Adelly Costantini
Adelly Costantini is a multi-artist and producer who works across circus, dance, performance, childhood, and urban spaces. A graduate of the National Circus School (2007) and the Scuola di Cirko Vertigo in Italy (2009), she complemented her training in dance, theater, performance, clowning, martial arts, and yoga at creative centers in Brazil, Argentina, France, and Italy. This diverse background shapes the artist's central research: creating hybrid and accessible languages that shift the circus towards new dialogues—with children, with cities, with contemporary dramaturgy, and with cultural rights policies.
As an artist-creator, she develops shows that explore the relationship between body, risk, imagination, and architecture. Among her most recent works are 'The First Scene of a Film' (circus for urban space, currently touring), 'Where I Keep a Dream' (children's circus, currently touring), 'Hand' (circus performance of urban intervention, currently touring), 'Giant Moon', 'There's an Ant in the Chair' (performance-experience premiered at FIL 2023/CCBB). Her works have already been presented at important festivals in Brazil, such as FIL, FIAC Bahia, Festival de Circo do Brasil, CIRCOS (SESC SP), MIMO, Sesc Pulsar, Sesc Pantanal, Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil, among others. She also works on the creation of devices, platforms, and scenographies that expand the dramaturgy of the circus, experimenting with flying bicycles, ramps, contraptions, urban toys, and structures invented for each show.
She is the creator and organizer of the Rio no Ar Festival, dedicated to aerial acrobatics in public spaces, supported by FOCA and a benchmark in the Rio de Janeiro aerial scene.
In the field of movement direction, she works in circus, dance, theater, and audiovisual media. She was responsible for the physical preparation and choreography of aerial acrobatics for the telenovela Cara e Coragem (TV Globo) — a project nominated for an Emmy in 2023. She also worked on the children's plays Fábrica de Nuvens (winner of the CBTIJ Award in 2024) and Planeta Lilás.
Her practice also encompasses accessibility. Trained in audio description by the Instituto Cinema Cego at UnB, she directed the show Coisa de Anjo, with the blind artist Analú Farias, which won the Funarte Acessibilidança 2020 award. She coordinates accessibility teams in her cultural projects carried out for the City and State of Rio de Janeiro.
As an educator, she teaches the "Up and Down" workshop, which shifts physical training to everyday urban furniture for children—already presented at festivals such as FIAC Bahia, Sesc Dance Biennial, MIMO, and Futuros – Art and Technology. Since 2017, she has offered scholarships to Black, marginalized, and/or transgender people, strengthening access to aerial practices. She coordinates the Aerial Laboratory project—research practices in movement and creative processes in aerial acrobatics and vertical dance. She works as a speaker and consultant in cultural production in Rio de Janeiro and online.
Between creation, direction, production, and circulation, Adelly moves through different scales and audiences. Her work is born from the friction between body and city, play and technique, invention and politics—always seeking ways to expand the circus and its encounters.
