Italian-German dancer and choreographer Marco Berrettini was born in 1963 in Aschaffenburg, Germany and currently lives in Geneva (CH). At the age of 14 he discovered dance through ballroom dancing lessons at the Tanzschule Bier in Wiesbaden (D). This was the time when Europe discovered dancing to and appreciating Disco music. Marco Berrettini enrolled in Disco dance competitions and managed to win the German Championship in Stuttgart at the age of 15. Thanks to this award, the school, for which he had entered the competitions, entrusted him with the choreography and management of a group of around thirty amateur dancers, with whom he put on dance numbers for Gala evenings. Aware of his technical limits in dance, he began very intensive training. He participated in many Jazz and Modern Dance workshops. He enrolled in the Clara Gora Classical Dance School, which helped him enter the Staatstheater Wiesbaden Ballet in order to participate in the Ballet’s morning training classes. After his baccalaureate in 1981 he was accepted at the London School of Contemporary Dance – The Place to train as a dancer. In 1983 he changed school to continue his training at the Folkwangschulen Essen (D) directed at the time by Hans Züllig and then by Pina Bausch. After graduating he tried to set up his own company in Wiesbaden (D), the city where he grew up but totally failed. He stopped dancing and for two years worked in his parents’ restaurant and began studying Theatrical Sciences, European Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology at the University of Frankfurt. In 1987 he started training again. First at the Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst Frankfurt am Main and then by participating in the morning classes of the Frankfurter Ballet (D) directed by William Forsythe. During a summer dance workshop in Stuttgart (D) he met a dancer from the Jazz-modern dance company Why Not, directed by Bruno Agati, was hired and moved to Paris. Parallel to his work as a dancer for Bruno Agati and then for George Appaix, he started to create his own pieces again. In 1989 he entered the Bagnolet Choreographic Competition with his piece Bouillabaisse bénite where Christian Ferri, the director of the Théâtre de la Bastille in Paris (F) spotted him and programmed him the following season with Flack(s) 11., which symbolised the beginning of his career as a choreographer in France. Between 1990 and 2001, when Marco Berrettini moved to Geneva (CH), he created around twenty choreographic pieces but he also danced for other choreographers such as George Appaix, François Verret, Michel Schweizer, Sophie Perez and Noémie Lapzeson. He danced on television on TF1 in the program Sébastien c'est fou, appeared in documentaries on dance, directed several event projects, advertisements, fashion shows and private parties as well as collaborating with other artists such as the choreographers Martine Pisani and Catherine Bay and the visual artist Jan Kopp. In 1999 his company Tanzplantation (renamed *Melk Prod. in 2000) won the ZKB Prize at the Theaterspektakel Festival in Zurich (CH) for the piece Sturmwetter prépare l’An d’Emil. From 2004 to 2007 he directed the Movement module at the Haute École de théâtre et de danse de Suisse romande La Manufacture in Lausanne (CH). In 2018 Marco Berrettini received the Swiss Dance Prize for his piece iFeel3. Since 2021, *Melk Prod. has been a contracted company approved by Pro Helvetia, the city and the Canton of Geneva (CH). In 2022, Marco Berrettini received the Swiss Dance Prize for all of his choreographic work ‘on the fringes of the mainstream’. The year 2023 proved to be very eventful in the life of *Melk Prod., which changed administration and distribution. Besides leading workshops at the CND Lyon Camping and ImPulsTanz in Vienna (AU), Marco Berrettini choreographed Labyrinthe 2.0 for the 1 km de danse of the CND Pantin (F), El Adaptador for his own company and Songlines for the Ballet de Lorraine CCN de Nancy as well as organising his first conference on dance: La table verte.
18.03.2024
