Nica Portavia

I was born in Fano, Italy, from an Italian father and a mother from  Lebanon. I start dancing as a child, following a Professional Dance  School program before in Italy and then in Spain, Barcelona.
I am a  dancer, teacher and researcher, performer in the field of Contact  Improvisation. I discovered CI many years ago, after having followed a  first training in contemporary dance, and I fell in love since the first  moment.
I mainly trained abroad with many teachers including Steve  Paxton, Daniel Lepkoff, Charlie Morrissey,Angelika Doney, Asaf  Bacharach, KJ Holmes, Anya Cloud, Karen Nelson. I followed a training on  Material for the Spine, by Steve Paxton, where I had the big pleasure  to meet and study with Steve, diving completely in his research. I  followed a 3 years training called Tatto Interno ( Deep Touch) that is  about the relation between fascia and the nervous system.
I'm  co-teaching with Karen Nelson our project called 'Faking it with  gravity' and we are performing togheter our research-work called  'Smaller' that is traveling around the world. I have taught and teach in  France, Ukraine, Italy, Spain, Argentina, Russia, Poland, Germany,  Lituania, Portugal.
I am organizer of national and international  events, including the Italycontactfest (International CI Festival which  takes place in Italy and has now reached its eleventh edition  www.italycontactfest.com) and of Being Touch Festival  (www.beingtouch.org). I was in the organization team of Ecite 2022  Portugal, and I'm part of the team of Ecite 2024. I am communicator for  the CI Global Calendar project. I have participated as a teacher in  numerous international and European festivals, and have taught intensive  workshops in different parts of the world. I presented various  performances during my residency in France and the latest performance  'SottoSale' traveled to Russia in summer 2019 and in Italy on 2021.