Alito Alessi is Artistic Director and founder of Joint Forces Dance Company, and is based in Eugene, Oregon, U.S.A.

Alessi has earned a 2005 U.S. and Canadian Guggenheim Fellowship. Guggenheim Fellows are appointed on the basis of distinguished achievement in the past and exceptional promise for future accomplishment. Alessi, one of only four choreographers awarded this Fellowship and belongs to a select group of 186 artists, scholars, and scientists selected for the award.

Alessi has also received choreographer's fellowships from the American National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) in 1992-1993 and 1995-1996, and from the Oregon Arts Commission in 1992. Under his leadership, Joint Forces was also awarded an NEA Exemplary Grant in 1991 for the DanceAbility Project, a pioneering method for integrating people with and without disabilities in contemporary dance.

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Alito says his vision as a choreographer has always been to support contemporary dance to evolve in an inclusive manner. 'My work arises from the study of improvisation, and from finding modes that are inclusive of all people who should choose to dance. My interest as a choreographer has always been to encounter the unexpected and keep pushing my own boundaries.'

Alessi and Joint Forces have been invited to perform and teach at dance festivals around the world, including International Tanzwochen in Vienna, Tanz Tage Dance Festival in Germany, Dance Umbrella in Boston, InternationalVSA Arts Festival (Washington, D.C.), Contact Arte in Italy, the National Review of Live Art in Scotland, and Danse-Habile in Geneva. Recent works have been commissioned by Theatre M.A.R.I.A. of Switzerland, "Festival of Freaks" in Bregenz, Austria, and Salems DanceAbility group. Joint Forces has been in residence at the University of Oregon Dance Department since 1992.

He has taught and performed Contact Improvisation internationally for more than 20 years and produces the Breitenbush Contact Improvisation Jam and Conference, every year since 1981. As one of the pioneers of bringing Contact Improvisation into choreography, he has collaborated with Steve Paxton, Nancy Stark Smith, Andrew Harwood, Karen Nelson, and many other major developers of the form. While remaining true to its roots, he has taken Contact Improvisation into contemporary developments including choreography, danced theater, and mixed-abilities dance with his DanceAbility methods, which partly draw on Contact Improvisation.

He also teaches bodywork internationally. He has been a licenced massage therapist for 20 years. He had a successful full-time private practice for 10 years before devoting the majority of his time to dance. His bodywork workshops begin with breath and movement as a physical awareness preparation for hands-on partnerwork. Then he focusses on structural alignment techniques for the shoulders, neck, spine and pelvis. He teaches how to balance strength, stretch, & release through listening to the body's intuition.

Alito is currently authoring a book about his DanceAbility methods.