Moreno Bernardi is a choreographer and dancer: after training with Carolyn Carlson, Herns Duplan, Dieter Heitkemp, Antonella Bertoni and Michele Abbondanza, he develops an original dance in technique and composition, which combines knowledge of dance techniques, biomechanics, “expresion primitive” and studies in rhythmic and musical theory. He is a director and actor: after graduating from La Scuola di Teatro Alessandra Galante Garrone (Bologna, I) and specializing in theater biomechanics and mask techniques with maestro Nikolaj Karpov from GITIS in Moscow, in addition to intense training experiences with Judith Malina (the Living Theater), Bernardi develops an idea and a theater practice in which acting techniques are the main vehicle of scenic expression. He studies music and classical guitar at the Centro Chitarristico Pretelli-Corradi (Verona, I) and specializes with the Polish maestro Lucyan Wesolowski.
Since 1992 he has been a free-lance artist (choreographer, director, interpreter, pedagogue) signing since then 80 scenic pieces, including dance, theater and dramaturgies, with an uninterrupted involvement in training, dissemination and artistic research since 1997.
Bernardi collaborated with different Italian theaters, in which stand out the choreographies and training for a company in Iphigenia (Euripides) directed by Massimo Castri, and Sillabe di seta (E.Dickinson) by Stefanica Felicioli at Teatro Metastasio in Prato (1998- 99). After professional experiences with the Piccolo Treatro di Milano – Teatro d’Europa Giorgio Strehler in La Gabbianella e il gatto che le insegnó a volare, directed by Walter Pagliaro and choreographed by Georghe Iancu, and Arlecchino servitore di due padroni directed by Giorgio Strehler (1997-1999), Bernardi moved to Venice where he began his independent activity and became a guest teacher, experimenting and disseminating what is now recognized as Moreno Bernardi’s original technique and research, and which is the object of study in university frameworks. During the Venetian years (1999-2001), with clear expressionist and German dance-theatre influences, he created his first solo works: I fiori di sempre, the ‘Pray about’ trilogy (Ingenuo Incanto, Grace – la pioggia di riso, Suéltame), El sonido del ángel and La lágrima y el mar. In addition to the theatrical pieces from Romeo and Juliet by W. Shakespeare, Giulia e le altre and Il bacio, and the piece sono qui – omaggio a una passione dedicated to Jean Vigo.
In 2001 he moved to Barcelona presenting El sonido del ángel and Suéltame. He was hired as a teacher for a postgraduate course at Institut del Teatre’s center in Osona (Vic), a nine-month laboratory in which he creates The first time from ‘Romeo and Juliet’ by W. Shakespeare; Mira, yo vivo with poems by R.M. Rilke; Quina hora és? from the ‘Three Sisters’ by A. Cechov; and Cotidianas with poems by Mario Benedetti.
In 2003, after the production of Shi ho – el mando de bula, he created the Moreno Ensemble project (MEp) and the ensemble pieces: Rosa de Mayo, Las lágrimas ignorantes, Hay un día en que se nace, the study Las horas de Ophelia; y Allí donde el mar vuelve a romperse con las olas, among others. After the 2005 solos Reiner Widerspruch and Blue Solo (a tribute to Carolyn Carlson and Françoise Dupuy), Moreno Bernardi focuses on the development of a new language, approaching abstract movement and gestural composition, abandoning at the moment his early expressionist influences, creating the solo Capriccio; works for the company Xiuxiueig, thanks to the collaboration of the musician Jordi Savall and the singer Montserrat Figueras; and About wish whisper’ (2008-2009).
In 2011 La Dama de Corinto was inaugurated, a film installation by the filmmaker José Luís Guerín for the Esteban Vicente Museum of Contemporary Art in Segovia and the Pompidou Center in Paris, a project where Bernardi signs choreography and interpretation. In the same year he created, together with the musician Agustí Fernández, Momentos Anónimos, a dance-concert where the two artists develop a stage encounter based on the harmonic rules of instantaneous composition through the improvisation system typical of jazz.
For the evolution of his new work phase, he focuses on study and composition thanks to two research projects that, from 2009 to 2012, receive the support of the Academic Coordination of Institut del Teatre of Barcelona:
WW (Within Without) | a project that he carried out until 2013 with the dancer Garazi Lopez de Armentia, from which the dance series EXPO, the dances Expolife, Toxotria, Danza n.15, the solos S&7DBM and Ekforiko were born. As well as the theatrical research project CA (acting composition), with a group of actors at the very beginning (making El caso Apodaca – documenta 1) and then continuing with Monica Almirall until 2012, actress with whom Bernardi made and directed the trilogy “La Voix“, making in the last phase La voix humaine by J.Cocteau, and Atzar, with the poems that Raimon Ávila wrote in the same framework of the investigation, inspired by ‘Toxotria’ and ‘La voix’ and which are now part of the publication La Nansa.
In 2013, the ‘WW’ project leaves some space for the EDM research (writing and describing movement) in which Bernardi ends the formalization of an original movement technique and a composition system, performing the solo Shasei: work that culminates his abstract and compositional phase. Since 2012 the ‘CA’ project leaves some room for a second part of acting research, focusing on the voice, the sound scores and the musical-body composition of the actor, making Radiohamlet (composition for 4 voices in 3 movements), and formalizing an original technique in movement biomechanics with the collaboration of the Escuela Superior de Danza y Multimedia of Barcelona.
The meeting with the composer and musicologist Benet Casablancas is decisive for the latest dances, among which 7 dances for Hamlet., a solo for the Shakespeare Festival in Barcelona, presented in the program “[H]Works” together with Radiohamlet (2013), and that concretizes a new phase of Bernardi’s work in which he recovers the theater-dance of his origins fed by the abstract of recent years: the expressionism of that time leaves space for the evocation of movement, and theatricality for the scenic perception of the gesture. Just as in theater, after Radiohamlet, his interest in the voice, with an active investigation of a vocal system, leads him to a theatricality of the performer where word is sound and gesture is form. It is on this threshold that he creates Before Romeo and Juliet (contemporary libretto based on W.Shakespeare). In 2015, in collaboration with Sala Hiroshima, he created the Moreno Bernardi Atelier (MBA): a laboratory for stage research and creation focused on composition and open to the arts and disciplines of the participants; for the MBA he signs the pieces The White Loop, Kindness of the soul, Don’t Weep Dont Sleep, Stabat Mater (It’s Ok, Ma!) and Everything seems without limits. In the same year, he was invited by the center L’Excentrica, to carry out ‘Moving to Motion’ (MtM), his first project to disseminate dance and music among young people, an edition that ended with the choreographic pieces of Moving to Mozart and Moving to Vivaldi in collaboration with the Camerata Gramenet Orchestra (dir. Bernat Bofarull Olivés) and Alfabeto – Letter to the world -, in 2018, which ends the MtM project.
In 2016 he premiered the solo Il gesto sospeso for ‘Il canto sospeso’ by Luigi Nono’ (Sala Hiroshima) with the support of Nuria Schoenberg and the Fondazione Archivio Luigi Nono of Venice after two years of research, and finished the audiovisual project Correspondències, a poetic documentary directed by Eric de Gispert and Miquel Ardèvol that describes the meeting between Bernardi and the architect Pere Riera. In 2017, he created The Blue Room (a tribute to Blue by Derek Jarman), a project of choreographic and musical creation with Anna Mastrolitto/LiveSoundTracks and the musician Gigi Piscitelli, creating for the occasion a platform for the professionalization of artists with the collaboration of MEATS ELISAVA, SAE Institut, ESDi and Sala Hiroshima. In the same year, commissioned by Teatre Akadèmia in Barcelona, he created L’Altra Voce – composition for 5 voices in 4 movements and piano-, with poems by Alda Merini and the collaboration of the pianist Sira Hernández.
In 2018 he created the solo Médée-Kali, music by Lionel Ginoux and libretto by Laurent Gaudé, with the BME musicians for the Barcelona Modern – Festival of contemporary music and new creation -. In the same year, he is choreographer and coach for Sophocles’ Philoctetes, directed by Antonio Simón, a production of the International Classical Theater Festival of Mérida and Bitò; and commissioned by the Nando and Elsa Peretti Foundation, for whom he created Los Derechos Humanos, a composition for 6 voices, a song and a reader on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the Declaration of Human Rights, an event organized by the Association for the United Nations in Spain. Together with the designer Elsa Peretti and with the support of the Nando and Elsa Peretti Foundation, in 2019 he creates Lo Spazio -center for artistic research and contemporary practices-, a research and creation studio, and headquarters of the MEp and the MBA, with which Bernardi, that very same year, signed La Diversa (a monodrama in 2 movements with words by Alda Merini). With Lo Spazio, Bernardi created in 2020 the diptych La Nit y Radionit after eight years of research (starting from The Night Before the Forests by B.M.Koltés); and in 2021 L’olor eixordadora del blanc (by S.Massini) and Diverse Childhood (inspired by ‘Hold your own’ by K.Tempest) for the IF Barcelona Visual and Figure Theater Biennale; in 2022 Eduard II (by C.Marlowe) and, after four years of research, the solo Una Cosa Rotta (with music by Demian Luna and the Barcelona Modern Ensemble) with the collaboration of Phonos (electronic and electroacoustic music research center) and the musician Ángel Faraldo; and presents the audiovisual documentaries Las Cartas de La Nit, Las Voces de Radionit and Moreno Bernardi on the occasion of Bernardi’s 20 years of cultural activity in Barcelona, with the collaboration of the Filmoteca de Catalunya; in 2023 he directs Macbeth (by W. Shakespeare), also creating music and scenery for it. Macbeth and Una Cosa Rotta determine the current phase of Bernardi’s poetic work, which started in theater with the opening of Lo Spazio in 2019 and in dance with Il gesto sospeso in 2016: a theater that dialogues with voice, music, fashion and multimedia with a close relationship with the art of the spoken-word, and a dance with a close instrumental and bodily relationship with music, sound and score. Over the last few years, different artists from various disciplines have collaborated with Bernardi, such as the filmmaker José Luís Guerín (La Dama de Corinto), the musician Agustí Fernandez (MB│AF: momentos anónimos), the composer Lionel Ginoux (Médée- Kali), the architect Pere Riera (Correspondències), the soprano Montserrat Figueras (Xiuxiueig), the composer Benet Casablancas (7 dances for Hamlet), the director Pep Tosar (Esquena de Ganivet), the composer Demian Luna (Una cosa rotta), the sculptor Manel Rovira, the designers Josep Abril, Txell Miras, Alexis Ferrer, and the maestro Masato Matsuura (Paris) with whom he started a pedagogical and scenic activity (hitostu) of theatrical biomechanics and Noh theater, a project presented at the “Forum of pedagogy of the Arts and Techniques of the performance” – Barcelona 2014. Bernardi, with an uninterrupted rhythm accompanies artistic and research activities with training, offering courses and laboratories in Italy, France and Spain. Since 2001 Moreno Bernardi has been a professor in the Department of Movement of Institut del Teatre of Diputació de Barcelona; and guest professor at different European higher education centers (‘Universitat de Barcelona’, ‘Ecole nationale supérieure des arts décoratifis de Paris’, ‘Escola de tècniques de les arts de l’espectacle’ in Barcelona, ‘Laboratoire Architecture/Anthropologie’ in Paris, ‘Ecole Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture de Paris-La Villette’, Escuela de danza y multimedia’ in Barcelona…). He is a specialist in dance for the M.I.U.R (Ministry of Education, University and Research) in Italy and is invited to give lectures [“Formation professionnelle du danseur Enseignement supérieur de la danse en Europe”, Arles European Meetings, paper presented by Dominique and Françoise Dupuy – “Il corpo della danza e la comunicazione dei saperi”, MIUR Roma – “Ecrire et décrire l’espace à travers le corps”, LAA/ ENSAPLV, Paris).
European universities and training centers have studied the work and thought of Moreno Bernardi for doctorates and final projects: Universitá Ca’Foscari in Venezia: Loda all’angelo il mondo, Prova di studio sul método di Moreno Bernardi (Giacinta Maria Dalla Pietá), Conservatori Superior de Dansa de Barcelona: Entre el sueño y la vigila, mi encuentro con Moreno Bernardi (Elena Bernal), Rottherdam Dance Academy: Moreno Bernardi: an italian choreographer in Barcelona (Laura Guglielmetto), La Sorbonne Nouvelle Paris: L’événement naturel du spectacle de danse dans “Writings on water” by Carolyn Carlson et “Reiner Widerspruch” by Moreno Bernardi (Giacinta Maria Dalla Pietá), Escola Superior d’Art Dramàtic de Barcelona: Materia y Forma del Diálogo Desplazado, La Biomecánica de Moreno Bernardi, V.Kandinsky y Esgrima Angulista, umbrales para la elaboración de una Técnica de Manipulación del Actor Occidental (Andreu Martínez), Escola Superior d’Art Dramàtic de Barcelona: Diario de una actriz – al lado de Moreno Bernardi (Monica Almirall).
Bernardi has received international awards and recognition in dance and theater (‘Premis Mediterrania-dance category’, d come arte- Balletto di Toscana segnala la nuova coreografia’’, ‘Dancin’Florence’ awarded in two editions, ‘Montegrotto Europa Award alla Vocazione’ where he received a scholarship by the will of the English actress Vanessa Redgrave, ‘Danza Teatro e Altro’, ‘Quando il teatro è arte’, ‘Galá del Teatro’, ‘Targa Malvezzi’…