Born in Bologna, Italy, on June 1st, 1999, Toni (Antonio) grew up between the countryside and working-class, multicultural neighborhoods, where he obtained a baccalaureate in humanities. At 18, driven by a wandering curiosity and a beatnik spirit, he embarked on a journey across Latin America. This experience became the foundation for personal anthropological studies within various Indigenous communities, as well as his first street performances and early steps into dance, which he later deepened through classes and workshops.
Alongside this, he developed skills in arboriculture, permaculture, DIY craftsmanship, and bio-construction—practices that continue to nourish his relationship with materiality and making.
In 2020, he began formal circus training at FLIC Scuola di Circo in Turin, specializing in the Cyr wheel. In 2022, he joined the Centre National des Arts du Cirque (CNAC), where he deepened his research into the constraints and impositions inherent to this solitary apparatus, exploring a form of situational humor emerging from its limitations. By “situational humor,” he refers to everything arising from direct experience with the circus apparatus itself: the difficulty of finding balance, the wheel’s inability to stand still, or the necessity of constant motion to avoid falling. These situations reveal a fragility he considers both comedic and artistically fertile.
Throughout his training, DIY practice became a driving force in his creative process, leading him to build objects intended to interact with him or with the Cyr wheel (chairs, armor, etc.). At the same time, he questions the inherent solitude of the Cyr wheel, a theme central to his artistic research. This reflection takes on a collective dimension with Clarisse Baudoin and Iuna Lhomme, with whom he forms a trio of Cyr wheel performers exploring object relations through the sharing of a single wheel.
At the end of his training, Antonio aims to further develop this trio, creating a vocabulary combining partner acrobatics, Icarians, and performance, while continuing to expand his knowledge of dance, craftsmanship, and bio-construction.