Matteo Carvone participated in the Artists Encounter at Spring Forward 2025

Originally from Trieste and based in Munich since 2012, dancer and choreographer Matteo Carvone’s work defies categorisation. His multidisciplinary performances blend movement, scenography, and technology, creating layered immersive landscapes in the process.

I meet Carvone on Via Silvio Pellico in Gorizia on the first day of Springforward Festival 2025. Walking towards a nearby square, both our bellies groan, and we agree to find something to eat. ‘You are in Italy, I have to treat you!’, says Carvone warmly, picking up the bill for a slice of radicchio pizza. As we talk, themes of mythology and the hope of transformation surface – threads that run through his life and art.

You started dancing at 17. How did you realise you wanted to be a dancer?

Before dance, before everything, I was truly in love with theatre. For me, it’s a magical box where everything is possible. Space, and how light shapes it, is very important to me, as is visual art.

Initially I attended the School of Fine Arts and studied theatre, clarinet, and gymnastics. I was hyperactive, and very hungry. I wanted to learn a lot. At a certain point, I understood that I was a dancer. Immediately after finishing school, I went to Tanztheater Wuppertal and NDT. I just knocked on their doors and asked if I could take classes with them. I was so curious about who those people were. In the end, I found myself in Munich, where the director of the Staatstheater offered me a position as a dancer. After five years there, I started to feel a bit trapped. But it was a fantastic time. I learned a lot, and it connected me to Alexander Ekman [with whom further collaborations have emerged], and other great people.

Now, you work as both a dancer and choreographer. How do you find balancing these two roles?

Performing in your own work… is demanding. I choose to work with collaborators who can guide me when I’m inside it. It’s a slow process. Dance transmits emotions – sexuality, love, fear – through bodies, but it takes time to translate them from your brain to someone else’s. I’m terrified of having carte blanche as a choreographer. I prefer to set limits, then go wild within them. I want to see dancers’ sensitivity, not just how beautifully they move. I create islands, little bubbles of worlds.

Your latest solo show EROS (2023) and the duet FAUN (2020) reference mythological figures such as Eros and Pan. What interested you in exploring these characters through dance?

These mythological figures exist to explain the unexplainable. They are archetypes that everyone can relate to. Pan is half-goat, half-man. That kind of duality is very present in today’s world, and FAUN is all about this idea of being hybrid. EROS too, is silly and complex. Love makes us mad. The gods feared Eros because he caused chaos. These are just stories, but in fact, it’s how we live.

These figures are associated with desire and carnality – themes that are present in your work, especially through the use of nudity.

Yeah – no budget left! One of my dancers often jokes, ‘Matteo, get a costume designer!’ But for me, the body is part of the scenography. In FAUN, Guido Badalamenti moves his belly to make sounds through his breath that evoke the scream of Pan. It only works because he’s bare-chested. Of course, I like seeing bodies too.

Are there other myths or themes you’d like to explore?

I think we’re living the Icarus myth right now – we’re flying too close to the sun. We’re falling apart. But there’s beauty in the attempt. It’s escape and failure all at once. I’m very interested in this idea of the bright sun. It’s dramatic and catastrophic. There are tons of other myths that could be told, but it’s so clear where we are heading. It’s so devastating.

These figures of Eros, Pan, and Icarus nevertheless carry hope. What are your hopes for dance, the future and beyond?

Being and making is a political act. Our self and our choices are very much connected to the world around us and everything we experience. We need to lift our heads up and act. Our art has power. There’s a political act in what we do. We move thoughts in people – that’s our responsibility. I’m not religious, but the Pope said something very beautiful in his life. It was something like: ‘real believers question their belief.’ I feel that with dance. I believe in it deeply, sometimes I lose faith, but it always comes back. I love it too much, I can’t be without it.