MARIA ENRICA PALMIERI
Presentation
She taught from 1990 to 2023 at the National Academy of Dance in Rome (AND), an institution of Higher Education in Dance within the AFAM sector. At AND, she worked both as a faculty member and on research projects in Dance Anthropology. She was a member of the Academic Council from 2005 and was responsible for the cultural exchange between the National Academy of Dance and the Contemporary Dance Department of the Bamako Conservatory and the Donko Seko Espace in Bamako (Mali).
Since 2007, she has represented the National Academy of Dance on the National Council for Higher Education in Arts, Music, and Dance (CNAM) at the Ministry of University and Research. She served as Artistic and Educational Director of the National Academy of Dance for two terms (2017–2020 and 2020–2023).
Since 2018, the year following her appointment as Director of AND, she has also overseen the artistic direction of the Roma Dance Award, an international competition for young dancers and choreographers from Italy and abroad. She had the vision to establish, for the first time in the competition’s history, a section entirely dedicated to video dance, and subsequently, a section devoted to the municipal districts of Rome.
Professional Experience
She began studying contemporary dance technique with Jean Cebron (from the Kurt Joss Company).
In 1979, she moved to New York to study dance and composition at the Alwin Nikolais and Murray Louis Dance Theatre Lab, where she attended a three-year program with Alwin Nikolais, Murray Louis, and Hanya Holm.
In 1984, she danced with the most important choreographers of the new Italian dance scene, such as Fabrizio Monteverde and Enzo Cosimi, touring Italy and abroad with them.
After earning a degree in Cultural Anthropology from the University of Rome La Sapienza, she began research on the musical and dance traditions of the Cape Verde Islands, also traveling through Syria, Jordan, and Iraq. Her interest in the Middle East and Africa led her to travel to these regions multiple times. Later, she also became involved in social activities with local associations in Cape Verde and with the Palestinian diaspora in Italy.
