Simone Sandroni
Simone Sandroni is an Italian choreographer, director, and educator working internationally across dance, theatre, and interdisciplinary performance. He is a founding member of Ultima Vez / Wim Vandekeybus and the founder of the company Déjà Donné, through which he has developed a wide body of original creations.
From 2008 to 2013, he served as Director of the Dance Department at Theater Bielefeld (Stadttheater Bielefeld, Germany), where he led the artistic development of the company and contributed to shaping its contemporary repertoire.
Throughout his career, Sandroni has curated artistic programs and festivals, developed European collaborative projects, and created educational initiatives in partnership with international institutions—working independently as well as within organizational structures.
As an educator, he has taught extensively and designed pedagogical programs that integrate artistic research with professional training.
Across his career, his works have been presented in more than 30 countries worldwide. His artistic practice explores the relationship between body, perception, and narrative, often combining physical intensity with poetic and conceptual layers, moving between abstraction and storytelling.
As the fairy sings
As the Fairy Sings is an immersive performance that reimagines the Slavic tale of Vodník as a contemporary metaphor. Set in a fluid landscape where darkness and light dissolve into one unstable terrain, the piece follows a solitary figure encountering a luminous presence that seems to guide the way, yet quietly diverts it.
What appears as guidance gradually reveals itself as illusion. The “fairy” is not a savior, but a projection—an answer imagined by those who cannot bear the weight of not knowing. The work explores how the desire for direction can become dependence, and how the other is often shaped into a solution to cover an inner void.
At its core, the performance questions a deeply rooted, patriarchal gaze: the impulse to idealize, define, and possess the feminine as something that exists to guide, soothe, or redeem. Here, the female figure resists that role. She is not an object of salvation, nor a destination. She exists beyond function, beyond projection.
“I am made to shine, not to be possessed.”
Through movement, sound, and text, the piece creates a suspended and unsettling space where attraction and danger coexist. The audience is invited to confront the tension between following and losing oneself, between illusion and autonomy. Created in collaboration with a local artist, the work adapts to each context, becoming a dialogue between place, body, and imagination.
