Ornella D'Agostino is a dancer, choreographer and director. She trained in dance, theatre and music in Italy, France and Holland, where she graduated from the 'School for New Dance Development' in Amsterdam in 1989. Her projects are specified through interdisciplinary artistic research and documentation work, study and investigation of the processes of constitution of cultural and individual identity in different contexts, especially in Mediterranean areas and in the South of the World. The French anthropologist George Lapassade, with whom Ornella collaborated, has significantly directed and marked the investigations produced in this field.
In 1994, she founded the cultural association Carovana S.M.I., of which she is artistic director. With the association, she produces contemporary performing arts itineraries throughout the Mediterranean, attracting people with different geographical, generational and artistic backgrounds.
From 2002 to 2005 she is been president of the international network Danza Bacino Mediterraneo (in which 20 EuroMediteranean countries are participating).
She has carried out intensive production and training activities in Europe and in Arab countries, thanks to her participation in international cooperation networks, investigating the relationships between artistic innovation and social cohesion, creative and curative processes that promote the overcoming of marginality and the enhancement of individual and group talents, in relation to different cultural and environmental landscapes.