Born in Sicily, Italy, Valentina Priolo is an international performing artist, choreographer, and repertory director with Overground Physical Theatre Company, a New York–based experimental physical theatre collective. The company draws from expressionistic postmodern European Tanztheater, contact improvisation, and ultra-contemporary performance art to create transpersonal experiences.

Valentina studied Choreography and Interpretation Techniques at the Conservatory School Institut del Teatre in Barcelona, where she performed extensively and was exposed to a wide range of somatic practices and dance styles. Her artistic development in Europe included collaborations with theatre and artistic directors such as Maria Teresa de Sanctis, Paola Cassarà, Lollo Franco, and Mizar Martinez in Spain and Italy. She later relocated to New York City to deepen her dance theatre training at the Limón Institute and to engage with the city’s vibrant, multicultural dance landscape.

Integrating her European theatrical roots with the Limón technique’s principles of fall and recovery, Valentina has developed a distinctive dramatic and visual movement language that exists between the quotidian and the existential. Her choreographic work explores intimate relationships among family, friends, and society, forging connections between physical expression, emotional depth, and visual composition.

In parallel with her dance practice, Valentina earned a BFA in Graphic Design from the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York. Her interdisciplinary approach continues to bridge contemporary dance and visual design, informing her choreographic vision through spatial awareness, structure, and visual coherence. She is currently pursuing an M.A. in Dance Studies at the University of South Carolina.

Her credits as a dancer and choreographer include BAM Fisher, New York Live Arts, Alvin Ailey Theater, Danspace Project, Judson Memorial Church, Here Arts Center, Dance New Amsterdam, Salvatore Capezio Theater, White Wave, Ellens Hall, Connecticut University, Manhattan Movement & Arts Center, among others.