Carlo Adinolfi
Carlo Adinolfi was born in Italy and grew up in London. He has a BSc with Honors in Mathematics from Warwick University, where he also studied Education, Philosophy, Aesthetics, Relativity and Quantum Physics. His training as a DANCER includes Composition, Improvisation, Ballet, Graham, African, Cunningham, Jazz, Contact improvisation, Release Work, and Mime and his Dance Teachers include: Steve Paxton, Katie Duck, Sara Pearson, Simone Forte, and Dan Froot. At the Dance Notation Bureau NYC (84-85), he studied, Laban Notation, Laban/Bartenieff Movement Analysis, Anatomy, and Music Composition. In the 80′s and 90′s, he performed with numerous choreographers in NYC including Elise Long, Laura Pawel and Sara Pearson, and for children with the Corner Store Dance Company. During this time, he began choreographing, performing, and producing his own work which has been presented at Assembly Rooms, Edinburgh; Ensemble Studio Theatre; H.B. Playwrights Foundation; Westend Theatre; 78th Street Theatre Lab; The Gowanus Arts Exchange; The Pratt Institute of Design; Hudson Guild; Montclair State College; Sarah Lawrence College; Bentley College; St Bonaventure University; the Nantucket and New Bedford Whaling Museums, and tourned Italy, india and Sri Lanka.
His experience in ACTING and STAGECRAFT began in 1986 with a cabinetmaker’s apprenticeship, he then worked as a master carpenter at Pace Downtown University, before being hired as a Technical Director at Sarah Lawrence College in 1991 where he enrolled in the MFA theatre program to study acting, voice, lighting design and Alexander Technique. He continued studying acting at the Actors Center, NY and voice with Lynne Book. In 1993, he began freelancing as a set designer and Technical Director, building from his own scene shop in Brooklyn. Since then he has regularly worked for HB Playwrights, the WPA, Mint, Duke, Drama League, Westport Playhouse, Ma-Yi, and EST among many others. In 2001, he returned to Sarah Lawrence to work part time as the Technical and Design Supervisor where he also studied puppetry with Dan Hurlin.
Highlights of his career include: a month of improvised dances on the beaches of Cornwall in the UK; performances of SHEETROCK, a dance he choreographed for four men and 12 pieces of sheetrock; facilitating an Artward Bound retreat for The Field; choreographing, designing and performing in David Rabe’s IN THE BOOM BOOM ROOM, in the Go Go rooms at Show World, NYC; transforming a disused bank on Queens Plaza into a theatre for SHE WHO BURNS by Renee Philippi; constructing choreographing and touring THE WHALE solo, an adaptation of “Moby Dick” that uses only text from the novel and incorporates dance, theatre, and puppetry.
Carlo is a recipient of the Independent Artists Challenge Program Award, a Jim Henson Foundation Grant, an EST/Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Science and Technology Project Commission, and a Westchester Arts Alive Grant. Carlo is a member of Ensemble Studio Theatre and the 2003-2004 Arts at St. Ann’s Puppet Lab. He has been a resident artist at the Workspace for Choreographers in Sperryville, VA; Wildroot Arts Brattleboro, VT; St Bonaventure University, NY; Nantucket Historical Society, MA.
