Mirjam Gurtner

Mirjam Gurtner works as a freelance choreographer in Berlin and Basel. In collaboration with her dance company, she produces her own works in Germany and Switzerland and tours internationally. In 2021, Mirjam was awarded the June Johnson Newcomer Prize at the Swiss Performing Arts Awards. Her artistic practice engages with improvisation, real-time composition and the correlation between sensory perception and physicality. In interdisciplinary collaborations, she explores the relationship between the audience and moving bodies in different spatial contexts.

Her most recent series of works, PLAY, was performed site-specifically outdoors for the 48-Stunden-Neukölln Festival in Berlin and on-stage at Theater ROXY Birsfelden in 2021. This was followed by further (re)stagings as part of Tanzfest 2022 and the Performing Arts Festival Berlin 2023, among others. The inclusive and intergenerational performance ALMOST HOME was created as a site-specific work for the 25hours Hotel Zurich West and the Hôtel N'vY Geneva and premiered as part of the renowned dance festival STEPS 2022. Other works, ranging from full-length pieces to site-specific performances, have been shown at Kesselhaus Berlin of the KINDL Centre for Contemporary Art, Sophiensaele Berlin, Novosibirsk Centre for Visual Arts in Siberia, Chapelle du Quartier Haut in Sète, Museum der Kulturen Basel and Wellcome Collection London, among others.

Mirjam is a teacher and lecturer for improvisation and inclusive dance, working internationally to create pieces within the framework of inclusive and intercultural dance projects. She worked as a choreographer, dancer and rehearsal director with Candoco Dance Company London from 2011 to 2016 and is an associate artist. Mirjam grew up in Basel and studied dance at Theater Basel, the Vienna State Opera, the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts and Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance in London.

https://www.mirjamgurtner.com

PRODUKTIONEN: GESTALTEN

Alessandro Schiattarella

Alessandro Schiattarella was born in Naples in 1982. He studied dance at the Teatro San Carlo in Naples, at La Scala in Milan and graduated from the Rudra Bejart School in Lausanne. In 2016, he completed a degree in Advanced Studies in Dance Sciences from the Faculty of Human Sciences of the University of Bern and in 2020, completed a Master’s degree in Fine Arts at the FHNW Basel.

As a performer, he has collaborated with Maurice Bejart, Marco Goecke, Koen Augustijnen and Haris Pasovic, among others. He has worked in institutions such as Napoli Teatro Festival, in collaboration with les ballets C de la B, East West Theatre Production, Bejart Ballet Lausanne, Grand Theatre in Geneva, Konzert Theater in Bern, Basel Ballet and Scapino Ballet in Rotterdam. In 2014, he created his first solo, ALTROVE, which was selected for the prestigious international platform Aerowaves Twenty17.

Since 1996, Alessandro has been affected by a rare illness called “Hirayama Disease,” which, since 2015, has led him to develop choreographic projects on the theme of disability, including TELL ME WHERE IT IS (2015), STRANO (2017) and ONE AT A TIME (2018) in collaboration with the company Cie BewegGrund. His work has been presented in theatres, art spaces and festivals, such as ROXY Birsfelden, Dampfzentrale Bern, Tanzhaus Zürich, Festival Belluard Bollwerk International Fribourg, Kunst Raum Riehen, Der Tank Basel, NO Limits Festival Berlin, Brave Festival Wroclaw, Temporada Alta Lima, Sommerblut Cologne, Parade Festival Utrecht, Gati Dance Forum New Delhi and others.

Since 2016, his work has been supported by Pro Helvetia, a Swiss cultural foundation for cultural exchange: seminars, workshops and projects take place between Switzerland and Singapore, Great Britain, South Africa, India and Sri Lanka.

http://www.schiattarella.info/

PRODUCTIONS: EINBLICKE | SULLE SPONDE DEL LAGO – ON THE SHORES OF THE LAKE | SULLE SPONDE

Markéta Stránská

Markéta Stránská is a choreographer, performer and physiotherapist. She lives in the Czech Republic and has been inspired by dance since her childhood. At the age of six, she started dancing with a folk-dance group and later discovered puppet theatre. Markéta works mainly with DNO Theater, a well-known local theatre in Hradec Králové.

Since 2012, she has been an active member of the contemporary dance scene in the Czech Republic. She creates her own works in theatres as well as in public spaces. She regularly attends contemporary dance workshops, gives classes and participates in educational projects (e.g., Art for Schools). As a professional dancer and performer, she first collaborated with the VerTeDance company in 2015 in the project ABSENT (CHYBĚNÍ) choreographed by Jaro Viňarský. In 2016/2017, she participated in the volunteer project “Audience Jury” within the Czech Dance Platform festival, as part of the international project Be SpectActive. She has also worked as a member of the non-profit organization Clown Doctor, which helps bring joy to health care.

In 2018, she participated in FILLIMIT, an international platform for young choreographers, as part of the KoresponDance Festival in Žďár and Sázavou and in an International Summer Lab with Candoco Dance Company in London. In September 2018, she made her choreographic debut with the solo dance performance FLY!, which she presented several times in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Russia, France, Germany, Poland and Hungary.

In 2021, her latest piece ...OR TO BE premiered in collaboration with experienced French choreographer and dancer Jean Gaudin. Through her work, a local and international network of artists with non-normative bodies is growing.

https://www.stranska.eu/en

PRODUKTIONEN: EINBLICKE

Nir de Volff

Nir de Volff, born in Tel Aviv, completed his dance training in Israel, where he took his first professional steps in local dance companies. In Tel Aviv, he appeared as a guest dancer in Pina Bausch’s piece VIKTOR at the Israeli Opera. In 2000, he moved to Amsterdam and began to develop his own work. In 2004, he moved to Berlin and in the summer of 2007, he founded his company TOTAL BRUTAL. Since then, the company has had its place of production at Dock 11 and, since 2013, additionally in the Sophiensaele. In September 2014, TOTAL BRUTAL premiered at the renowned Schaubühne at Lehniner Platz with a play that was realized in cooperation with director Falk Richter.

Nir has collaborated with numerous artists, such as She She Pop at HAU in Berlin, Katarina Niminnen at the Volksbühne 3rd floor, Antú Romero Nunes at Thalia Theater Hamburg as well as with David Herman at Oper Frankfurt. TOTAL BRUTAL collaborates with a variety of performers and different theatres, from smaller stages to large state theatres. Nir participates in international cultural exchange projects combining sociopolitical issues with entertainment. The productions have been shown in numerous theatres worldwide.

Following multiple collaborations with LOFFT – DAS THEATER, a special project with three refugee Syrian dancers emerged in 2017 as a co-production with LOFFT: COME AS YOU ARE. Other productions have taken Nir to the Maxim Gorki Theater Berlin, the renowned Wiener Festwochen, SESC Pinieiros Sau Paulo, Odeon Paris and the Théâtre National de Strasbourg.

Nir is regularly invited by international theatres and dance venues to lead workshops and master classes on his self-developed movement method BBM – Breathing Bodies Movement.

http://totalbrutal.net/

PRODUCTIONS: WIR | JOY