Alessia Mallardo also known as Medusa. She is born in Naples, South Italy. She is a Butoh dancer and a dance therapist. A traveler and a researcher.
The dance, for her, is a necessity. The way to find herself when she gets lost. To get an answer. The way to encounter other people, the way to feel the space within and around herself. Her whole life she has been looking for a tool to explore and observe what is inside oneself and bring it out through movement.
Psychology, anthropology, and dance therapy were the first steps she took in this direction. Then she started to travel to different countries, searching for ecstatic experiences and rituals such as trance or spirit possession (Candomblé, Voodoo, Umbanda). In 2013, she has met Butoh, which since has become a fundamental tool in her work and a lifestyle, a philosophy of living.
She has followed Atsushi Takenouchi’s Butoh, helping and assisting in his school in Italy, but she has also fed her practice periodically with other teachers specially Imre Thormann in South of France, for Noguchi Taiso.
