Patrizia Cerroni and nine Italian and American dancer-choreographers create a memorable event, with the foundation of the Company Teatrodanza of Rome: modern dance was born in Italy.

Cerroni founds her own Dance Company Patrizia Cerroni & I Danzatori Scalzi: they officially debut in Sicily at the Erwin Piscator Theater of Catania.

The Open Space Theatre of the National Academy of Dance in Rome opens its doors, for the first time to an external company formed by teachers of the Academy itself with the first production of Patrizia Cerroni, for a whole week of replicas, with a full house of young and enthusiastic people.

The American Modern Dance of Cunningham – she says – is intellectual and abstract, pure poetry, pure mathematics. My dance emotionally expresses a symbolic meaning in every gesture and movement. I dive deep into the mystery of nature and bring it to the surface.

Already in her very first choreographies (Apotropia, Aiko’ Biaye’, Marche!, Concatenazioni, Hmm…) irony, transgression, precision of the movement and other characteristics of her dance can be seen, while she introduces fluid, sinuous, poetic movements that belong to her deeply in the following performances (Selfmirror, U.H.F!!!, Improvisation with Miciko Hirayama), as if her art was preceding her meeting with the Oriental World, India. These choreographies completely reflect Cerroni’s restless mind that is conventionally defined “genius and lacking moderation”. Her art deeply expresses androgyny both in movement and in dynamics. During the performances the dancers only wear tights which makes the bodies asexual.

Cerroni creates the choreographies for Orfeo and Euridice by C. W. Gluck, on commission of Italo Gomez, played in various theatres (Great Theatre of Brescia, Donizetti Theater in Bergamo) and at the Autunno musicale in Como, at the Auditorium of San Francesco.

The same year, Cerroni introduces the world of rock in her choreographies, through David Zard who commissions her to create choreographies for the concerts of “Banco del Mutuo Soccorso” in the show Come in un’ultima cena, presented at the Festival of Cannes and on tour at the Sport Stadiums in Rome, Reggio Emilia, Bologna, Turin, Bari, and the Midem of Naples. Young Cerroni meets a talented entrepreneur.

Realizza la “Création du Monde”, prodotta dalla TSI-Televisione Svizzera Italiana, con l’esecuzione dal vivo dell’Orchestra Musica Insieme di Cremona. I costumi, creati da Jimmy Ortelli, rappresentano simbolicamente la natura.

Il suo primo viaggio in India nel 1979, un viaggio di conoscenza artistica, culturale e spirituale, che le fa vivere una fondamentale evoluzione stilistica, aggiunge all’esperienza maturata con la “modern dance” americana, la musicalità di quella terra. ”In India – dice Patrizia – ho scoperto la forte affinità che la mia danza ha con la musica di questo paese: la danza è musica vista, la musica è danza sentita”. Ritrova sé stessa come donna e come persona dopo anni dedicati esclusivamente alla sua arte. Entra in contatto con la propria spiritualità e crea il suo primo “one woman show” “Tendrils”, basato sulla poesia per lei scritta dal poeta Alok Chaturveda, con musica creata dal vivo sulla coreografia dai musicisti jazz Giovanni Tommaso e Luis Agudo, voce Joan Logue. Questa sua danza è intimistica, ieratica. “In una foresta indiana, in uno stato di commozione, un tema di movimento passa attraverso il mio corpo, per ispirazione divina, in una vera e propria preghiera”. Questo tema diventerà poi il tema base del successivo spettacolo, “C’est ici que l’on prend le bateau”, titolo preso una poesia di Giuseppe Ungaretti scritta circolarmente, con cui torna in India nel 1980, su invito ufficiale dal Governo Indiano, effettuando con I Danzatori Scalzi un lungo tour (17 spettacoli in 15 città), organizzato dall’ICCR – Indian Council for Cultural Relations – con musica originale di Mauro Bortolotti, eseguita dal vivo dallo stesso autore, in un analogo procedimento di rapporto musica e danza (come in “Tendrils”), ma qui sviluppato in ambito compositivo. In India tiene corsi della sua tecnica di danza all’Università di New Delhi e al Katak Kendra. Conosce e frequenta i più grandi musicisti indiani: Zakir Hussain, H.Chaurasia, Shirkuma Sharma, Jog e K. Vidjay. Su loro invito, prende parte alle più importanti rassegne di arte e cultura, come il Classic International Music Festival di Calcutta e l’East West Dance Encounter di Bombay al Tata Theatre, e in un tour nel Sud dell’India.

“L’incontro con Zakir mi ha rivelato la nostra affinità di artisti, nonostante le nostre culture in antitesi tra loro, dandomi un forte impulso ad una mia personale trasformazione”.

Cerroni creates Divertissement Lyrique, a performance interpreted only by female dancers, where the male “role” is represented on the scene by the musicians, with music created by Mauro Bortolotti, performed live by the same composer and by the group “Musica Oggi”. For the first time, this performance abandons the tights and the dancers are “dressed” in costumes created ad hoc by the Italian/American stylist Dino Orlando from New York, with whom a collaboration and friendship is born. Cerroni and Orlando develop a deep research on the relationship between movement and costumes. Also the light, soft, fluctuating scenography symbolizes the change of the female role. This production, enriched and integrated by further pieces, is also performed in the United States, in 1985, by the name Concert, with jazz music performed live by Giovanni Tommaso, Ettore Fioravanti and Fulvio Maras.

Cerroni’s abstract performances now become “figurative”. She begins to involve her interpreters in a relationship of deeper creative cooperation, in which movement is inspired by the reality of daily life.

Together with four couples of other dancers, Cerroni gives life to a new production, Ladies & Gentleman. The choreographic language presents the relationship of harmony and tension, between male and female strength, through dynamics of movement between the lyricism of the dance and the irony of daily life. Marco Stagi creates surreal costumes which Dino Orlando completes with costumes inspired by daily life.

Cerroni commissions the production of a show entitled Baby Doll, inspired by the novel by Tennessee Williams to one of her dancer-choreographer, Mario Piazza.

Cerroni creates the performance Thousand and one lights. The male-female dichotomy becomes the leit motiv of her art. In the same year she also creates Making Dance, a performance inspired by the music of Zakir Hussein “Making Music”. The same repertoire develops in When the Sun and the Moon Rise, with electronic music by Mauro Bortolotti. Costumes are provided by “Cosabella of Miami”.

“Folli amori” makes its debut at the Olympic Theater in Rome.

“Abstract” to “figurative”, Cerroni’s dance becomes “narrative”, with the show Hyde & Eva, inspired by the story of Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson. The performance starts at the Temple of Jupiter Anxur, in Co-production with the XV Festival of the Italian Theater. The abuse of the female psyche since childhood, present in the western culture, is represented by the presence of a child on scene. Initially the scene was proposed to Mario Schifano, who falls ill and therefore it is performed with the extraordinary collaboration of Fabio Mauri, that since the first meeting with Cerroni creates the sketch of it. Costumes are provided by the House of Fashion “Piano Piano Dolce Carlotta.”

In Milan, Cerroni choreographs and interprets the videoclip Piccola canzone dei contrari, by Angelo Branduardi.

With the show Wing in the Body, created in 1999, inspired to the music “Space”, by Zakir Hussain, Cerroni returns to creating with music as the starting point. At the Olympic Theater in Rome the Argentinian artist, Silvio Benedetto, acts with body paintings on the dancers.

In Rome the theme of the female is brought about in the surreal, sensual and poetic abstraction through the show But do you really want to understand something of us women?!!!

In 2003 it becomes the narration of a dramatic figure of Tosca, in the show “Tosca – Power Against Love“, with original jazz/pop/rock music by Ioska Mezal and Francis Tosoni. The performance starts in the suggestive frame of Castel Sant’Angelo, granted by the Sopraintendente of the museum pole in Rome, Professor Claudio Strinati, with 2 months of replicas, costumes by the prestigious Italian stylist, Sem Vaccaro. In this new production, Cerroni relives the Tosca’s role in a modern key, in the contemporary realism of the conflict between love and power.

In the occasion of Scelsi Festival, on commission by Scelsi Foundation, Cerroni creates a solo performance Shiva’s Dance, on Giacinto Scelsi’s music “Ko-Tha” performed live by the percussionist Anthony Caggiano, with the premiere on December 9th, 2005 at the Goethe Institute Auditorium of Rome.

Cerroni creates Cleopatra – Power of love, with original music written by Angelo Valori and performed live by the M. Edit Ensemble, in the program of the Opera House of Rome, to the National Theater.

Cerroni creates the performance Dance to Jazz, performed at the “Dance & Music Summer Festival” of Rome.

In 2013-16 Cerroni spends long periods in the USA, where she teaches courses and choreographs at the SYDA Foundation in New York State.

Cerroni creates a recital as the only protagonist on poems by Angelos Trojans, Route 117 Poems in the form of life, which debuts in Rome at the FUIS (Italian Unitary Federation Writers).

Since 2016 Cerroni is shooting a video of her lessons on the dynamics and movements of her language of dance in the United States. She is currently writing an autobiography on her life and career from which to draw a new performance, One Woman Show, and a movie.