COMPANY
*_+
COMPANY *_+
Ugly Movers is an independent dance collective founded by Giuseppe Sanniu and Maurizio Montis. Born from the need to move differently — honestly, awkwardly, urgently — we use dance as a way to confront the fears, anxieties, and contradictions of contemporary life.
Our work often begins from discomfort: social pressure, identity confusion, isolation, obsession, digital noise. We believe in staying close to what is raw, imperfect, unresolved. Ugly Movers is not about polished aesthetics or ideal forms — we are interested in what lies beneath the surface, what trembles, what resists being tamed.
Through movement, voice, and presence, we create spaces for messy questions rather than clean answers. Our works emerge from personal stories, collective unease, and cultural tensions. Each creation, workshop, and educational path is a way to digest (or spit out) something difficult — whether it’s social expectations, inner conflicts, or the ways we relate to others and to ourselves.
Ugly Movers is not just a name. It’s a position. Imperfection as a form of resistance. Movement as an act of truth: the ugly becoming beautiful.
Ugly Movers also emerges as a geographical and political choice. After years of artistic experiences and international collaborations — in Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, France, England, New York, Hong Kong, and beyond — Maurizio Montis and Giuseppe Sanniu felt the urgency to return to Sardinia to create a point of connection between the island and the rest of the world.
Founding the collective here means reversing the direction of the gaze: no longer leaving in search of elsewhere, but building a place capable of attracting, welcoming, and engaging in dialogue with the global. Ugly Movers aims to bring the world to Sardinia — to highlight the richness and strength of this land — while also offering local artists, often limited by geographical distance, new opportunities for exchange, visibility, and growth.
The goal is to create an international network rooted in the territory, where contemporary dance becomes a language of encounter and mutual contamination. Through residencies, collaborations, and shared projects, Ugly Movers seeks to make the island an active hub for artistic research — a place where new imaginaries, new possibilities, and new connections can emerge.
In this sense, the collective is not only an artistic project, but also an act of return and vision: a cultural legacy in the making, born from the desire to share global experiences and transform them into local resources.