Gaia Gonnelli (Italy, 1971) is a dancer and choreographer with a specialisation in education. After she attended the Amsterdam School of the Arts for Modern Dance, Gaia started working with multiple known choreographers. She danced for Feri de Geus, Joseph Tmin, Shusaku Takeuchi, Wies Bloemen, Krisztina de Châtel, Min Tanaka, Het Hans Hof Ensemble & Giulia Mureddu.
Gaia has always been interested in making her own work, and has been doing so since her education in Modern Dance. In 1992 she won the ”Aanmoedigingsprijs Ineke Sluiter” for her own work. She has made performances at Cadance, Danswerkplaats Amsterdam, I like to watch too and De Stilte. In 2009 she created Voorstelling Gezocht (6+), her first performance for children, in collaboration with Isabella Steenbergen. This was the beginning of her focus on young audiences.
Until early 2016, Gaia was an artist in residence at Dansmakers Amsterdam. During this period, she produced Kleur( 2+) in co-production with 2turvenhoog festival in 2013.
In 2014, Gaia founded her own Dadodans foundation and produced Ondersteboven (2014) and KoKeRS (2016), both co-productions with Dansmakers Amsterdam.
Dadodans performances have had both national and international success. Her work have been performed at festivals in Italy, Turkey, Germany, Poland, Spain, Romania and Finland. KLeuR received the ‘Best performance for young audience’ prize in Romania during the international festival 100, 1000, 1000000 stories.