Graduated from the Accademia di Belle Arti of Milan, Marinella Guatterini is a Dance Essayist and Critic, with past and present collaborations with the magazines Europeo, Balletto Oggi/Ballet 2000, Famiglia Cristiana, the newspapers L’Unità and Il Sole 24 Ore Domenica, and the online journals Teatro e Critica, Hystrio. As a professor, she is currently the director of the Theory and Aesthetics of Dance program of the Civica Scuola di Teatro ‘Paolo Grassi’ where, from 1993, she has been the coordinator of the Course for Dancers, soon to become a full-fledged University program.

From 1997, she has been responsible for the theatre programs of the Teatro alla Scala Ballet. She was a guest maître de conference all’Université Paris III – La Sorbonne from 1999 to 2001. From 2004 to 2011, she held courses in The Methodology of Dance Criticism at DAMS of the University of Bologna, and in Critical Writing at the Catholic University of Milan.

She directed surveys and exhibitions, notably in 2008-2009, for the Museo Teatrale alla Scala, The Ballets Russes at La Scala- Milan 1920’s, and for the Dance Department of State University of Milan, 2010-2013, Russian Art and Culture in Milan and the Lombardy Region in the XX Century. She is often invited to hold conferences in European and Italian universities and theatres.

Author of texts and essays related to multiple aspects of dance, she wrote The ABC of Ballet for Mondadori publishers (now in its 6^th edition, with a translation into Russian), and again for Mondadori, The ABC of Dance – Its History, Techniques, Great Choreographers of The Modern and Contemporary Scene. She created the 5-year Neoclassical Project (1990-1995) for the Teatro Ponchielli of Cremona, and, in 2011, RIC.CI – Reconstruction Italian Contemporary Choreography - 1980’s & 1990’s. This was the fruit of collaboration with cultural circuits, theaters and festivals, in the memory of contemporary Italian choreography, its written and video documentation and reconstruction. The project has now reached its ninth stage presentation, along with a published documentation book: Tango Glaciale Reloaded (1982-2018), conceived and directed by Mario Martone. In 2016, she was the ‘project adviser’ for Through The Walls of Fog, a site specific event by the polyhedral artist Billy Cowie for the ‘Fondazione Prada’ of Milan.