Paolo Calafiore

Paolo Calafiore is a set designer, lighting designer and visual artist. After earning an Academic Diploma in Set Design at the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence with a thesis focused on the study of Maria Lai's site-specific installations, he obtained a Master's degree in Lighting Design and Lighting Technologies at the Politecnico di Milano and a specialization in Computer Science applied to Set Design at the Accademia del Teatro alla Scala in Milan. He began his artistic activity in 1992 at the Teatro dell'Opera in Rome, collaborating on the design of the Electronic Set Designs of Gilgamesh, opera in two acts written and directed by Franco Battiato. From '92 to '96 he joined the Compagnia Teatrale Krypton, signing the set designs of the main shows produced by the Florentine group. In 1994 at the Festival of Santarcangelo directed by Leo De Berardinis he collaborates with Alfonso Santagata creating the evocative sets and costumes of Terra Sventrata which will be followed by Polveri, shows awarded with the UBU Prize ed. '95 for Shakespearean research. In 1996 he began a fruitful collaboration with the choreographer Mauro Bigonzetti and with the choreographer and director Fabrizio Monteverde in the Balletto di Toscana, creating the sets for Béla Bartók's Il mandarino Meraviglioso at the Teatro Comunale di Ferrara, Blue Note at the Festival Internazionale di Nervi, and La Tempesta at the Teatro Pergolesi di Jesi. Collaborations will continue in major Italian theaters and festivals, including La Tempesta at the Arena di Verona, Serata Mozart at Teatro alla Scala in Milan, staged by Fabrizio Monteverde; Jimi Jimi, To Be or Not To Be by M. Bigonzetti at the RED Reggio Emilia Danza Festival. In the theatrical sphere, he has worked in major Italian theaters and festivals collaborating with directors Giancarlo Cauteruccio, Geppy Gleijeses, Claudio Morganti, Valter Malosti, Cristina Pezzoli, Lindsay Kemp, Sergio Staino, Julia Varley, Carmelo Rifici, Roberto Rustioni, and Alfonso Santagata. He collaborates with Lina Prosa whose sets and lighting he oversaw for the Shipwreck Trilogy Lampedusa Beach, Lampedusa Snow, and Lampedusa Way, and for the plays Niriad, Ulysses Arctic, and Penthesilea training for the final battle. From 2019 to 2024 he directed Noroo Milan Design Studio, a set design and staging atelier awarded with the Red Dot Award in the 2019, 2024, 2025 editions. Paolo Calafiore has been a professor of Scenography at The Academy of Fine Arts in Palermo and L'Aquila. He is currently an adjunct professor of Lighting Design at the Brera and Bologna Academy of Fine Arts.

VISION
Paolo Calafiore's projects are characterized by a visual aesthetic generated by sophisticated balances in which different design elements are driven by a transversal gaze, which investigates dramaturgy, scenography and space through dynamic Installations consisting of Light, Digital Technologies, Video Mapping, immaterial and fluid elements capable of capturing and revealing the essence of the subjects, spaces and places to be dramatized and communicated.