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SAMUELE BARBETTA
A choreographer and performer, trained in hip-hop and funk styles, particularly popping. After beginning to study urban dance in 2008, he trained with some of the leading figures on the Italian and international
scene. In 2016, he joined the ArketypePerformers collective, led by Mike and Ricky, and became its official choreographer in 2019.
In 2020, he took part in Amici di Maria De Filippi and subsequently returned to the programme as a choreographer and judge. At the same time, he has developed a career that blends pop productions with artistic exploration, collaborating with artists such as Ed Sheeran, Marco Mengoni, Madame and Sangiovanni.
In 2025, he was a guest artist at the Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch for Le Sacre du Printemps and a speaker at TEDx Venice.
In 2021, he founded DE ANIMA, a company through which he pursues research at the intersection of urban dance, physical theatre and contemporary forms of expression.
Since 2026, he has been supported by DANCEHAUSpiù through the #YOUNGDREAMERS project, for which he created Coppia umana 174x155cm (2026) and Meme (2026) together with
De Anima.
DE ANIMA
SAMUELE BARBETTA
Part of the project #YoungDreamers
Founded by Samuele Barbetta in 2019, De Anima is an experimental urban dance company combining street dance with contemporary theatre practices.
Between 2021 and 2022, it produced independent short films and presented the performance Il Pensatoio. In 2022 and 2023, it performed as a dance ensemble on Sangiovanni’s and Madame’s arena tours. It made its theatre debut in 2022 with Andiamo(!), which continued to be performed until 2023. In 2024, it presented Maria e i senzatetto and Il Contenitore, a performance also presented at the WOD Finals in Los Angeles.
Over the years, the group has developed numerous interdisciplinary collaborations, working in dance and engaging with the visual and audiovisual arts. With this in mind, since 2024 it has evolved into a collective bringing together artists from different fields, with the aim of exploring choreographic language through experimentation at the intersection of disciplines.
Since 2024, De Anima has expanded its research to include exhibition and educational projects. In 2025, it produced new short films and installations and
presented the first study of Meme. Since February 2026, it has been part of the #YOUNGDREAMERS project promoted by DANCEHAUSpiù, through which it has brought the definitive version of Meme (2026) to the stage.
MEME
REGIA | Samuele Barbetta
COREOGRAPHY | De Anima
PERFORMERS | Federico PrendinSilvia ChieregatoAlice PinatoElia FioreRiccardo MassaroMassimo Farina
COSTUMES AND SCENOGRAPHY | De Anima
duration 50'
Performance included in the NEXT – Palchi di Classe catalog
How do we narrate the present moment? How do we keep pace with its constant evolution?
Information spreads rapidly; reality and its narration continue to shift, weaving a network that surrounds and impacts us all. Meme speaks about the world, about us as human beings within it, about what happens and how events affect our bodies and minds.
Meme brings to the stage what, in reality, generates friction, questioning the way we inhabit the present.
Is it a game, a challenge, a war? Perhaps. Or perhaps it is something else.
Contemporaneity is explored not as missionaries of an ideological battle, but as human beings asking questions about the future, without forgetting the past and while seeking a way to confront the present. It is an exercise in humanity — a dialogic journey through time and space, orbiting around social themes and moral paradoxes; a tribute to the path itself and to what remains.
In Meme, destinies far apart in time and space intertwine through dance, turning into movement the sense of disorientation, self-protection, cynicism, and the desire for freedom in the face of an approaching fate.
COPPIA UMANA
174x155 CM
COREOGRAPHY | Samuele Barbetta
PERFORMERS | Barbara Allegrezza e Nicolò Castagni
PRODUCTION | DANCEHAUSpiù 2026
PH SALVATORE LAZZARO
The man and the woman move through life on stage like a burning fever. They speak to each other and measure themselves against one another, embodying the gestures of the artist Egon Schiele. In their dialogue, they repeatedly search for a loving remedy to the illness of contemporary existence.
What becomes of our gestures?