Giovanni Leonarduzzi
Giovanni Leonarduzzi’s artistic journey began in 1996 within B-Boy culture and breakdance. Active for over twenty-five years on the international urban scene, he has been invited as a competitor, national representative, and jury member at numerous major competitions and festivals. Highlights include Juste Debout (finalist and Italian representative in the Experimental category for two editions), Dance Festival Berlin (jury member), Fusion Concept (Paris), Circle Industry (Austria), Break the Floor (Slovenia), HHC (Italy), and B-Boy Pro-Am (Miami, Florida).
From the outset, he pursued an alternative path within breakdance, shaping a personal language now associated with the “experimental” field. This research gradually led him toward dance theatre, almost distancing him from his point of origin—without ever losing its deep imprint.
All of his work is rooted in an urban foundation: an extremely physical, rigorous, and technical dance practice from which Leonarduzzi has developed a research trajectory that moves beyond codified gesture toward an abstraction of movement—one that retains the memory of breaking while translating it into new choreographic territories.
Since 2012, he has combined his work as a dancer for Italian choreographers and companies with his activity as a choreographer and performer within his own artistic project, now fully structured within the production framework of Compagnia Bellanda ETS.
His authorship has been recognized nationally and internationally through invitations and selections by numerous platforms and festivals, including Vetrina della Giovane Danza d’Autore (2012–2016) and related tours, Premio Equilibrio Roma (2013), Oriente Occidente, Cádiz en Danza, Tu Danzas, Quinzena de Dança de Almada, MASh – Jerusalem Dance Festival, Lucky Trimmer, Choreography 33 – Hannover, MASDANZA, Stray Birds Dance Platform – Taipei, Jeju International Dance Festival, and New Dance for Asia Festival (Seoul).
Lia Claudia Latini
Born and trained in Friuli Venezia Giulia, Lia Claudia Latini began her path within academic dance, studying classical, modern, and contemporary techniques. In parallel, she pursued visual-art studies and graduated in fashion design, a formative experience that has decisively shaped her aesthetic vision and compositional sensibility.
Her dance research is grounded in the idea of the body as both instrument and material: a means of communication that moves across genres, languages, and structures in search of ever-new possibilities. After deepening her understanding of the rules and systems of academic dance, she turned toward other choreographic territories—exploring new codes and hybridizing different formal vocabularies to generate original images and meanings.
Her encounter with Giovanni Leonarduzzi marked a turning point: Claudia began studying techniques derived from breakdance, developing a personal language based on cross-pollination and the sculptural articulation of movement. Together they founded the association that, in 2019, took on its definitive name Compagnia Bellanda ETS, to which Claudia is fully devoted as a performer, co-author, and co-leader of the company’s artistic research.
She has appeared in numerous national and international festivals and platforms, debuting both as a dancer and as a choreographer. Together with Giovanni Leonarduzzi, she has received several awards and recognitions in contemporary dance competitions, including Choreography 36 – International Choreographic Competition Hannover (First Prize), the Copenhagen International Choreographic Competition, CICB – Burgos / New York, and Stray Birds Dance Platform, among others.In 2023, she created a duet for the German MiR Dance Company, directed by Giuseppe Spota, further consolidating her international choreographic presence.
