Emanuele Soavi started his career at Opera Roma and Teatro La Fenice in Venice. Engagements at Ballet Dortmund the Dutch company Introdans followed, during wich he worked with Jiří Kylián, Hans van Manen, William Forsythe and Mats Ek. Since 2016 he has been working as a freelance choreographer for independent ensembles, companies, theaters and universities, among them Staatstheater am Gärtnerplatz in Munich (current production PETER PAN in 2016), Theater Aachen, Hochschule für Musik und Tanz in Cologne, ARTEz Dance Academy Arnheim, Zürcher Hochschule der Künste, MMcompany and Agora Coaching Project Reggio Emilia. As part of movingtheatre.de he has been nominated for the Cologne Dance Award multiple times and was awarded with this prize in 2009.
Soavi’s works have been invited for numerous guest performances and international festivals in Austria, Belarus, Croatia, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, South Korea, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland.
Emanuele Soavi incompany
In 2012 Soavi founded EMANUELE SOAVI INCOMPANY, based in Cologne. Since then the ensemble works on interdisciplinary, structural and artistic networking – regionally, nationally and internationally. The work centers on questioning the relationships between music and dance, body and world, and the further development of a specialized body language and choreographic signature. Based on profound – also scientific – research, the projects take a universal look at psychology, mythology, iconography and their relevance in the here and now.
In a wide variety of formats, the ensemble builds bridges between experiment and large-scale project, research and practice, heritage and the present, institution and independent scene, artists and audience. In different places such as museums, churches, hotels, galleries, clubs and educational institutions, border crossings between artistic genres and even literature and the visual arts are created.
The so-called Myth Project SEDUCED AND SEDUCER was one of the most prominent projects of the company’s first years. Three major productions, co-produced by schrit_tmacher Festival Aachen / Heerlen, Dansateliers Rotterdam, Festspiele Ludwigshafen / Theater im Pfalzbau, a youth production in collaboration with educational institutions and museums in Barcelona (Institut del Teatre / Fundaciò Antoni Tápies), Reggio Emilia (AGORA coaching project), Rotterdam (Codarts University) and Cologne (Römisch-Germanisches Museum) as well as a symposium in collaboration with the University of Cologne and Deutsches Tanzarchiv / Tanzmuseum Köln were realized. In 2014 all three productions were shown during one evening and due to an exceptional cooperation with the Duisburg Philharmonic Orchestra and Theater Duisburg.
The collaboration with large music institutions, orchestras and electronic composers has been continuously expanded since then. For the first time in cooperation with the Cologne Opera, the RELICS project was created in autumn 2017 together with the Duisburg Philharmonic, the Lehmbruck Museum, the electronic composer Wolfgang Voigt and sound designer Stefan Bohne. This collaboration continued with the triptych FLUT, which was premiered at the Cologne Opera in 2021 as part of BTHVN2020.
For the new format of the choreographic concert, the first collaboration with the Kölner Philharmonie took place in fall 2018: #auferstanden with conductor Konrad Junghänel and the singers and musicians of the Cantus Cölln ensemble. This was followed in 2024 by FAÇADES with soprano Anna Prohaska and the original sound ensemble lautten compagney BERLIN.
The commissioned production TERPSICORE for the Handel Festival in Halle was also created with the lautten compagney in 2024.
In addition to the choreographic work for his ensemble, Emanuele Soavi continually develops his standing as a solo performer. Following PANsolo, for which he was awarded the Cologne Award for Best Performer, and BLACKBIRDBOY, he created AUREA, a cooperation with Susanne Linke. This solo also marked the beginning of the so-called „Habit Cycles (2014-2017)“, a production series focussing on collaborations with national and international artists only. In 2015 PARADISUS? was developed, a production with Cologne director and actor Daniel Schüßler and his label ANALOGTHEATER. In 2016 LVMEN was developed in collaboration with the Dutch photographer Joris-Jan Bos and choreographer Cora Bos-Kroese. In 2017 the series came to an end with ANIMA, a production realized in cooperation with Spanish video artist Meritxell Aumedes Molinero.
The ATLAS series (2018-2020) started in 2018. In the first project, ‘Any Body Sounds’, which premiered at tanzhaus nrw, Emanuele Soavi met longtime Forsythe dancer Jone San Martin and sound expert Mikel R. Nieto. In 2019, the second part, ‘Dialog of One’, was developed in cooperation with the Center for Contemporary Dance – University of Music and Dance Cologne, the Institute for Contemporary Dance – Folkwang University of the Arts, the Zurich University of the Arts, the Institute for Gender Studies – University of Cologne and the German Dance Archive. The third and last part, ‘Blu Blu Blu’, co-produced by and 2020 premiered in LOFFT – DAS THEATER in Leipzig, led music – with baroque violinist Nadja Zwiener and sound artist Johannes Malfatti – dance and judo into one.
With the current series format SOLO LIKE A PIG (2020- ), Emanuele Soavi examines his role as an author and performer – and thus also that of the theater – from a wide variety of perspectives. Together with artistic companions from all disciplines, he questions the relationship between the (surrounding) world and the performative body from todays and future perspectives. The series began in 2021 with the exhibition project ACTS, which connected dance artists worldwide, and a PROLOG, in which Soavi enters into a relationship with the exhibits and the live sound of Johannes Malfatti. This was followed in 2022 by the walk-in media installation ORAKEL, which Soavi developed together with Lili M Rampre (not only) for the architecturally outstanding space of the Mediothek in Krefeld. The Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris was the venue for the world premiere of the third episode THE DAY I BECAME A CLOUD in 2023. The performance course, created in collaboration with the actress Kate Strong, Johannes Malfatti and additional performers from Paris, was subsequently adapted for the Max Ernst Museum Brühl and the Palazzo Schifanoia in Ferrara / Italy.
Initiated by institutional funding from the RheinEnergie Stiftung Kultur (2016-2019) and further developed as part of the federal funding ‘Tanzpakt Reconnect 2020-2022’, ESincompany has been realizing formats that combine mediation and communication since 2016. The centerpiece is the discourse format Soavis LIVING ROOM, which takes place at various locations in the city and is now also expanding, where artists and audiences come together and benefit from a constant exchange about current stage productions as well as general questions concerning contemporary art.
With this mediation expertise and numerous productions, since 2022 Emanuele Soavi incompany is a regular guest in the district of Miltenberg as part of the federal funding program Tanzland 2022-2025.
Emanuele Soavi incompany receives concept funding from the City of Cologne since 2018. The individual projects are also regularly funded by the State of North Rhine-Westphalia and the Kunststiftung NRW.