Creative process for children and general audiences
In 2026, CCN/Aterballetto launches a new and significant path of research and production dedicated to childhood, confirming and strengthening a focus that in recent years has become an integral part of its artistic identity. This is not simply about creating a performance “for children,” but about working from a tout public perspective, able to speak to childhood as a space of vision, perception, and imagination, while at the same time engaging audiences of every age.
This new project represents an artistic, production-related, and cultural investment. Investing in childhood means questioning the languages needed today, the forms capable of generating wonder, thought, and participation, and the ways in which dance can become a space for renewing the gaze.
With Alla ricerca della meraviglia, CCN/Aterballetto chooses to further deepen its path in dance for children, embracing this field not as a parallel line of work, but as a structural part of its artistic vision. In this perspective, childhood is not a target audience: it is a point of view. A space of perceptual freedom that calls for authenticity, clarity, and radicality.
Radicality here means reaching the essence, stripping away the superfluous, and proposing a direct, powerful language that can speak without simplifying or trivializing, while respecting the curiosity, intelligence, and sensitivity of young audiences. It is a challenge that also concerns the adult spectator: to create a form of dance capable of surprising, questioning, and renewing the way we look.
The project brings together three choreographers with strong and distinctive artistic voices, each shaped by different poetic and aesthetic backgrounds: Fernando Melo, Jacopo Jenna, and Francesco Marilungo. Invited to work with a pair of CCN/Aterballetto dancers during a workshop and first-study phase, the three artists are free to choose theme, language, and imagery within an open and necessary time of research.
Three choreographers, three perspectives
Fernando Melo
Fernando Melo, a Brazilian choreographer active in Europe, has developed a “magical” language, capable of transforming the performer’s strong physical presence into an almost dreamlike vision, shaped by illusion, energy, and connection. His creations stand out for their marked visual quality and for a choreographic writing that weaves together imagination and non-linear narration.
Within this project, his research unfolds in a territory where wonder takes shape through the body, the rhythm of action, and the stage’s ability to evoke unexpected images.
Jacopo Jenna
Jacopo Jenna focuses his research on the analysis of movement and on the relationship between dance, images, and visual devices. His work draws on archives, pop culture, dance history, and contemporary media, creating pieces that question the way we look and are looked at, through an approach that is conceptual yet always deeply physical.
Within the context of Alla ricerca della meraviglia, his perspective opens up a fertile dialogue between perception, vision, and presence, suggesting new possibilities of encounter between choreographic creation and young audiences.
Francesco Marilungo
Francesco Marilungo pursues a radical exploration of the body and representation, often addressing themes related to identity, ritual, and transformation. His language is layered, ironic, and at times unsettling, capable of opening spaces for reflection through a strong stage tension.
Within Alla ricerca della meraviglia, his contribution broadens the field of creation for young audiences, showing how even the most intense and unconventional languages can meet a young gaze that is free, open, and available to the imagination.
At the end of this first phase, the three studies will be presented behind closed doors to an audience of children as well. The direct encounter with the gaze of childhood — free, demanding, and unmediated — will become an integral part of the process: not simply a test, but a genuine opportunity for listening between creation and spectator.
Among the three studies, one will be selected for CCN/Aterballetto to develop into a full production. The chosen work will premiere nationally at the Colpi di Scena festival, becoming the company’s new production dedicated to this field.
In recent years, attention to the gaze of childhood has already given rise to significant experiences, from La stella nascosta to Stravaganze in sol minore. With Alla ricerca della meraviglia, CCN/Aterballetto takes a further step in this direction: creating a performance capable of speaking to children without giving up depth, and to adults without losing wonder.
