Iole La Sala
Contemporary Dance Artist, Choreographer
& Movement Researcher
RESIDENCY
LOCATION
October 2023
The Dance Studio + The Annex
THE PROJECT
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During 2025, FieldWorks Dance supported Iole La Sala's research and development of a new choreographic project exploring the relationship between trauma, memory and the body.
The research grew from Iole's personal and artistic interest in how traumatic experiences influence human behaviour, particularly how women carry and express past experiences through movement, posture and physical patterns.
Working with the idea of the body as an archive of lived experience, Iole set out to collect testimonies and gestures that could form the foundation of a new choreographic language. Her research explored how the nervous system processes and stores traumatic memories, and how these experiences can manifest physically through movement and behaviour.
The proposed work brought together personal testimony, movement research and collaboration with other artists, with the longer-term ambition of developing a full-length dance performance and exploring the potential of emerging technologies.
FieldWorks Dance provided studio space and creative support during this development process, helping Iole build the foundations of the work ahead of its presentation in Italy.
The Project – Hellove
Hellove is a contemporary dance work by Iole La Sala exploring human relationships, female psychology and the complex experience of love in the context of trauma.
Approaching its subject with both intimacy and irony, the work examines how traumatic experiences can fracture our perception of love, leaving behind unspoken desires, absences and contradictions.
Through movement, gesture and theatrical imagery, Iole explores the relationship between what is expressed and what remains unspoken: the tension between emotional experience and the body's physical response.
The work draws on Iole's ongoing investigation into the body as a living archive of memory. Personal histories and shared experiences become material for movement, creating a dance that moves between intimacy and absurdity, vulnerability and resistance.
An important part of the research involved gathering gestures and contributions from women who participated in a workshop, helping to create a shared physical memory that became part of the work's development.
Hellove was presented as a preview at Inteatro Festival in Italy on 17 and 18 July 2025. The production was created and performed by Iole La Sala, with music by Gaio Ariani and costumes by Stefania Cempini.
The project was supported by Inteatro Residenze, Associazione B-PED, FieldWorks Dance and Dance City Newcastle, with special thanks to Sadler's Wells and South East Dance.
ABOUT
Iole La Sala is an Italian contemporary dance artist, choreographer and teacher based in London. Her artistic practice brings together contemporary dance, improvisation, somatic research and theatrical storytelling, exploring the relationship between the body, memory, emotion and human behaviour.
A graduate with honours from the National Academy of Dance in Rome, Iole went on to complete a Master's degree in Improvisation Techniques through a collaboration between the Academy, the Santa Cecilia Conservatory and Rome's MAXXI Museum of Contemporary Art. She later completed an MA in Dance Performance at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance in London.
Her performance and choreographic work has been presented internationally at festivals and platforms including OOTFest at Rich Mix in London, ImPulsTanz in Vienna, Dominio Pubblico in Rome and Inteatro Festival in Italy.
Iole has collaborated with organisations and artists across the UK and Europe, including IJAD Dance Company, South East Dance and AWA Dance Platform in Luxembourg. She was selected as the only Italian dancer for the international Dancing Together Again! residency project in Georgia, where she developed fOtO – from Off to On, first presented in Tbilisi in 2023.
Her choreographic work has received international recognition. In 2023, she won the Performers category of the International Premio Roma Danza. Previous awards include the Certificate of Merit at the Luxembourg Art Prize and third prize in the Premio Roma smArtPhone Dance competition for her dance film Madama.
Since autumn 2024, Iole has been a Sadler's Wells-supported artist. Her ongoing research investigates how personal histories and emotional experiences shape the body, and how movement can become a language for expressing what is often difficult to articulate.
Where Are They Now?
Following the development and presentation of Hellove in 2025, Iole La Sala has continued to expand her choreographic research and develop new work with support from organisations across the UK and Europe.
In 2026, Iole announced that she had received support from Arts Council England to begin the research and development of MADAMA, a new project emerging from her earlier research Hellove. She is developing the work with the support and commissioning of South East Dance, alongside a network of collaborators and creative partners.
FieldWorks Dance was once again involved in supporting the early development of the project, providing studio space for a five-day R&D period in June 2026. Working with her producer Ciara Lynch and a wider creative team, Iole returned to FieldWorks to continue exploring the movement and ideas at the heart of the work.
The new development marks an important step in Iole's continuing artistic journey, building on her investigation into the relationship between personal experience, the body and human behaviour.
Alongside her choreographic practice, Iole continues to teach ballet, contemporary dance and improvisation, sharing her movement research with dancers at different stages of their training.