Alito Alessi is the Artistic Director of Joint Forces Dance Co. (JFDC) and founder of DanceAbility. DanceAbility is a non-isolating dance method for people with and without disabilities to come together to explore and create movement and dance. Alessi has been involved with the evolution of contemporary dance for the past 20 years, and is internationally known as a pioneering teacher and choreographer in the fields of Contact Improvisation, and dance and disability. Alessi has received a Guggenheim Fellowship, Choreographer's Fellowships from the American National Endowment for the Arts (1992-1993 & 1995-1996); and from the Oregon Arts Commission (1991), and JFDC was awarded a National Endowment for the Arts Exemplary Grant in 1991 for DanceAbility programming. Joint Forces Dance Co. has been in residence at the University of Oregon Dance Department since 1992.

Dance students, people with disabilities, and those interested in working with people with disabilities have gathered from 17 countries in Eugene (U.S.), Buenos Aires, Milan, Amsterdam, and Trier (Germany) to study with him for month-long DanceAbility Teacher Certification courses. Many have continued teaching DanceAbility in their home communities. He also teaches dance teachers in various disciplines how to make their classes more accessible to people with disabilities. Recent commissions for Alessi to create performance pieces have been completed at Chemeketa Community College, Amstelrade in Holland, and Theatre M.A.R.I.A. of Switzerland.

Alessi teaches Contact Improvisation, bodywork, and DanceAbility workshops, and performs with JFDC throughout North and South America and Europe. Alessi's work has received local, national and international recognition. He has choreographed pieces for and performed and/or taught at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts (Washington, D.C. U.S.A.) at the International VSA Arts Festival, the Governor's Arts Awards in Eugene, Portland's "Artquake," and at many festivals, schools, universities and other venues around the world, including Dance Umbrella in Boston, Jacob’s Pillow (U.S.A.), Vienna International Dance Festival, International Festival of New Dance (Brasilia), Bern Tanz Tage Dance Festival (Germany), “Festival of Freaks” (Switzerland), and Contact Arte (Italy). Residencies include the Mexican Academy of Dance, New Mexico School of the Deaf, the New Dance Lab of Minneapolis, and New Territories Performance Festival in Scotland.

Alessi has been performing in schools for thousands of children with Joint Forces in his children’s show, since 1995. He has been commissioned to create “Street Performance Parades” which are publicly-sited performances with people with and without disabilities, in Italy, Eugene, Germany, and Holland. He continues to consult with and guest-teach or choreograph for several integrated dance companies he helped found or start in more than five countries.

Since 1982, Alessi has produced the Breitenbush Contact Improvisation Conference and Jam, which is a major international New Dance networking event. He has also produced over 20 Dance Festivals in Eugene and other American cities, featuring the work of internationally-renowned and local dancers, and dance artists with disabilities.

Alessi has overseen the production of two documentaries of his work: “Common Ground,” a video of a DanceAbility workshop, which won a Silver Apple in the 1991 National Educational Film & Video Festival & was a finalist in the 1991 American Film & Video Association Festival; and “All Bodies Speak,” showing performance pieces with disabled & non-disabled performers.

Alessi’s educational background includes studying Community Education at the University of Oregon, and several years devoted study of martial arts. Alessi had a successful full-time massage therapy practice for ten years before dance work started taking most of his time. He has danced extensively with Andrew Harwood, Nancy Stark Smith, and Karen Nelson. He is currently authoring a book about DanceAbility methods.