Who I am

Chiara Clara Burgio

Clara Burgio, choreographer and performer, was born in Palermo. She began her exploration of the body through the language of drawing and painting; art history has always been a fundamental component for her in perceiving the power of the image. Since childhood, she studied classical dance and searched for a language that could become image in action—a gesture born from inner feeling.

In 1999, she encountered Butoh dance-theatre and trained with Masaki Iwana, Ko Murobushi, Yoshito Ono, Atsushi Takenouki, Yumiko Yoshiota, and many other great Butoh masters. She graduated from the International Butoh Academy under Sayoko Onishi, earning academic recognition between Palermo and Japan with Master Yoshito Ono.

She has participated with her choreographies in prestigious festivals in Italy and abroad, creating space for her inner landscapes. For years, she has lived in Florence, where she leads workshops and artistic residencies. Her two most recent choreographic works are:

• Vespri – a sensory and itinerant journey in relationship with the earth and trees
• Corpo Gemmante – a performance staged in theaters, galleries, and cultural associations

She also created the urban dance piece We Dance the Peripheries of the World, involving public school students, youth from reception centers, dancers, and citizens seeking to embrace themselves—and thus others.

Art, for Clara, is understood as both an intimate and collective ritual, brought into natural, urban, cultural, and peripheral spaces. Her workshops and performances have taken place in challenging neighborhoods such as La Vucciria and the Pagliarelli prison in Palermo.

Her latest residency is nourished by collaborations and artistic research, and is giving shape to a solo work centered on the theme of mystery.

She has danced in collaboration for the exhibition Japan Performing Arts: Butoh Dance and Noh Theatre, featuring photographs by Fabio Massimo Fioravanti and curated by Maria Pia D’Orazi. Her piece Human Flourishing—an invitation to individual and collective blooming—was choreographed and performed in Cinisi, Palermo, to honor Peppino Impastato and stand against the mafia.

She has performed at:

• Festival Firenze Gentile at the Salone dei Cinquecento
• Festival Sentire N.I.N in Sarzana
• Teatro degli Impavidi
• Kinfest: Connections and Culture at the Civic Museum Cloister in Viterbo
• MAXXI Museum in Rome for the Butoh Festival Corpo Eretico e Attivismo Quantico

Her studies include work with Master Atsushi Takenouki and musician Hiroko Komiya, with whom she trained and danced. She also studied with Butoh master Yumiko Yoshiota, and Zen and dance teachers Doryu Cappelli and Annamaria Gyoetsu Epifania.

Her artistic residency for Human Flourishing and the urban dance workshop We Dance the Peripheries of the World are rooted in the human encounter. She has taught Butoh workshops at the Faculty of Architecture in Florence and at the Academy of Fine Arts in Carrara, offering lessons on Butoh and art as a form of liberation against dictatorships and all forms of racism.

Art, for Clara, is a ritual—intimate and collective—brought into natural, urban, cultural, and peripheral spaces, with workshops and performances in places such as La Vucciria and the Pagliarelli prison in Palermo.

LISTEN SENSITIVELY, THEREFORE WITH YOUR SENSES TURNED ON.