AiEPis an artistic laboratory that has made of the new technologies a point of expressive research attentive to the innovation of language and centered on current content such as the perception of the body in the virtual environment. In over twenty years of activity, the artistic directors, Ariella Vidach (choreographer and dancer) and Claudio Prati (video artist), have explored the use of interactive media in relation to the body and movement, creating increasingly refined and suggestive works of multimedia art. In addition to the production of performances, AiEP plays at the Fabbrica del Vapore in Milan an important role in the dissemination of knowledge on interactive technologies applied to the performing arts, organizing festivals and production residencies for young authors. After having founded in Lugano, in 1988, the cultural association AiEP (acronym of Avventure in Elicottero Prodotti) for the production and promotion of multimedia arts, in 1996 the contemporary dance company Ariella Vidach – AiEP was created in Milan, with the aim of deepening the research in the field of new digital technologies applied to dance and performing arts. Since then, the boundary between body, choreography and interactive systems has been thinning and the interferences between art and technology have become more and more suggestive. The AiEP company was honored in 2013, for its innovative and research work between interactive technology and dance, with the WSA e-content creativity award sponsored by the United Nations. In 2017, AiEP received the “Special Dance Award” as part of the Swiss Dance Awards sponsored by the BAC FOC – Federal Office of Culture.
Among the most recent productions HABITdata, a performance presented as a study within the FIT in Lugano that explores the relationship between body and robotics, Temporaneo Tempobeat, performance that, with a collective and plural choreography, investigates the vocal and gestural potentialities of the performers creating an involving and empathic happening that presents and allows a continuous exchange of roles among the interpreters, combining in an innovative form vocal and movement skills. In 2016 he realizes, thanks to the collaboration with artists of international importance as Moni Ovadia and Studio Azzurro, the show Delfi Cantata, presented at the Teatro Olimpico in Vicenza in the season of the Teatro Comunale di Vicenza.
The company is also active in supporting young authors through the project of artistic residencies NAOcrea (2009-2017) and cultural projects on training in choreography and organization. Among the cultural projects has created and designed from 2009 to 2011 within the Interreg event TecArtEco, European cultural project for the promotion through public events of interactive technologies applied to visual arts, performance and choreography with the MAGA Museum of Gallarate, Department of Culture and Conservatory of Como, DAC / DGE Lugano, SUPSI University of Applied Sciences of Italian Switzerland, Cantonal Museum of Art.
In 2017 she collaborated with CAREOF and Nico Angiuli for the project The Tool’s Dance, winner of MiBACT’s MigrArti 2017 Call for Proposals. In 2017 he realized with DiDstudio and Danae Festival the international project Swiss Contemporary Factory with the support of Pro Helvetia and Istituto Svizzero. In 2018 he is among the winners of the MigrArti call – 3rd edition – Spettacolo del Mibact – Spettacolo dal Vivo with the project The Migrant School of Bodies in collaboration with MUDEC, Museo delle Culture, Studio Azzurro, Mo O Me Ndama. From 2015 to 2017, he held “Article 45 residency” receiving tenure confirmation for the following three-year period from 2018 to 2020.
In 2017 AiEP received the “Special Dance Award” as part of the Swiss Dance Awards sponsored by BAC UFC – Federal Office of Culture and in 2020 won Pro Helvetia’s Close Distance call, created to respond to distance and find new perspectives for research and creation during the lockdown, with the new production Dance the Distance still in progress.
It is also a partner in the INTERREG Young Inclusion project on community care.