Biography
Stefania Ballone is an accomplished Italian dancer and choreographer with the Teatro Alla Scala Ballet Company. She graduated from the Ballet School of Teatro Alla Scala and joined the company's ballet ensemble in 2000, where she actively participates in all productions and takes on solo roles.
Her career began to flourish when she earned recognition at the International Dance Festival in Miami and received the Dance Prize in Siracusa in 2000, followed by a win at the International Dance Competition in Perugia in 2001. Stefania's talents continued to shine at the Positano Prize in 2006 and the Venice Biennale Dance Festival in 2007, where she performed as a dancer and assisted choreographer Francesco Ventriglia.
In 2011, she graduated with a degree in Modern Literature from the University of Milan and debuted her first choreography, "Per una volta," at Teatro Regio in Parma. Over the years, she has created numerous choreographies for dance galas featuring Teatro Alla Scala dancers and various social events. Her academic pursuits culminated in a Master’s Degree in Performing Arts from the University of Milan in 2014, focusing on "The Ballet at Teatro Alla Scala in the Nineties."
Stefania has contributed to the dance community as both a performer and choreographer. She showcased her work in the Danza & Danza Prize in 2015, presenting the pas de deux “Thunders and Lightnings,” and participated in the Gala des Étoiles at Teatro Alla Scala that same year. Her performance in Mauro Bigonzetti’s Cinderella earned her the Europaindanza prize in 2016.
In 2016, she directed and choreographed the show “3D: Design, Dance, Disability” for the Design Exhibition at Teatro dell’Arte Triennale in Milan. She debuted her choreography “Alter” at the MilanOltre Dance Festival in October 2016, performing alongside étoile Massimo Murru. Stefania collaborated with artist Yuval Avital for the exhibition “Foreign Bodies” in Switzerland, which was replicated at the Dresden Art Biennale in 2019. In the same year, she created the choreography “La Valse” for the Ballet Company of Teatro Alla Scala.
Selected as a finalist in the Young Companies Choreographic Competition in Sens, France, in 2018, she showcased her pas de deux “Thunders and Lightnings.” In 2019, she began an artistic collaboration with pianist Francesco Libetta, presenting performances across Italy, including Naples, Milan, Bari, Taranto, Martina Franca, and Livorno. Her choreography “Somapolis” debuted at the Macro Museo in Rome in September 2019, and she was honored with the Mads Prize for Dance in Salerno later that year.
During the pandemic in 2020, Stefania served as the dance curator and artistic co-director of Yuval Avital’s Human Signs, a global participatory project involving over two hundred artists from fifty countries, presented at the Manifesta Biennale 2020 exhibition. She debuted her show “I Giardini d’Autunno” at BAM in Milan in September 2020, working with newly graduated dancers from the Academy Ballet School of Teatro Alla Scala.
Continuing her innovative work, she participated as a performer and dance coordinator at the opening of Woolbridge contemporary art gallery in Biella in October 2020. In 2021, she debuted her show “SoulEtude” for the MilanOltre Dance Festival. From 2022, she became an associate artist of the MilanOltre Dance Festival for three years and joined the Research Center for Studies on Dance Philology at the University of Bologna in 2023.
In October 2023, Stefania premiered her show “Lascaux” at Elfo Puccini Theater in Milan, co-produced with MilanOltre Dance Festival, Aiep, and supported by Orsolina28. She also served as the artistic director for the charity event “Ciao Walter” at the Ansaldo Laboratories of Teatro Alla Scala. Later that year, she debuted “Thousand Women at the Palace” at Palazzo Borromeo in Cesano Maderno for the International Day of Violence Against Women.
In 2024, she collaborated with Roberto Bolle's OnDance Festival and created the choreography for the theme song of his television program "Viva la Danza," aired on Rai 1. She is set to make her Canadian debut with “GRIMM,” a new two-act ballet created for the Alberta Ballet in October 2024.