BIO ASHAI (english version)

 

ASHAI LOMBARDO AROP 

Dancer, actress, contemporary afro-dance, dance-theatre and creative movement teacher, with a singer-songwriter alterego named Altrove. 

Eclectic figure, who has spent the past two decades inspiring others through the transmission of dance and performance arts. With a personal journey shaped by resilience, Ashai credits art as a transformative force.Her deep connection to movement began during a pivotal moment when dance became not just a passion but a lifeline for healing and self-expression.

Italian-South-Sudanese, born in Genova and resident in Rome. She graduated with honors in Theater Studies at the University of Bologna with a thesis on the affinity between traditional ritual dances from West Africa and South of Italy. She has a Master in Intercultural Education with the experimental thesis “Empatheatre: traveling in the shoes of Others. The discovery of the Self and the Other through the performing arts”. She is certified to teach Mindfulness Yoga© at the A. T. Beck Institute of Cognitive Psychotherapy; Csen certified as a holistic operator and Csen National Diploma in teaching ethnic, popular and choreographic dance with specialization in African dances.

She participated in numerous theater and film productions as well as popular and contemporary dance companies as actress, dancer and choreographer.

She founded Danzemeticce/Worldance, a cultural association created for the use and transmission of the performing arts as cultural and intercultural vehicles; she created Empatheatre© a series of workshops to practice empathy as an ability to learn through the medium of performing arts; she curates Eurafrica, a project for the diffusion of Afro-contemporary dance and the meeting between Africa and the West through the performing arts.

Collaborations

She worked with: Ettore Scola, Eleonora Abbagnato, Michele Placido, Fabrizio Bentivoglio, Massimo Ranieri, Lello Arena, Tato Russo, Maurizio Scaparro, Antonio Calenda, Veronica Pivetti, Francesco Di Giacomo, Piazza Vittorio Orchestra, Lino Cannavacciuolo, Lina Sastri, Arakne Mediterranea, Antonio Infantino, Carlo Faiello, Nuova Compagnia di Canto Popolare, Antonella Ruggiero, Corrado Tedeschi, Sidne Rome, etc…

Some participations as a performer

She has participated in national and international festivals such as: REF24 (RomaEuropa Festival 2024); World Refugee Day, Teatro India 2019; Ma. Ma. (Maschio Angioino, Naples) MigrArti 2018; Pixus Dance and Dream 2018; So Far So Close – MigrArti 2017 (AS FILM FESTIVAL c/o MAXII – National Museum of XXI Century Arts – Rome); Kunstpatiet (NTL Nordisk Teaterlaboratorium/Odin Teatret, 2016); Dak’Art 2016 – Dakar Art Biennial (Musée de Dakar IFAN); Spring of Culture 2016 (Bahrein), Festa D’Africa Festival 2014, Teatro Palladium (Rome, Italy); Italian Republic Day 2014 (Jedda, Saudi Arabia); Festival Corpi Urbani 2013 with the solo “Out Of Body Experience” (Genoa, Italy); July Sounds Well 2013, Auditorium Parco della Musica (Rome, Italy); Intricanti Festival 2013 (Sorrento, Italy); Notte della Taranta 2011 (guest of Arakne Mediterranea), Mare Nostrum and Mediterranean Music Festival 2011, Hosige&Dosige 2010 (Vienna, Austra), Arezzo Festival (2009, 2010), World Dance Day (2009, 2010), Bansko Jazz Festival 2009 (Bulgaria), Mediterranean Music Festival (Genoa 2009), Sarajevskazima 2008 (Sarajevo, Bosnia), Rencontres Méditerranéennes (Montpellier 2008), Notte Bianca (Genoa 2007), Womajazz (Prato, 2007), Festival delle Culture (Bologna) , 2nd Anniversary of the Neapolitan Song Sound Archive (RAI Auditorium – Naples 2006), La Notte della Tammorra (Naples 2006 and 2019), Aphroscopy 2007 (AMANI for Africa), Leuciana Festival and Settembre al Borgo (Caserta, 2006 and 2010) and many others.

Some participations as a choreographer

Productions

Author and interpreter of the performances Senza Radici (2009); Barefeet on Concrete (2010); Tammurriata Nera, a tammurriata with an African expression (2012); Hieros Gamos. Sacred Bond (2014); Exodus.1876-1976 (2015); WWW – World Wide Women (2017); Ad Sidera. Towards the Stars (2018); The Buried Port (2018/2019).

Author and interpreter of the short films “Joy” (Corto di videodanza nato per il web e commissionato da Roma Multietnica e Biblioteche di Roma per la Giornata Mondiale del Rifugiato 2020); “On my way home” (2023)

Awards

Dance&Theatre: Audience Award for the Best Short Theater and the Jury’s Special Mention “for the performer’s presence, charisma, expressiveness and great ability to transmit empathy” at Inventaria 2019; Fantasio Audience Award 2016, with MAC/BETH, inspired by Shakespeare’s Macbeth; Best Direction Award at the Note Di Regia 2014 competition at the Hamlet Theater in Rome, with a scene from Euripides’ Medea; winner of TAT – Talented At Theatre (Olympic Theater of Rome, 2012); Black & White Award (Academy of Dramatic Art “Nico Pepe” of Udine, 2011); First prize Windows Of Urban Theater (Bologna, 2010).

Music: With her alter ego Altrove she wins the ECOFUTURO Competition of the MEI (Meeting of Independent Labels) with the song “La Terra all’Umano” (link) as Best Ecogreen Song. The song will then be dramatized by her and brought as a performance to the Romaeuropa Festival 2024. She wins the MUSAQ contest (Music & Street Art Quiliano) as best live band. The video clip of Animali (link) wins as best video and best interpretation at the IIFF (International Italian Film Festival). On July 25, 2024 Altrove wins the Best Music Award and the First Absolute Prize BRUNO LAUZI with the still unreleased song “Sasha”.

Other awards: Rosa Balistreri Award 2024 “For her commitment to women’s freedom and rights” awarded by the Differenza Donna Association.

Teaching

She created Empatheatre©, a methodology in the experimental phase, of an approach to theatrical expression as an opportunity for a deep understanding of oneself and of others, and promoter of the first course of Empathy at the Carlo Pisacane primary school in Rome: A SCHOOL OF EMPATHY: TRAVELING IN OTHERS’ SHOES, an institution with a great cultural mix, in which, through various exercises/games, video projections and work on images, she tries to transmit to children the ability and the possibility of identifying with others. Speaker at the ECM refresher course: THE STRANGER: IMMIGRATION PROBLEMS, with the report HOMO EMPATUCUS: YOU ARE ME, for the Experimental School for Training in Psychotherapy and Research and Applied Human Sciences, organized by the ASL (National Health System) of Naples and by the Campania Region. She has collaborated with Sconfinamenti SPRAR, IdeaPrisma82, and Differenza Donna with whom she still collaborates, putting her expressive skills at the service of social needs. She has been working with children between the ages of 4 and 22 for 10 years, first with Caracciolo Management then Renate Casting, for which agencies she taught dance and theater, then for some primary schools in Rome. She have worked in Integrated Theater laboratories financed by the ASL (National Health System), in which she’s had the opportunity to relate to groups of physically or mentally disabled people and the so-called able-bodied, in an equal job. She currently teaches dance, dance-theatre, body expression and meditations in movement in Rome and from 2009 to 2019 she taught ethno-contemporary dance and Italian popular choreutic culture at the Accademia dell’Arte in Arezzo, for the course of Italian and Mediterranean dance and culture, to undergraduates in theater and American dance and holds internships and workshops throughout Italy. As a teacher and choreographer she has collaborated with Odin Teatret and the DOO Performing Association, she has taught at the Balletskolen of Holstebro (Denmark), at the Artea Culture Dakar (Sénègal), at the Experimental School of the Actor “Arlecchino Errante” of Pordenone, the Maison de Quartier in Sête (Montpellier, France), the IALS in Rome.

Education

She graduated with honors in Theater Disciplines at the University of Bologna with an experimental thesis in the anthropology of dance, analyzing the links between dances of African origin and those of southern Italy in contemporary society. In addition to the degree, he studied with various teachers: Joseph Ragno (Actor Studio method in NY), César Brie, Julia Varley (Odin Teatret), Teatro delle Albe, Giuliano Scabia, Marco Sgrosso, Taetro Nō with Monique Arnaud, corporal mime and Commedia dell’Arte with Michele Monetta, and many others.

Masters in Intercultural Education at the University of Roma Tre with the experimental thesis “Empatheatre: traveling in the shoes of the Other. The discovery of the Self and the Other through the performing arts.”. A.S.C diploma recognized by Coni as a teacher of contemporary dance. She is certified to teach Mindfulness Yoga© at the A. T. Beck Institute of Cognitive-Behavioral Psychotherapy. Csen certified as a holistic operator. Csen National Diploma in teaching ethnic, popular and choreographic dance with specialization in African dances.

Also in the dance field she has studied with many masters: contemporary dance with Enzo Celli & Celli Contemporary Ballet, Loris Petrillo, Piergiorgio Milano, Virgilio Sieni, Compagnia Abbondanza-Bertoni, Nicola Laudati, Simona Bertozzi, Alessandra Cristiani, Lorella Rapisarda, and others. ..; studied traditional and contemporary Afro with Dian Camara, Yansané Fatoumata, Seny Bangoura, Sourakata Dioubate (Guinea) Koffi Koko (Benin), Solo Diedhiou (Sénègal), Brahima Coulibaly (Burkina Faso), Compagnie Georges Momboye (Ivory Coast), Djean Ndyae and Katina Genero (Italy) also traveled to Sénegal and Guinea Conakry where he studied with other local masters. You have attended Capoera study seminars with Mestre Chiquiño and instructor Zekiña; Afro Brazilian with Ana Estrela; Dance Būto Yoshito Ohno and Takashi Endo; Contact Improvisation with Javier Cura, Leonard Lambruschini, Marco Ubaldi, Anna Albertarelli. Three years of Bahrata Natyam (South Indian classical dance) with Alessandra Pizza and Nuria Sala Grau. 5 years of Flamenco with Vicky Barea, Monica Argnani and Gianna Raccagni. She learns popular dances in Salento and in Campania and Calabria. Meditation, Hata Yoga and Aikido at the Asia Center in Bologna.

Music

In music she is ALTROVE (Elsewhere) under which name she released her first solo album in January 2023. She studied Pop singing at the Saint Louis Music College in Rome and continues to study with Gabriella Aiello. She started writing songs at 11 and has never stopped. At 20 she went to London to be a singer-songwriter, among other things, where she began studying Gospel singing at Morley College and she was a member of the Morley College Gospel Choir, directed by Colin Vassel. Back in Italy she continued to sing gospels in the Spiritual Ensemble choir of Bologna and world music in the multi-ethnic choir Mikrokosmos, directed by Maestro Michele Napolitano always in Bologna, where in the meantime she graduated in Theater Disciplines. She worked with La Banda di piazza Caricamento directed by Davide Ferrari, with whom she participated in the first album; she was Francesco Di Giacomo’s Cinderella in his last show “Cenerentola. The missing part” at the Parco della Musica auditorium in Rome; she participated as a chorister and author in the experimental jazz album Electric Sheep of the homonymous collective, directed by trumpeter Angelo Olivieri; she worked with the Orchestra of Piazza Vittorio, also participating in the film “The Magic Flute” in the role of a fairy. Her path is closely linked to the music of southern Italy and over the years she has had the opportunity to collaborate with Marcello Colasurdo, La NCCP, Carlo Faiello, Maurizio Capone, Arakne Medoterranea, Lino Canavacciuolo, Lina Sastri and many others. All this took place in parallel with the career of actress, dancer and teacher of “ethnic” and popular dances, dance theater and creative movement. On January 20 her debut album “Tossica Animica” was released. On 26th of February 2024 the single “Animali“ was out and on the 6th of September “Change&Gather“.

languages: italian, english

Nuovoimaie code: 319636

Enpals roll list: 2210552