Artistic directors
Ariella Vidach
Dancer and Choreografher
Ariella Vidach began producing her choreography in New York where she moved in the 80’s inspired by the work of the most significant artists of the postmodern dance generation as Trisha Brown, Dana Reitz, Steve Paxton and with the aim to deepen her study in contemporary dance. Her work was presented in the United States, Canada, Germany, Holland, France, Switzerland, the Slovak Republic, Slovenia and Macedonia, Turkey, Luxemburg, Cuba and Portugal. She is co-founder of Avventure in Elicottero Prodotti , founded in 1988 in Lugano and she creates in 1996 with Claudio Prati, the Ariella Vidach – AiEP dance company with which she produced multimedia performance among others: Exp (’96), Drans (’98) and Beat Box (’00), Opus (2001), Buffers (2003), DanxyMusic (2004), Id (2005), Intervita (2007), .Mov (2009). The Ariella Vidach – AiEP dance company has an artistic space inside Fabbrica del Vapore in Milan, an industrial archeological area that was renovated and reused as cultural and artistic venues. She currently teaches at Scuola D’Arte Drammatica Paolo Grassi and Artistic Academy of Brera and continues her research producing performances concerning the relationship between body and technology. She lives and works in Milan and Lugano.
Claudio Prati
Videomaker and Director
Born in 1954 in Bern (Switzerland) – Swiss citizen- he graduated in Gymnastics & Sports at ETH Zurich, in Sculpture at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera in Milano and Mime and Pantomime at the school of Piccolo Teatro in Milano. Between 1986 and 1988 he lived in New York, where he studied Video art and Special Project mixed media at New York University, as well as Contact Improvisation Dance at the Movement Research Centre and PS 122.
In 1988 in Lugano (Switzerland), he founded Avventure in Elicottero Prodotti cultural Association and in 1996 he is the founding partner of Ariella Vidach – AiEP dance company in Milan.
Between 1989 and 2010 he co-produced, in collaboration with Ariella Vidach, fifth teen multimedia interactive dance productions and various dance videos, inspired to the performances, which were presented in several international “Contemporary Dance Festivals” in Paris, Skopje, Ankara, New York, Montreal, La Havana, Roma, Freiburg, Arnhem, Ljubliana, Luxembourg, Bern, Zuerich and in “Video Dance Festivals” like the “TTV Video Festival of Riccione”, “Electronic Choreographer of Naples″, “Video dance Athens”, “Invideo Festival Milan” and among others in Tel Aviv, Oslo, Luzern.
Between 1996 and 1998 he was a member of the jury of various international events such as the IBTS Image Award in Milan, the Festival de la Jeune Crèation in Brussels, the VIPER Videofestival in Lucerne and the prestigious PIXEL IMAGINA – INA Award in Montecarlo.
In partnership with the swiss-italian dance company and cultural association “ariella vidach aiep – avventure in elicottero prodotti “he lead as co-artistic director the cultural projects Innet 2005-2007 and TecArtEco 2009-2011 a Fesr INTERREG Program between Italy and Switzerland.
Since 1997 in collaboration with Ariella Vidach, he is experimentig interactive systems applied to the choreography producing interactive dance performances like Exp 1996-97, Daimoco 1999, Opus # 1 2000, Mo-DE and DANXYmusic 2003-05.
Since 2004 he is the event director of the live talks of the MeetTheMediaGuru program in Milan created by MariaGrazia Mattei.
He produced also, between 2005 and 2015 in collaboration with Ariella Vidach, various interactive dance performances based on “wireless accelerometers technology” developed by the research labs of STMicroelectronics like Intervita 2007, .MOV in 2009 , BODHI in 2011 and RELAIS in 2013 and based on “vocal capture” like VOXsolo and VOCset 2014-15 as a new video dance production titled INTERPERSONAE co-produced by TSI (Televisione della Svizzera Italiana).
In 2015-19 he produced and created the dance performances Temporaneo Tempobeat HABITdata, GIGAsuite and HU_ROBOT, premiered at LAC Lugano, in November 2018, an international co production between Switzerland and Italy, focusing the artistic research on augmented reality and robotics and on the development of the dialog between man and machine.
In 2019-2021 in partnership with Ariella Vidach he co-create various experimental dance projects CORPOmemory and DANCEtheDISTANCE orienting the artistic and technological research towards new dimensions of reality as AR, VR and XR using mobile and accessible (consumer) products.
He lives and works in Lugano and Milan.