Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Giada Matteini. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Hi Giada, thanks for joining us today. What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?

The WADEintoACTIVISM Festival began during the Covid-19 Pandemic lockdown as a response to the global increase of violence against women. It was the first program I conceptualized as the backbone of what would later become WADE, because I felt an urgency to bring these topics to the forefront through dance and to give voices to those who systematically felt silenced and overlooked. Its efforts continue today in collaboration with feminist organizations from around the world to galvanize artists and thinkers toward investigation and collective action.

The third edition of WADEintoACTIVISM is produced in collaboration with Arts on Site, the Tank Theatre, International Human Rights Art Festival and supported in part by grants from LMCC Creative Engagement Grant. Space for Community Masterclasses and artists’ panels has been generously provided by NYU Tisch School of the Arts, Peridance Center, Paul Taylor Studios, Mark Morris Dance, and Arts on Site.

WADEintoACTIVISM is happening from November 25 – December 10! Presenting over 16 artists, WADE will be producing five dance performances, a poetry night, classes, panels and other events. Find a full list of our programs at www.wadedance.org/wia

The third edition of WADEintoACTIVISM is produced in collaboration with Arts on Site, the Tank Theatre, International Human Rights Art Festival and supported in part by grants from LMCC Creative Engagement Grant. Space for Community Masterclasses and artists’ panels has been generously provided by NYU Tisch School of the Arts, Peridance Center, Paul Taylor Studios, Mark Morris Dance, and Arts on Site.
This year we are producing the third edition in collaboration with Arts on Site, the Tank Theatre, International Human Rights Art Festival and supported in part by grants from LMCC Creative Engagement Grant. Space for Community Masterclasses and artists’ panels has been generously provided by NYU Tisch School of the Arts, Peridance Center, Paul Taylor Studios, Mark Morris Dance, and Arts on Site.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I am a former professional dancer; I was born in Italy and moved to the US, in New York City when I was 19 years old. This move has informed my entire career as a performer, choreographer, educator and business owner. I believe in fluid geographic borders and utilize dance as a tool to communicate across culture, languages, finding what connects us rather than divides us.

I have worked in the field for over 30 years and my latest and most important endeavor is a non-for profit women-led dance organization that I started during the global lockdowns, WADE. Wandering Avian Dance Experience was created to engage in conversations on systemic, patriarchal global structures that create and promote gender-based violence. WADE was born as an act of love with the desire to bring awareness to gender-based violence, to offer programs that prevent violence and to heal survivors using dance and the performing arts. The company was born from my own personal experience with domestic violence. What most people do not understand is that finding the courage to leave a domestic violence situation, many time doesn’t put a stop to the abuse. It was and is my way to contribute a message of hope and responsibility towards others guided by the love for art and personal expression.
www.wadedance.org

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

As a survivor of violence in the maternal and marital home, I had to unlearn the sophisticated negative conditioning I had learned at such a young age, then reinforced by the controlling nature of an intimate partner who could only find his voice through violent behaviour. As a child and a young woman, all of my insecurities, at home, kept feeding each other under the focused eyes of those who did not understand the fragility of safety and the resonant power of words.

Dance, in its myriad forms it has taken in my life has been one of the biggest catalysts to learn new ways of sharing space with others and to treat myself with kindness and compassion. One example is my own practice of somatic work which I developed through the years and which takes inspiration from many healing and conditioning modalities such as Bartenieff, Yoga, Pilates, Reiki, embodied physiology, meditation and mindful practices. The practice serve as a grounding exercise for the disparate groups of people I work with, to come together as a collective. The participants are invited to discover the complexities, mysteries, and intelligence of their own body as a point of entry into everyday life.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

The necessity to always be vulnerable and at the edge of fear; a fear that allows you to push yourself, learn, relearn, dissolving and melting into love; my own personal version of alchemy whose only aim is freeing the inner parts of ourselves that need to heal though this craft of dance we chose as our life companion.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.wadedance.org
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wade.dance/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WADE.dance
• Youtube: @wadedance

Image Credits
Giada Matteini Federica Capo Corinne Hart