Alexandre Achour
Alexandre Achour works as a choreographer and performer. He holds an MA in choreography from HZT Berlin. His work “This isn’t gonna end well“ was supported by the EU’s Culture Programme through the network Life Long Burning. He developed “Speaking about the ghost” at K3 – Zentrum für Choreographie | Tanzplan Hamburg. In June 2016 he worked together with Chinese choreographer Guo Rui and the Guangdong Modern Dance Company on “Expressions of dance – when did we become contemporary“. He has worked with artists including Tino Sehgal, Xavier Le Roy, Saša Asentić.
Diego Agulló
Diego Agulló was born in Madrid in 1980. Between 1998 and 2004, he studied philosophy at the University Autónoma de Madrid, focusing his research on the concepts of play, boredom and refrain. During that time, he practiced painting, video and music and since 2003, he has been a part of the collective En Busca del Pasto, a project for music improvisation.
In 2005, he moved to Berlin where he started working as a freelance video artist and musician. Two years later, he had a fortuitous and inevitable encounter with choreography that has followed him through today, having collaborated on the development of an interdisciplinary body of work that passes through different forms such as choreography, video art, participatory events, lectures, texts, installations, and workshops.
Since 2007, Diego has been organizing participatory events such as CUE, a long-term project based on the paradoxical question of how to organize the unexpected. CUE has manifested in approximately 100 editions in different cities across Europe.
Diego is currently doing research on the Theoros Project, an attempt to practice theory from the body, investigating the intimate affinity between the concepts of Body and Event. It deals, with the intersection between pedagogy and art, dilettantism and professionalism, creating contexts for learning and practicing theory across art and philosophy. In this light, the artistic practice becomes a way of practicing philosophy. The workshops are facilitated frames for a temporary collective body to engage in the process of dancing and choreographing a series of practical problems using the methodology of cyclic interval oscillation, a practice that seeks to keep open the relation to alterity. He regularly teaches at Smash intensive Berlin and at AFFECT, Agora Collective.
Currently, Diego is working on an essay on dilettantism called “The Mischievous Mission” in order to problematize the notion of professionalism in arts. The first chapter of this text has been recently released as a limited edition handbook, called “Dangerous Dances”.
Heike Albrecht
Heike Albrecht, curator and dramaturge. After many years of working as the program dramaturge at LOFFT and curating numerous festivals (including Westend 05 know your rights and Tanznacht Berlin), Albrecht was the Artistic and Managing Director at Sophiensæle from 2007-2010. She then worked as the curator of the Goethe Institute during the 2012 European Capital of Culture program in Maribor and as program director / dramaturge for the theater festival FAVORITEN 2012. Albrecht is a mentor at HZT Berlin and works as a dramaturge with a focus on contemporary dance / choreography / performance and as a consultant for somatic movement training.
Antonia Baehr
Antonia Baehr set out one day by foot from a house in the countryside as a young explorer, performing puppet shows in town squares for her daily bread. After studying and making things, Antonia Baehr also became Werner Hirsch the dancer and horse whisperer who made films and the producer of Werner Hirsch, the musician and choreographer Henri Fleur, the composer Henry Wilt and the husband Henry Wilde. She delighted in teaching young artists at colleges and by now her work explored the fiction of the everyday and of the theatre, among other themes, often working with other artists and other scores. Then something extraordinary happened and she was invited to The Beursschouwburg in Brussels, to present an event full of the work of Baehr’s and Hirsch’s and of all the friends who had done things with her before. It was very lovely and there was a lot of laughing like in the book “Rire / Laugh / Lachen”. And when that was over and the confetti was swept away, a new book full of portraits of affinities in animal metaphors was made filled with pictures, scores and etchings, which followed the performance, “Abecedarium Bestiarium” which performed in Columbia and Japan and there was more along the way; “Larry Peacock”, “My Dog Is My Piano”, “For Ida”, the radio plays, “For Faces”, “Merci”, “Rire / Laugh / Lachen” and that is not in any order, but it all tumbled out into the sea where she wrote “Des miss et des mystères“ with Olivier, and in the middle and near the end of that she danced Tango, fell in and out of love, celebrated her parents paintings, and started making a new normal dance with her friends who are not at all dancers, but some are.
Sabine Bangert
Sabine Bangert has been living in Berlin since 1988 and is a trained carpenter and journalist. She has worked as editor-in-chief of a trade magazine, project leader for vocational preparation and training programs, and as a speaker of the faction Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen in the Berlin Parliament for labor market policy, vocational training, women’s rights and social policy. Since October 2011, she has been a member of the Berlin Parliament, speaker for labor market policy and cultural policy for the faction Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen and member of the national committee Jugend musiziert.
Andrea Božić
Andrea Božić is a choreographer from Croatia, living and working in Amsterdam. Her work is interdisciplinary and takes form of live performance, installation and collaborations with the weather. She has collaborated with visual artist Julia Willms and sound artist Robert Pravda since 2005 with whom she founded in-disciplinary platform TILT in 2009. Together with Nicole Beutler and Marijke Hoogenboom, Andrea is co-initiator and curator of We Live Here: AnAcademy, an artistic exchange platform that takes place in Amsterdam annualy since 2011. She is one of the co-founders of BAU – space for performing arts Amsterdam.
Ash Bulayev
Ash Bulayev has worked for 20 years as curator, producer and artist, at the cross-section of contemporary performance and time-based visual arts. From 2012-15 he was the Curator of Contemporary Performance at EMPAC (New York). From 2002-11, he was a Co-Artistic Director (in collaboration with Tzeni Argyriou) of amorphy.org, a collaborative platform for experiments in the fusion of performing arts and old / new media. In 2006-07, he was the project initiator and research director for the EU Culture 2000 funded project i-MAP (Integration of Media and Performance). He holds an MA in performance from DasArts, an internationally acclaimed graduate program from the Amsterdam School of the Arts.
Alice Chauchat
Alice Chauchat is a choreographer, dancer, assistant, teacher, etc. She choreographs mostly in collaboration with other artists and co-developed numerous platforms for the production and exchange of knowledge in the performing arts (everybodystoolbox, PAF, praticable). From 2010-12, she was Co-Artistic Director for Les Laboratoires d’Aubervilliers. Recently, her choreographic practice has been geared towards processing the knowledge and complexity of collaborative practices into an aesthetic experience
deufert&plischke
Kattrin Deufert and Thomas Plischke (together the artistwin deufert&plischke) live and work in Berlin. Over the past fourteen years, they have realized several theater projects that deal with situations of artistic production and the complex social dynamics and the logistics of artistic processes. Their works reach beyond the scope of dance and theater and focus on individual participation and daily life in artistic events. These works create different artistic environments that suspend the everyday by comprehensively integrating and processing it into art.
Juan Dominguez
Juan Dominguez is a maker and organizer within the fields of dance and performing arts.
His work explores the relationship between different codes and advocates the complete dissolution between fiction and reality, using the former to produce the latter and vice versa. He is currently working on the construction of contexts that generate stronger and lasting relationships through continuity. He is also working on the idea of co-authorship between all the agents involved in a live aesthetic and poetical experience.
Some of his recent works include “Shichimi Togarashi“ in collaboration with Amalia Fernádez (2006), “All good artists my age are dead“ (2007), “blue“ (2009), “Clean Room Pilot“ (2010), “Characters arriving“ in collaboration with Los Torreznos (2011), “Clean Room Season 1“ (2012), “Clean Room Season 2“ (2014), “El Triunfo de la Libertad“ in collaboration with La Ribot and Juan Loriente (2014), “Clean Room Season 3“ (2016), and “Between what is no longer and what is not yet“ (2016).
In the last 14 years, he has curated different festivals and programs. He was Artistic Director of the festival In-Presentable/La Casa Encendida (2003-12), Co-Director of the Living room Festival (2010-13) and Co-Curator of the Picnic Sessions at CA2M-Madrid (2013-15).
Begüm Erciyas
Begüm Erciyas studied molecular biology and genetics in Ankara, where she became a member of [Laboratuar], a performing arts project and research group. She graduated from the Salzburg Experimental Academy of Dance (SEAD). In 2006, she received the danceWEB scholarship and since then has been an active member of “Sweet and Tender Collaborations”. Begüm Erciyas was resident at the Akademie Schloss Solitude, at the K3 – Centre for Choreography in Hamburg and at Tanzwerkstatt Berlin. In 2014, she was a fellow at Villa Kamogawa / Goethe-Institut Kyoto. Her recent works include “Ballroom” (2010), “MATCH” (2011), “this piece is still to come” (2012), and “A Speculation” (2014).
Jule Flierl
Jule Flierl works on vocal dances that deal with connecting and disconnecting
the voice from the moving body. She also researches different conventions of
representation and the relationship between performance and audience. Most recently, her work has been shown in Berlin at Tanztage 2016 and the Performing Arts Festival Berlin.
She studied contemporary dance at Salzburg Experimental Academy of Dance (SEAD), and in 2015, she finished her Masters in Choreography at EXERCE Montpellier.
Philipp Gehmacher
Philipp Gehmacher lives in Vienna and works internationally. He is a choreographer, dancer and student at the University of Applied Arts Vienna in the ‘Sculpture and Space’ program, whose works on gesture, space and touch have featured in numerous festivals and venues around the world. He has collaborated across art forms, most importantly with the choreographer Meg Stuart. Gehmacher initiated the lecture performance series “walk+talk” and is currently focusing on objects and sculpture. He received the renowned Jerwood Choreography Award and the Austrian Advancement Award for Dance from the BMUKK.
Frauke Havemann
Frauke Havemann / ON AIR is a choreographer and director of live-performances, as well as film / video projects and installations. In 2015, she curated the series UNBOUND with artists from different backgrounds for the AULA in Milchhof, Berlin. At the moment, she is finishing her first feature-length film. In 2002, she initiated ON AIR together with Eric Schefter and Neal Wach. The resulting productions straddle the border between radio plays and installations, performance and theater, theater and film.
Hanna Hegenscheidt
Hanna Hegenscheidt is a freelance choreographer and teacher of the Klein Technique™. She studied and worked as a dancer for many years in New York before moving to Berlin in 2004. Her work has been presented internationally. In June 2014, she finished her Masters in Choreography at the Theaterschool of Amsterdam.
Claudia Henne
Claudia Henne studied German philology and political science at Freie Universität Berlin. From 1982 to 2002, she worked as an editor, moderator, author, and critic for the cultural program of Sender Freies Berlin (SFB) and other ARD institutions. Professional focuses: dance, visual art, and cultural policy. She also occasionally works as an author and editor for print media. In 2002, she held a permanent position as an editor at Rundfunk Berlin Brandenburg (rbb) and since 2009, in the Multimedia Department for Culture.
Ayara Hernández Holz
Ayara Hernández Holz is a performer and choreographer based in Berlin and Montevideo. She studied dance, theatre and literature in Montevideo, at European Dance Development Centre (E.D.D.C) in Arnhem and finish her MA in Contemporary Arts Practice & Dissemination/ MACAPD in L’animal a l’esquena in Spain (in collaboration with the University of Girona, Dargtinton College of Arts and MASKA institute). Since many years she is creating her own work in collaboration with Felix Marchand and invited colleagues as LUPITA PULPO.
Miriam Jakob
In her works, the ethnologist and choreographer Miriam Jakob from Berlin concentrates on the interface between science and fiction. The performance turns anthropological problems into poetic material. Her solo “Friday…“ (2012), for which she won the 100° Festival Jury´s Prize from HAU and Sopiensaele, was shown internationally. For her first ensemble work, “Travelling to the four Corners of the Earth,“ she received a grant from the Berlin city council. Furthermore she collaborates with other artists, such as deufert+plischke. Beside her own artistic work, she teaches at the interface between theater and ethnography.
Astrid Kaminski
Astrid Kaminski works as a journalist, publicist, and speechwriter, etc. She writes about dance, performance, poetry, and social-political themes for daily papers and magazines. Her works on the Berlin dance scene are regularly published in taz.
Kokana Šanić Koka aka Dragana Bulut
The legendary Serbian choreographer and dancer Kokana Šanić Koka celebrates her stage jubilee. With a background in folk dance, cabaret and magic, she has lived and worked across the world, and developed her own performance practice. She performed for artists such as Meg Stuart, Tino Sehgal, Sent M’Ahesa, Ivo Dimchev and many more. Working together with an accordion player in an intimate setting, she gives insight into several epochs of her œuvre.
Bojana Kunst
Bojana Kunst grew up in Ljubljana and is a full professor at the Institute for Applied Theatre, Justus-Liebig University Giessen. She worked as a researcher at the University of Ljubljana (till 2009) and as a guest professor at the University of Hamburg (2009-11). She is a member of the editorial board of Maska Magazine, Amfiteater and Performance Research. She published and edited several publications, including “Processes of Work and Collaboration in Contemporary Performance (Ur).” (Amfiteater, Maska, Ljubljana, 2006), “Performance and Labour” (Performance Research 18.1., ed. with Gabriele Klein, 2013), “Artist at Work, Proximity of Art and Capitalism” (Maska, Ljubljana, 2013).
Clément Layes
Clément Layes has been living and working in Berlin as a choreographer and performer since 2008. Here, he founded the company Public in Private together with Jasna L. Vinovrski. His works, located at the intersection of choreography, visual arts and philosophy, take observations from everyday life and common objects as a starting point. Following “Allege” (2010), “to allege” (2011), “Der grüne Stuhl” (2012), “Things that surround us” (2012) and “dreamed apparatus” (2014), Layes completed his performance cycle dealing with the manmade world and things with the solo performance “TITLE”.
Thomas Lehmen
Thomas Lehmen is a freelance choreographer, dancer, performer and teacher. From 1986 to 1990, he studied at the School for New Dance Development in Amsterdam. From 1990 to 2010, he lived in Berlin, where he developed many solo pieces, group collaborations and projects, including “distanzlos,” “mono subjects,” “Schreibstück,” “Funktionen,” “It’s better to…,” and “Lehmen lernt.“. Since 2011, he has worked again in North Rhine-Westphalia and produced projects including “Schrottplatz” and „Bitte…”. Since 2013, he is on tour across the world with his current project, “A Piece for You”.
His recurring interests lie in communication and a human being that reflects itself in its own environment, actively shaping it through creative relationships. His artistic approach often show linguistic elements within conceptual methods and expressions. His use of dance largely focuses on individual articulations of singular technical aspects, as well on the interrelation of dancers and danced dialogues. He teaches at numerous universities worldwide and has been a visiting professor in Hamburg, Gießen and Berlin. For several years, he worked in the dance department at Arizona State University. He also holds workshops on the international level. When teaching, he deals with the aforementioned ideas, as well as with choreographic systems that aim toward individual artistic composition within societal contexts.
Ligia Lewis
Liga Lewis is a choreographer and dancer based in Berlin. Lewis weaves together critical and literary texts with dance and theater as she interrogates the metaphors and social inscriptions of the body. She engages with the choreographic through embodied, sensorial, and immersive performances, with a predilection towards interiority and abstraction. Her choreographies can be described as experientially rich and complex. Lewis has shared her work in multiple contexts including visual arts and theater.
As a dancer, Lewis has performed extensively across Europe and abroad in theater, dance and film productions including choreographers Eszter Salamon, Mette Ingvartsen, Jeremy Wade, and Kat Válastur; theater director Ariel Efraim Ashbel; artist Wojciech Kosma; and in films by Wu Tsang and Uli Edel.
Lewis was awarded the Prix Jardin d’Europe for her work “Sorrow Swag“ at Impulstanz Festival in Vienna 2015. “minor matter,“ is her latest creation in development, which will premiere in the fall at HAU Hebbel am Ufer.
Arantxa Martinez
Arantxa Martinez is a performer and choreographer based in Berlin since 2003. Her work concerns itself with identification and exchange processes between the body and its surroundings and investigates performativity in relation to these processes. Her projects include “Très bien éclairé“ (2015), “Emisiones Cacatúa. Special Issue,“ a radio project in collaboration with Nilo Gallego (2012), “The Present,“ in collaboration with Lola Rubio (2010/2012), “al oeste del Pecos“ (2007), “J, a folk-striptease in 4″ (2007), “Trofeo“ (2003), “de l’impatience de celui qui regarde dormir,“ in collaboration with Remi Héritier (1999).
Kirsten Maar
Kirsten Maar works as a dance and theater scholar and dramaturge. Currently, she is visiting professor in the Dance Department at the FU Berlin. From 2007-14, she was a member of the DFG Collaborative Research Centre “Aesthetic Experience and the Dissolution of Artistic Limits.“ Her research fields lie at the intersections between visuals arts, architecture, and choreography, curatorial strategies, spatial conceptions, and kinesthetic experience, scoring practices, and composition. She is co-editor of “Assign and Arrange. Methodologies of Presentation in Art and Dance” (Sternberg 2014).
Sebastian Matthias
Sebastian Matthias studied dance at the Julliard School in New York and Dance Studies at Freie Universität Berlin (MA). His choreographic work fundamentally deals with systems of improvisation, which he develops with his dancers in individual productions at venues including tanzhaus nrw and Kampnagel or at institutions such as Theater Luzern and Cullberg Ballett. From 2012-2015, he delved deeper into his approach to artistic research via his dissertation “groove feeling” at the HafenCity University in Hamburg, which he then expanded with participatory processes during the “groove space” performance series.
Sheena McGrandles
Sheena McGrandles graduated from the Laban Center, London (2007). From 2008-09, she was an artist in resident with Daghdha Dance Company, Ireland. She completed her MA Solo/Dance/Authorship at HZT Berlin and from 2012-13, she was Choreographer in Residence at K3 Hamburg, creating the work “true balls.“ She has performed her works throughout Europe, and continues her collaboration with Zinzi Buchanan on a series of pieces such as “Steve&Sam. MAN POWER MIX, New Materialism“ (Tanztage Sophiensaele, Flutgraben and Something Raw, Amsterdam). In June she presented “WHO’S THE PARTY NOW, SISTER?“ her most recent research project as part of Tanzkongress in Hannover, which deals with invisible and forgotten feminist performance art works from the 60’s & 70’s. Since October 2013, she is Artistic Research Associate in the BA program “Dance, Context, Choreography” at HZT Berlin. She has collaborated with artists including Eva Meyer-Keller, Isabelle Schad, Daniel Kok, Tove Sahlin.
Lee Méir
Lee Méir is an artist working in choreography and performance between Berlin and Tel-Aviv. Her choreographic works examine states of paradox and the artificiality of the performative situation. Her solo “Translation included“ was awarded first prize at Israel´s Biennale for young choreographers in 2011. She completed Choreography studies at HZT Berlin (2013) and received grants from the Berlin city council, the Israeli ministry of Culture and a danceWEB scholarship in Vienna (2014-2015). She enjoys collaborations with artists including deufert&plischke, Otso Huopaniemi, Maya Weinberg.
Matthias Meppelink
Matthias Meppelink studied at the Institute for Applied Theatre Studies at Justus-Liebig University in Gießen between 2003 and 2008. He is a founding member of the performance group Monster Truck and works as a musician and light designer in different constellations. He regularly collaborates with Boris Nikitin, Marcel Schwald, Susanne Zaun, and Cecilie Ullerup Schmidt. He has been living in Berlin since 2008.
Beide Messies
In 2007, dancer/songwriter Andreas A. Müller and cellist/composer Bo Wiget came together to form the Berlin-based duo Beide Messies. Since 2003, they have collaborated on various productions with artists including Meg Stuart/Damaged Goods, happysystem, and Rosalind Crisp.
Merging together and intersecting different artistic disciplines has become part of their flesh and blood. Their performances fall between the genres of concert, dance, cabaret and happening. With their “obsessive, imperative entertainment,“ they have developed a large following. They perform in theaters and galleries, on club stages, and at dance and performance festivals from Brussels to Tallinn and beyond.
Peter Pleyer
Peter Pleyer studied at the European Dance Development Centre (EDDC) in Arnhem before working with Yoshiko Chuma and Mark Tompkins as a dancer and choreographic assistant. He has lived in Berlin since 2000. From 2007 to 2014, he was Artistic Director of the Tanztage Berlin and from 2012 to 2014, a member of the Sophiensæle team. His interest as a choreographer and performer, dramaturge and coach, lies in finding new methods of integrating dance training, composition and improvisation into choreographic processes, such as, e.g., in the lecture-performance “Choreographing Books“ or in “Visible Undercurrent“ (2014). He teaches at various colleges and festivals in Europe and contributed to establishing a university course in Contemporary Dance in Berlin.
Philine Rinnert
Philine Rinnert is a freelance stage designer and artist. Together with Johannes Müller, she develops musical theater projects that are performed at Sophiensæle Berlin, Radialsystem Berlin, Kampnagel Hamburg and the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich. In addition to working with a wide range of directors, she regularly collaborates with choreographer Colette Sadler, as well as the performance collective Freundliche Mitte in Vienna. Alongside her theater work, she also develops site-specific interventions and installations.
Liz Rosenfeld
Liz Rosenfeld is a Berlin-based artist utilizing disciplines of film, video and live performance, to convey a sense of past and future histories. Rosenfeld is part of the Berlin-based film production collective nowMomentnow and the food performance group, foodGASM. She has worked with Berlin-based artists including Jeremy Wade, Jared Gradinger, Marit Östberg, Meg Stuart, and The Knife. Rosenfeld’s work has been screened and performed at venues including The Barbican, The German Historical Musem, HAU Hebbel am Ufer, and The Tate Modern. She received her MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2005, followed by a Masters in Performance Studies from Tisch School of The Arts at New York University in 2007.
Colette Sadler
Colette Sadler (Glasgow 1974) trained in classical ballet later completing a BA (hons) at The Laban Centre London. Between 1994-2002, she worked as a dancer for choreographers such as Wayne McGregor and Cia Vicente Saez. Since 2006, she has created over 9 choreographic works for theatre and gallery contexts that have been shown internationally in contexts such as Sophiensæle, South Bank Centre London, Kaaitheater Studios and alongside the British Art show in 2010. She is currently developing a curatorial project called “Fictional Matters”, based at the Centre for Contemporary Art in Glasgow.
Maria F. Scaroni
From Italian TV dance productions to release-based and post-modern dance techniques, from contact improvisation to literature studies and theoretical engagement, Maria Francesca Scaroni is moving through the complex network of learning and making dances since 1996. Scaroni’s works focus on the process of collaboration, play with durational experiences and are featured by a crossbreeding between performance, choreography and installation. Recently Maria is involved in researching dance as a possible divination form or Oracle. She created theatrical/installative/durational events with Jess Curtis (The Symmetry Project), with Vania Rovisco (within AADK, The State of Things) and since 2014 meets Frank Willens in Towards Another Miraculous. Since 2011 Maria is creating and touring works with Meg Stuart/Damaged Goods, (Until Our Hearts Stop, Sketches/Notebook, Built To Last) and shares with Meg Stuart and the Berlin dance community the commitment to Improvisation as a performance event. She interprets works by Tino Sehgal and collaborated as dancer/creator in many Berlin independent production (Jeremy Wade, Wilhelm Groener, Hanna Hegenscheidt to mention a few). She teaches in Berlin’s University HZT and is actively involved in forging other independent training programs (P.O.R.C.H. and Smash) where she is developing methodologies focusing on the body as material. With Peter Pleyer she facilitates laboratories around tracking one own’s dance lineage, weaving histories and practicing works from the Judson and Post Judson era. She holds a Masters degree in Italian Modern Literature, with a focus on Media and Communication and a thesis on education and dance.
Kareth Schaffer
Kareth Schaffer studied dance at HZT Berlin and anthropology at HU Berlin. Her choreographic works include an infamous Sacre (“OPFER: The Sacrifice of Kareth Schaffer“, HAU 2013), a notorious mudwrestling tournament (“Dirty Money Mudwrestling“, Uferstudios 2015), and the foleyed fantasia “Unheard Of“ (Tanzfabrik 2016). As a performer and collaborator, she has appeared in the works of artists including deufert&plischke, Christian Falsnaes, Tino Sehgal and Stefanie Wenner.
Eric Schefter
In the 1990’s, video artist Eric Schefter co-founded four intermedia performance groups in New York including 77 Hz and The Luminists. Their works were presented in numerous New York venues including The Knitting Factory, The Kitchen, Roulette, and The Experimental Intermedia Foundation. In 1997, Eric moved from New York to Berlin. Since 1998, he has worked as a video and film editor in Germany (e.g. “Gendernauts” by Monika Treut, “The Nomi Song,” and “We are Twisted Fucking Sister” by Andrew Horn).
Agata Siniarska
Agata Siniarska creates work within different formats for performances, events, practices, lectures, videos, etc. Having studied choreography and given a chance to different kinds of theatrical forms, she currently devises feminist fun studies and cultivates her yearning for language and writing, cinema and animation within the scope of her practice. She is a founding member of female trouble, a friendship based collective revolving around identity, body, feminisms, pleasure, affirmation and love. Addicted to fiction, she conducts her investigations, fashioning herself as a tool of rhetoric, through the cultural structures inscribed to her. Fueled by the energy of profound theoretical hesitancy, she approaches every action she makes with passion and intense fascination, often acting not singularly but in the company of many exquisite adventures.
Claire Vivianne Sobottke
Claire Vivianne Sobottke defines her work as a place of resistance, where norms of seeing and thinking can be challenged. She graduated in acting from UdK Berlin, but quickly began to work as performer and dancemaker. In 2013, she received a danceWEB scholarship at Impulstanz Festival in Vienna. In 2014/15, she created “golden game” together with Tian Rotteveel. Dealing with the idea of the “untamed,“ this piece uses the explosive states and bodies of children as a passage into wilderness. By defining the voice, in its different states of singing and speaking as a source for movement, she will create her new solo “strange songs” in 2016 (Tanzhaus Zürich / Pact Zollverein). In 2016, Claire founded “Amazonas,” an interdisciplinary platform to support young female artists in Berlin, and is creating a personal interpretation of Mary Wigman’s “Witch Dance.” She has collaborated with artists including Meg Stuart/Damaged Goods, Tino Sehgal, Tian Rotteveel, Karol Tyminski, Institutet, Christoph Winkler, Theo Solink, Miriam Horwitz, Gaëtan Rusquet, Johannes Schmit, Jule Flierl.
Martin Stiefermann
Martin Stiefermann was trained at the Hamburgische Staatsoper and was a dancer at the Hamburger Ballett. During this time, he created his first choreographic work. In 1992, he was awarded a grant for choreography at the Internationale Tanzwochen Wien. From 1995-1997, he was a director and choreographer at Bühnen Kiel. In 1998, he founded MS Schrittmacher in Berlin. From 2001-06, he worked simultaneously as the director of the dance division at the Oldenburgisches Staatstheater and the director of the Berlin-based company MS Schrittmacher, developing a unique cooperation model. In 2003 and 2005, he was the festival director at the Internationale Tanztage Oldenburg. In 2014, he taught dance studies at FU Berlin. He is on the Board of Executives for LAFT Berlin.
Louise Trueheart
Louise Trueheart is a dancer, writer, and choreographer. She makes one-on-one performances, notably on Skype, around ideas of love, intimacy, and drone warfare. Louise has been involved with the queer feminist platform COVEN BERLIN since 2014, and is the Senior Editor of the online magazine since 2015. This year, she has been accepted into the danceWEB scholarship program. Louise is a part of INTERNATIONAL NOTICE, a publication for the generation of critical discourse around the Berlin performance scene.
Kat Válastur
Kat Válastur, is a Berlin-based choreographer and performer. Fragmentation, time lapse, entropy and virtuality are some of the notions that emerge from her dance works, through the creation of a specific fictional force field in which the bodies of the performers are exposed to. As part of her creative process she utilizes personal diagrams, scores drawings and texts that she creates for each work. In 2013-2014, she was an invited artist (grantee) at the Institut für Raumexperimente, an educational research project by Ólafur Elíasson in collaboration with the Berlin University of the Arts (UdK). In the context of the program, she started her research on the new series of choreographies “The marginal sculptures of Newtopia”. The series includes the works “GLAND“ (2014), “Ah! Oh! A contemporary Ritual“ (2014) and was completed in 2016 with the dance piece “OILinity“, a poetic reflection upon the problem on dependence of western societies on crude oil and its consequences on human and nature. The series were co-produced and presented at HAU Hebbel am Ufer. She studied dance at the Hellenic school of dance, at the Trisha Brown studios on a Fulbright scholarship and received a Master degree from the (SODA) Master Program at the Inter-University for Dance in Berlin. Her work is presented internationally.
Annemie Vanackere
Annemie Vanackere is since September 2012 Artistic and Managing Director at HAU Hebbel am Ufer in Berlin. Prior to that, she worked as production manager for various festivals, as Artistic Director of the Nieuwpoorttheater in Gent, and then as Co-Artistic Director at the Rotterdamse Schouwburg. There she also directed the affiliated Productiehuis Rotterdam and the annual festival “De Internationale Keuze” that she co-founded
Jasna L. Vinovrški
Jasna L. Vinovrški is performer, choreographer, and teacher. She grew up in Zagreb and lives in Berlin. Next to her artistic work she is working closely as a dramaturgic and choreographic assistant with Clément Layes, with whom she is also running together, since 2008, the company Public in Private. In 2012 Vinovrški gained her Master of Arts degree at the HZT Berlin, and in 2014 she started her PhD at the Institute of Applied Theater Studies at the Justus-Liebig University in Gießen. In 2014, she initiated together with Clément Layes and Dimitry Paranyushkin the artists’ performance platform “3AM“, that regulary takes place at the artists’ house Flutgraben in Berlin.
Neal Wach
Born in New York, Neal Wach arrived in Germany in 1994, where he began working with Frauke Havemann almost immediately, first as performers with Mark Johnson’s Detektor, followed by her projects as director. This production of Truckers and Trackers, which he first performed in 2006, is his fourth production with Frauke Havemann / ON AIR.
Jeremy Wade
Jeremy Wade is a performer, performance maker, curator and teacher. He graduated from the School For New Dance Development, Amsterdam in 2000. He premiered his first piece, “Glory” at Dance Theater Workshop, New York City in 2006, for which he received a Bessie Award. Since then, Wade has been living in Berlin and working closely with the HAU Hebbel am Ufer. His recent works include “Dark Material” (2013), with Sculptor Monika Grzymala and the band Xiu Xiu and “Together Forever” (2014), a three hour participatory practice / feast. In 2015 Wade created “Death Asshole Rave Video” and “DrawnOnward”, both dealing with the death of man, zombie subjectivity and the precarious body situated in advanced capitalism.
Dorion Weickmann
Dorion Weickmann, PhD, studied history and political science and graduated after completing a study on the cultural history of dance. She is a dance critic for publications including Süddeutsche Zeitung and is a member of the editorial team for the magazine tanz.
Siegmar Zacharias
Siegmar Zacharias studied philosophy, comparative literature & performance art. She now works in theory and practice in the field of performance. She works in situations of embodied thinking together through matters and matter. This practice collides approaches from philosophy, with pop culture, science and parascience, observing and realising the entanglement of the relations of human and non-human actors in different constellations into an ecology of performance.
Her works develop formats of performances, lectures, installations, discursive formats and sharing, dealing with questions of agency, the contract of the willful suspension of disbelief and the critical substance it produces. They are situated between labour and humour, do-it-yourself low tech and high tech. They have been presented nationally and internationally at festivals, in theatres, galleries, green houses, clubs, the woods, and up in the sky.
She is the co-founder of the transdisciplinary group SXS Enterprise and initiator of Women On Work- WOW We work here, a platform of exchange of Berlin based artists.