Protein Dance was founded in 1997 by Italian born Luca Silvestrini, and Bettina Strickler from Switzerland who attended the Laban conservatoire for dance in London together as students. Beginning with their bi-lingual duet Duel in 1998, they created a series of high energy, accessible professional stage works, each one relishing a different aspect of contemporary life: confessional television (Portrait with Group and Duck 1998), psychoanalysis (On the Couch, 2000), booze culture (Publife, 2002) and social Darwinism (The Banquet, 2003). Continuing as sole Artistic Director after Bettina’s departure from the company in 2005, Luca tackled consumerism (Big Sale, 2005) and obsession with body image (B for Body 2006) which won Luca Silvestrini the Audience Vote in The Place Prize choreographic competition in 2006 and led to Dear Body, 2008/09. Protein’s has toured throughout the United Kingdom and internationally , with performances in Italy, Spain, Denmark, Switzerland, France, Germany, Croatia, Malta, Czech Republic, Holland, Canada and the USA.

Protein has always been inspired by the challenge of making work for unusual sites. As well as Publife which toured to pubs and clubs in the UK and internationally, there have been two short pieces commissioned by the Wapping Project, London (2001 and 2003) and The Factory, a promenade performance to mark the official opening of the new Laban in February 2003. In 2008 Luca Silvestrini made On Display, set in and amongst the shops of Birmingham for the International Dance Festival.

Participation by non-professional performers in dance has been at the heart of Protein’s work since the beginning when the company created Creola for a cast of 31 residents Polverigi and Rustico aged 9 to 75 in 2000. Since then Protein has created several projects for large cross-generational casts. Most influentially, Alfresco (2005) established Protein’s reputation for this work internationally, leading to commissions for Luca Silvestrini in Greece (Crossroad) and France (Valfresco) in 2007. At the same time, Protein has developed dance participation packages for schools and colleges which help to enhance students’ understanding of touring productions and meet the needs of the National Curriculum for dance and performing arts. With East London Dance, Protein created its dance film Start to Finish which involved 150 schoolchildren, the development of which has led to the creation of an educational CD Rom which enables teachers to link dance to the Olympics, and a large-scale outdoor performance for Big Dance in 2006. Other Big Dance events include the Big Dance Class which involved the record-breaking simultaneous participation of 8962 people all around the country and 8 Steps for 08 for Liverpool City of Culture in 2008. In 2010 Protein will create its largest ever Big Dance event for Trafalgar Square in London.

Equally challenging and also immensely rewarding have been Protein’s work at the Evelina Children’s Hospital in 2008 and in pupil referral units. The creation of I Woz ‘Ere 2 with young people at the Pavilion PRU in Totteridge in 2006 was the subject of Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation commissioned documentary Everything Stopped.