2019); and long-term collaboration with institutions such as Paolo Grassi School (Milan), Anghiari Dance Hub, IUAV University (Venice), and the Teatro Stabile School (Turin).
Michele Di Stefano – choreographer – has created commissioned works for Aterballetto, Korean National Contemporary Dance Company, Nuovo Balletto di Toscana, and Ballet de Lorraine (2023). He is dance curator for Teatro di Roma (Grandi Pianure), co-curator (with Francesca Corona) of Giacimenta for Matera 2019, and creator of the performance cycles TROPICI (Angelo Mai) and BUFFALO (Palazzo delle Esposizioni, MACRO, Museo Nazionale Romano).
In 2018, he curated the Outdoor section of the BolzanoDanza/Tanz Bozen Festival. He was awarded the Silver Lion for Dance Innovation at the Venice Biennale in 2014 and the Nico Garrone Prize in 2018. From 2022 to 2024 he has been associate artist at Triennale Milano and is currently on the curatorial team of the Short Theatre Festival in Rome.
In 2012, he published Agenti autonomi e sistemi multiagente with Margherita Morgantin (Quodlibet), a collection of choreographic instructions and weather reports. Since 2010, mk has received regular support from the Italian Ministry of Culture (MiC).
ph. Francesca Verga