Photo: Roberto Garziani
The international choreographer and dancer from Italy graduated from the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in New York and deepened her studies internationally. The close contact with the Hofesh Shechter Dance Company and her studies in the Gaga language of Ohad Naharin played a fundamental role in her training.
Sofia Nappi is Artistic Director and co-founder of her project KOMOCO, in which she was supported by the contemporary dance collective Sosta Palmizi in Turin and her first muses Adriano Popolo Rubbio and Paolo Piancastelli. With her first pieces for KOMOCO 2021, Nappi immediately won the Partner Introdans Award at the Rotterdam International Duet Choreography Competition 2021, as well as the First Prize, the Critics’ Award and the Production Award of the Tanja-Liedtke-Foundation at the 35. International Competition for Choreography Hanover 2021. KOMOCO has made guest appearances in Germany, the USA, Italy, the Netherlands, Israel, France, Albania, Spain, the Canary Islands, Kosovo, Belgium and Hungary at numerous Italian and international festivals and dance platforms, including the Venice Biennale, The Albania Meeting Dance Festival, RomaEuropa Festival, MASDANZA, the Colours International Dance Festival at Stuttgart and at the Teatro del Canal Madrid.
In Jan 2024 her second full evening creation for KOMOCO will premiere at Tanz Köln, coproduced by Canadian, German, Italian, Luxembourgish and Swiss theatres.
Sofia is also pursuing her path as a freelance choreographer with international ballet and dance companies: in December 2021 she staged her piece “Holelah”, which was created for the Venice Biennale in 2019, with the ballet of the Nationaltheater Mannheim. This year she premiered “Tagadà” for the Staatsballett Hannover and “Moving Cloud” for the Scottish Dance Theater as part of the evening “Celtic Connections”, Nappi will also premiere a creation with the Dutch company Introdans on May 25,2023. For 2024, Nederlands Dans Theater has commissioned a new work from her. At the same time, Sofia Nappi works on an international level in research and professional training, for example at the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University, at the Micadanses Dance Research Center at Le Carreau du Temple in Paris, at the Henny Jurriëns Studio in Amsterdam, at Elephant in the Black Box and at Danza180 in Madrid, at Tanzpunkt Hannover, at the D.A.F. Dance Arts Faculty in Rome, at Balletto di Toscana or at Opus Ballet in Florence, always in close collaboration with her dancers.