was born in Guadalajara, Mexico. Trained in classical ballet and contemporary dance, she collaborated with a variety of dance companies in Guadalajara and Mexico City. Since 1999, she has performed in dance, theatre and musical theatre productions in Germany. In 2011, she was named artistic director and choreographer of the community dance project Tanz die Toleranz in Vienna. She is involved in the development, planning and realisation of participatory dance projects at an international level and works as a senior consultant in this field.
studied Cultural Management (MAS) and Contemporary Dance (BA) in Vienna and is currently working as Production Manager at Festspielhaus St. Pölten. Besides that she is also responsible for the development and promotion of supportive platforms for young professional dancers there. Moreover, Christina Aksoy works as performer and choreographer for different interdisciplinary projects and within a variety of artistic collectives since 2011. Her artistic work has taken her to Belgium, Iceland, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Italy and Austria. In 2017, she published her research on a potential tool for Cultural Managers which would enable the use of qualitative indicators to strengthen the assessment of work within the art sector (Christina Huber: Die gescheiterte Zweckfreiheit der Kunst. Ein praktisches Werkzeug zur Kunst und Kulturarbeit. im-Verlag.).
Co-artistic director of the Company Danza Flux with Fabrizio Varriale and trainer for the Scuola Elementare del Teatro of Davide Iodice. She trained in Italy and abroad studying classical, contemporary dance and theatre. In 2015 she starts a coreographic research about japanese theatre and creates La geisha che danza per amore . Since 2016 she dances in the Compagnia Korper in Naples.
After studying classical and modern dance, he was hired by the ballet ensemble of the Opéra de Lyon in 1983. In 1988 he started dancing with Andy Degroat while concurrently launching his own choreographic activities. At the time he met Wilfride Piollet and Jean Guizerix with whom he later danced in “La Conjuration”. Later, he discovered baroque dance and for five years cooperated with the great company “Ris et Danceries”. Since 1993 he has been performing with Christine Bastin's company: to name at least a few common production, they are “Guele de Loup” and “La Polka du Roi”, one to make part of the production “Be”. In 1997 he started working with Jacques Fargearel, together they have created for example “Entre Terre et Ciel” and “Le Soleil des innocents”. In 2001 he created a solo piece “La Sentinelle”. In 2004 in Prague he presented his duo “The Ambivalence of a Butterfly”. He worked for SE.S.TA as a pedagogue until 2003 while also leading SE.S.TA's project “In Between the Two”. He subsequently created “On the Way with Her”, a piece commissioned by SE.S.TA for Czech dancers. In 2003 he started his own company “Les alentours rêveurs” in the French region of Bourgogne.
Born and raised in Detroit MI, Walter Apps started his dance training at the age of four. He received his BFA from Point Park University in 2016. Immediately after graduating, he worked with Texture Contemporary Ballet. Next, Walter moved to New York to work with Yin Yue, Rubén Graciani, and Patrick O’Brien. He has had the privilege to perform works by Aszure Barton, Septime Weber, Lar Lubovitch, MADBOOTS, and Ohad Naharin, to name some. Walter has choreographed, directed, photographed, and filmed works of his own alongside his dancing career. Most recently, “Water We”, a work-in-progress take on water consumption, premiered in Atlanta at the Excuse The Art festival in 2020. Walter is currently a Dance Artist with Core Dance. / Photo: Joseph Titus
Katharina Bader graduated from the C.N.D.C. in Angers, France. She co-worked with Cunningham Studio and José Limon Foundation in New York City. She has worked with numerous contemporary dance groups among which especially Mark Morris Dance Group (since 1989) and Christine Bastin's company (since 1992) should be mentioned, the latter being a company that merges movement with theatre. It is at the Christine Bastin's that she currently teaches. Her core material is emotions, improvisation, developing strong inner energy and visual creativity. Besides Christine Bastin's company she also teaches at other groups around France and Belgium. Three times she lead a seminar of choreographic notation within SE.S.TA’s programme. She also works as assistant choreographer: in Prague she has co-worked on “Death in Venice” (directed by Yoshi Oida), a production presented at the State Opera in 2009.
Choreographer, dancer, theatre maker. He is engaged in his own authorial and interpretative work including production, acting, dance and directing. A graduate of the Duncan Centre Conservatory in Prague and a four-year study at the Theatre Academy in Amsterdam - Mime department of Hogeschool voor de Kunsten. In 2017 he completed a 5-year drama/art therapy training with a focus on the DvT method - Developmental Transformation. He is co-founder of Crewcollective z.s. He works with children focusing on movement and drama education, including in the context of drama therapy. He has been working with SE.S.TA on the creative-educational project School is Dancing for a long time.
She is a dancer and choreographer. In 1986 she founded the company LA FOLIA at the National Choreographic Centre. In her scenic work she combines dance and theatre elements. The core of her work is emotions and improvisation. Her choreographies surprise with the strength of visions and the radiation of energy. Together with her company she incited SE.S.TA to produce the first piece within the project “In Between the Two”. She has also had major influence on the career of many artists, among them Serge Ambert, Katharina Bader and Agnes Dufour.
She is a dancer of contemporary techniques with professional experience from a number of dance companies out of France. Most importantly, she was a member of the New York company of Erik Hawkins', later applying the rich experience from Hawkins' as a dance pedagogue. She regularly teaches professional dancers at the National Dance Centre (Centre National de la Danse) in Paris and Lyon, at Christiane Blaise's company, Angelin Preljocaj's company, at Universities Paris VIII and Lyon 2, at Cefedem centres in Caen an Rouen, Canaldanse. In 1966 she founded her own company Nadine Beaulieu for which she has created more than fifteen productions to date. Her company is active in the region of Normandy and is supported from the city of Rouen as well as the administration of the respective department and region. The most important benefit of Nadine Beaulieu’s is her ability to teach dancers the top-quality technical and artistic skills. Her motivation is that of combining pedagogical approach with the creative process. A number of times she came to Prague, upon an invitation from SE.S.TA's, to lead ateliers and courses of the Hawkins technique.
In addition to her career as a ballerina in the London Festival Ballet and the Royal Ballet de Wallonie, Sophie Billy has been a member of both neo-classical and contemporary dance companies. Together with Jean-Christophe Parré and Wilfred Piollet she is developing a method of functional analysis of movements which can be directly applied to dance technique and interpretation. Having the higher French degree in dance Education, the CA she currently works as a teacher for the state degree of pedagogy at the National Dance Centre (Centre National de la Danse). She is a founder of her own dance company ‘De Sidera’ and of an association of specialists in dance education for small children. She is also a specialist on music for dancers and has a degree in the Labanotation. For many years now she has been giving seminars of pedagogy to Czech teachers, together with Anka Sedláčková. Her activities in the Czech Republic are organized and mediated by SE.S.TA.
Dancer, choreographer and teacher. She focuses on contemporary dance art and improvisation, both from a creative, pedagogical and theoretical point of view. She has worked for many years in England, where she taught in the dance program of Falmouth University (anatomy in movement, choreography, contact improvisation), in Quimper, France (assistant in the choreographic center T.E.E.M. In her artistic work, she creates solos and multimedia performances in collaboration with artists from different disciplines, working on site specific and local community engagement in the artistic process. She has been working with SE.S.TA for a long time on the creative-educational project School is Dancing.
Jana Bohutínská is a freelance coach, journalist and writer (focusing on change, career, personal development, business, art and culture) and a researcher. She is an organiser of workshops and she also co-operates with Dance Career Endowment Fund. She studied theatre science and aesthetics at the Faculty of Philosophy of the Charles University in Prague. She has also attended several workshops on marketing, theatre criticism, creative writing and copywriting, as well as coach training courses.
Dominique Boivin and his group Beau Geste have been well established on the French dance scene since 1981. Dominique Boivin has been acquiring his dance experience in France with Carolyn Carlson, in 1978 he was awarded The Humour Prize in Bagnolet. Afterwards, he received a scholarship in the USA; upon his return to France he started to collaborate with Alwin Nikolais. He danced for such choreographers as Decoufle or Larrieu. Since 1981, with his company Beau Geste he has been concerned with new approaches to dance, as it was reflected for example in his using of a swimming pool in the choreography “Aqua ca rime” or heavy equipment in “Transports Exceptionnels”. He also co-works with important writers (for example Marie Niler) and choreographers (such as Pascale Houbin). In 2007, within the Prague Quadrennial, SE.S.TA invited his production “Transports Exceptionnels” and presented it in the open space at Náměstí Republiky, thus acquainting the Czech public with Boivin’s choreographic handwriting, one to be full of humorous suspense. Boivin’s work is characteristic with an intense relation to theatre, extensive and precise work with gestures and the subtle way in which he tackles serious issues. In 2010 SE.S.TA produced his piece “offline”.
He graduated at KALD DAMU (The Theatre Faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague, Department of Alternative and Puppet Theatre). As a lecturer, he gives creative workshops in the Czech Republic, Mexico, Germany a Bulgaria. Lukáš is a member of the performance assembly "Loutky bez hranic" (Puppets without borders), whom he performs puppets theatre for kids from one to hundred years old with. Furthermore, he and his peers from academy DAMU established assembly Lachende Bestien, whom home scene is the theatre Venuše ve Švehlovce for. He cooperates with the theatre Alfred ve dvoře as a lecturer of kids theatre atelier "Alfred Junior". He plays on percussions at music group VOBEZDUD.
Maria Antonieta (Toni) Bravo, originally from Mexico City and Naturalized American, has worked around the world as a dancer, educator and choreographer since 1989. She trained as a dancer in Mexico, the US, England, France and Germany. She performed in various countries before settling in Austin, Texas. Her Youth Company annually travels to Europe to perform and train, in Dublin, Berlin and Prague. Her work is based on various dance and dance/theatre approaches. And she also choreographs for Dance festivals, Theatre, and Musical Theatre productions. Part of her freelance work has been presented by Austin Shakespeare, VORTEX Repertory Theatre, UT Austin Department of Theater and Dance and Opera Departments, her own company Diverse Space Dance Theatre and other local groups in Austin. Her international connections include The Irish Youth Dance Festival, SE.S.TA in Czech Republic, SKVR in Rotterdam and ICK in Amsterdam. Bravo was full time faculty of Ballet Austin’s Academy for 26 years. She directs the “Leaps and NO Bounds’” and “Dance in the Classroom” programs in AISD schools for Ballet Austin's Education Programs. She has also recently finish designing a Contemporary Modern Dance Method titled "Kinesis Dance Lab." Since 2015 she has conducted teacher training programs in Rotterdam and Dublin. Ms Bravo "has been an exemplary force of action as a choreographer and as an arts educator in Austin for over 25 years"
Claude Brumachon is a leading French choreographer of contemporary dance. Since 1992 he has been director at the CCN in Nantes, together with the dancer Benjamin Lamarche. For his pieces created with the latter he has been awarded eight important prizes (among them Les Médicis hors les Murs). They presented the piece “Le Palais des Ventes” in Prague in 1992. He has carried out a number of projects involving foreign artists: projects that focused on the aspect of common creation – the interpersonal and intercultural encounters. He has cooperated with artists from Finland, Chile, Africa and many more countries. SE.S.TA co-produced his choreography “Le Témoin / A Witness” that featured Czech dancers and that was presented at the festival Four Days in Motion in 2003. In general, he prefers long-term cooperation which is why he often offers Czech dancers who were in his pieces in the past to join his company.
(SK/NO) Dancer, Performer, Choreographer, Pedagogue who graduated at VŠMU Bratislava, Slovakia, Dance pedagogy. Moreover she persued her education at CND Paris, danceWeb and in Wiena plus SITI Co. in Saratoga Springs (USA)and research projects and at workshops focusing on contemporary movement techniques, improvisation, contact improvisation, composition, functional analysis of dance movement, movement research, voice and somatic practices. She works on her own creations and projects. On the regular basis she collaborates with international artists e.g. K. Simon (UK), Jan KomarekWorks (CZ), Paco Decina (I/Fr), P.Nadaud (FR/CZ), AS Project (SK), F.Ramalingom (FR), AIAE, Crew Collective. She is one of the initiators and organizers of the ImproEvents Prague festival. The festival is focused on dance and thetre improvisation. She is a member of the improvisation group NAU herself. For several years Zdenka has been writing for art magazines (Vlna, Dance Zone, Salto) and working as translator for art related subjects. As co-author she cooperates on performances Fg = G [(m₁m₂)/r2] / „Dance ane physics“, „Karneval zvířat“ e.t.c.. Presently Zdenka guides interactive dance workshops for kids at studios and on schools. / Photo: Lea Girardin
began her dance career in 1979 with the Chicago Moving Company. Settled in New York in 1980, she danced for many choreographers before joining the Lar Lubovitch Dance Company in 1984. In 1989, she became a member of Susan Marshall & Company, with whom she had collaborated since 1981. From 1985-1989, she also assisted Mr. Lubovitch and Ms. Marshall in creation. Kathy Casey has danced in Europe, Asia, and North America and continues to give numerous workshops across Canada and the United States. Welcomed by Montréal Danse in 1991, she was appointed Artistic Director of the company in March 1996. A major portion of her work now is collaborating with choreographers on the dramaturgy of the works created for the company. In addition to her work with Montréal Danse, she also works as an artistic advisor with independent choreographers in the city.
Dancer of butoh and assistant to Karlotta Ikeda in the internationally renowned group ARIADONE from 1988 to 1993. In 1993 she founded her own company INCARNAT for which she has created a dozen of choreographies to date. She was awarded two prizes for her choreographic work: Mandapa and Arts Chrysalides. She organizes courses in Paris and professional trainings abroad on regular basis. She takes part in collective improvisation sessions with internationally renowned dancers. Four time already has she been involved in a project of SE.S.TA's.
Dance teacher, choreographer and dancer. A graduate of the Jaroslav Ježek Dance Conservatory, she then focused on various techniques of modern and contemporary dance (Limón, Duncan, Body Mind Centering, contact improvisation). She has long been involved in dance work with children, in which she also focuses on an intuitive approach to movement. Recently she is collaborating with SE.S.TA on the creative-educational project School is Dancing.
Alice Chauchat (FR/DE) is an acknowledged dance artist based in Berlin. Anchored in notions of collaboration and ethics of togetherness, her work is an ongoing research which takes the form of choreography, teaching, collective practices and writing. It has been presented in more than 20 countries around the world. Chauchat’s unique craft in revealing the materiality of thought and the layered reality of bodies as always simultaneously physical, intellectual, social and emotional makes her an influential artist of her generation. She has created works that resonate with audiences worldwide and has co-founded several European dance collectives (e.g., everybodystoolbox and PerformingArtsForum). She has also co-directed the centre for artistic research Les Laboratoires d’Aubervilliers and served as a visiting professor at HZT in Berlin and JLU in Giessen.
Working in the midst of performance, events, installations and computer-extended applications, she is trying to build spaces with sound and image, blurring the limits between the mind-projected spaces and those “real-existing” ones. These spaces can become a performance or an installation, be an autonomous construction like a stage design, appear intangible in sound works and animations, grab you directly and instantly as the ephemeral perceptions and experiences in workshops and walks.
is currently teaching History of Theater and Performance on Academy of Susanna Beltrami. He has worked as a communication manager in the press office at DANCEHAUSpiù, one of the four National Production Center of Dance, based in Milano. He has been carrying out audience development projects collaborating with Theaters and Festivals. In partnership with the critical review Stratagemmi - Prospettive Teatrali. He has designed and promoted, DOC – DANCE ON CRITICS, a workshop program focusing on contemporary dance and theatre writing, addressed to young dancers and university students. His research is based on “Audience development strategies for dance audiences”. Since 2017 he has been curator of the annual date, DANCE MEETINGS, a series of panel discussion and round tables focused on the organisation, distribution and promotion of dance in Italy, conducted by qualified representatives of the sector and addressed to the young generation of artists.
Nhung Dang is a Czech-Vietnamese performer and theatre-maker based in Prague. She has local and international experiences as a performer, performing with Temper Theatre in the United Kingdom and touring with the award-winning Sleepwalk Collective across the UK and Spain. Her projects question identity and look for the symbiosis of physical theatre, contemporary dance, solid visuals and poetic text. She has recently released a short film Me oi in Hanoi, and is preparing a Prague premiere of a theatre short piece Motherland.
Of Neapolitan descent, he settled in Paris in 1984 and founded his company Post-Retroguardia. In June 1987 he received the Ménagerie de Verre/Glass Menagerie Prize for his choreography “Tempi Morti”, a nostalgic and nonchalant choreography for five dancers he had created in Milan. In 1997 he was awarded at the 6th Rencontres chorégraphiques internationales de Seine-Saint-Denis for his piece “Veli”. He has created over twenty choreographies, all of them are on the repertory of prestigious theatres both in France and abroad. Decina is an exceptional artist, a master of stressing out what is hard to tackle; he is a painter of space, of vibrations and the mysterious “something in between”. Thanks to invitations from the part of SE.S.TA's, Decina has been intensifying his cooperation with Czech artists. He has also presented a number of his productions in Prague, among them “Intervalle“, “Knights without Armours” or “A Fresco of a Woman Looking Left”. His piece “Salto nel Vuoto“, created in Prague and featuring Czech dancers, was commissioned by SE.S.TA.
Farah Deen (A) is a Vienna-based dancer, teacher, and choreographer. In 2006, she co-founded the association Potpourri and afterwards the internationally renowned street dance festival Flavourama in Salzburg. From 2015–2020 she has been touring as a dancer with the company Hungry Sharks in Europe, the USA and Sri Lanka. She also performed in the works of Simon Mayer, Silke Grabinger and Amani Ramesy. Besides that, Farah is representing Austria as one of four Red Bull Dance Opinion Leaders. Highlights of 2019/20 were the co-creation of her house dance piece 4 A.M. as well as performing at Salzburger Festspiele in the opera Il trionfo del tempo e del disinganno.
is an artist based in Amsterdam. She trained in contemporary dance at the Laban Centre in London (2003–2006) and later on did her MA in Fine Arts at the Sandberg Institute in Amsterdam (2011–13). She does Fake Therapy and Political Therapy, and is one of the co-organizers of Performing Arts Forum in France, she speculates in writing with Stefano Harney, she engages in Poethical Readings with Denise Ferreira da Silva, she is part of the Oficina de Imaginação Política and one of the proponents of A (Mis)reader’s Guide to Listening. She reads and writes.
Ana Dubljevic (1980, Serbia) is a performer and author in dance, choreography and performance. She is an active member of Station- Service for contemporary dance Belgrade. She has obtained her BA in Fine Arts, University of Belgrade and MA in Choreography and Performance, studies at The Institute of Applied Theater Studies in Giessen, Germany. She worked with mentors such are Bojana Kunst, Sergej i Nikolina Pristaš, Ana Vujanović, Marten Spangberg, Marcelo Evelin, Martin Sonderkamp, Francesko Scavetta, Jonathan Borrows, Mathilde Monnier, Esther Salamon; recipient of scholarships of dance educational programs like DanceWeb and Nomad Dance Academy, was a resident of various European performing art centers, and her work was supported by numerous European artistic networks, like APAP, DNA and LLB. In her choreographic works, which are mainly collaborative authorship – Waste of time, Koreoerotikon, Only mine alone, STILL TO COME, a feminist pornscape– Ana deals with questions of artistic collaboration and is interested in exploring various ways of creating in non-hierarchical structures. Her performances were shown and awarded in various dance festivals.
Agnès Dufour is above all a dancer, performing in pieces by Christine Bastin, Charles Cré-Ange, VMT, Maïté Fossen, Odile Azagury, Erika Zueneli, brothers Ben Aïm, Christian Bourigault, Hervé Diasnas, etc. She is a certified practitioner of the Feldenkrais method: she is concerned with developing the method in relation to dance, both in terms of pedagogy and choreography. In 2010 she was invited to Prague to present “Impromptu”, her first choreography, one she has created in cooperation with Suzon Holzer. Within her stay in Prague she also lead a workshop.
Etta Ermini was born in Switzerland but lived all over Europe to study, work and for research and is living in London, UK. She holds BA in Performing Arts (INSAS Bruxelles) and a MA in European Dance Theatre Practice (TrinityLaban,London,2004) and a Mphil in Science du Language (Université de Nancy II, France 1998). She studied FLE at Université de Strasbourg and has been working as a French language instructor and lecturer in different educational settings, for example at IIEF/Université de Strasbourg, Greenwich University and Imperial College London. She has received a development grant from Chisenhale Dance Space and Goldsmith University to create and run a new format of teaching languages called Moving Words. A prize was awarded by the Thamesway project funded by Goldsmith University, Greenwich University and TrinityLaban for an outstanding project supporting the local community. Moving Words has been running in different institutions and schools since 2007 and has proved a big success with learners from all ages and backgrounds. Etta is also the artistic director of London-based Etta Ermini Dance Theatre.
Shawny Evans/Humlao is currently pursuing a Master of Fine Arts at Hollins University, and they hold a Bachelor of Arts from Kennesaw State University. They have studied with the Laban/Bartenieff Institute of Movement Studies, and is a member of the Dance Studies Association. Additionally, they have performed with Kit Modus, Full Radius Dance, Dance Canvas, Liquid Sky Entertainment, and Southern Arc Dance. / Photo: James L. Hicks
Hungarian dancer and dance critic
Irène Filiberti is an art critic and consultant (for Centre Pompidou Vidéodanse, Lux Scène Nationale de Valence, especially). She has taught at the Université Lumière Lyon II (2005/2011, in the Department of Performing Arts, specialising in dance). As member of the scientific council of the Dictionnaire de la Danse (directed by P. Le Moal, published by Larousse in 1999, new edition in 2008), she produced the special issue Bref Chaillot-Jean Vilar (2012), published Catherine Diverrès, Mémoires passantes (published jointly with L’œil d’or and CND, 2010), Dansez, dansez… (Les Solitaires Intempestifs, 2003). Alongside writing and consulting, she develops training workshops analysing shows for various venues and festivals.
an independent artist who works across a diversity of roles in performance, choreography, facilitation / teaching, dance development and producing. Bridget is currently highly involved in the development and growth of artist led for artist networks and models in both Manchester and for the North West of England. Bridget studied and worked in Australia until late 2008 when made a move to Europe and has since been based in Manchester, UK. Bridget's portfolio includes: choreographic and rehearsal director with Belarus Free Theatre, choreographer on Stellarium collaborating with leading British Astrophysicists, receiving a BeSpectACTive commission for the 'YES Move. NO Move. (Moved?)' and working as dancer and curatorial assistant on Cheryl Stock's international, project 'Accented Body'. Bridget is currently working as associate director and curator on the interdisciplinary project 'Sufi In The City' and is developing her performed and facilitated project 'The Body Of Us'.
has danced with Chamber Dance Studio (CZ), Czurda Tanztheater (D), Ultima Vez (B) and Ernesto (B). Back in Prague in 1992, she taught at Duncan Centre Conservatoire, founded & directed the Progressive European Dance Theatre Project and an international Confrontations festival (1994-2003). Together with Simone Sandroni, she founded and directed a multinational company DEJA DONNE (1997-2013), which toured in 26 countries, including Europe, Americas and Asia. As a director, specialist, choreographer, pedagogue and mentor, Flory has participated at international projects worldwide. She directed works, created scenography and costumes for the National Theatre Prague, Bavarian State Ballet Munich and National Theatre Brno. In 2013-2014 she directed Duncan Centre Conservatoire in Prague. Recently she is working as an independent manager and producer for international projects, directing the international relations at festival KoresponDance in Czech republic.
Jakub Folvarčný, poet, dramatist, director and actor in one, who lives and creates as a freelancer. Theatre performances for adults and kids, songs and compositions, scenic poems, theatre's and poem's improvisations. You could meet him at Alfred ve dvoře theatre, dance theatre Ponec and Cafe Potrvá in Prague, from czech scene Slam Poetry, from the "Střídmí klusáci v kulisách višní" band, from festival Vyšehrátky and in many other places, where he played some from his performances which exceeds genres and age gaps.
Petra Fornayová studied law at the University of Comenius and dance at the Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava and at the EDDC Düsseldorf. Except for different courses she participated regularly at the MAPA workshops (Moving academy for performing arts, Holland). She was among others dancer of the Slovak State Opera Banská Bystrica, member of Théatre du Mouvement, Paris. She performed in many dance and theatre projects of Slovak and foreign directors and choreographers (P.Groll, A. Green/USA, M.Fulkerson/USA,DE, C.Heggen/FR, M. Hawkins/GB, etc.). Since 2000, she has created her own choreographies (Deep Disorder of Epidermis, Who Is Annik?, Dimaondance, Everything I Love etc.). She participated at the festivals Tanec Praha, Festival d´ Otoňo Madrid, Mediawave Festival Györ, Bratislava in Movement, Divadelná Nitra, etc. She also teaches contact improvisation, writes for contemporary art magazine Vlna, organises dance productions in the frame of A4 – space for contemporary art in Bratislava. Since 2001, she is in charge of Contemporary Dance Association in Slovakia. In 2006, she founded and still organises international contemporary dance festival Nu Dance Fest.
Julie Fox graduated in History of Arts in Auckland (NZ) and Scenic Design in Canada at the National Theatre School and the Banff Artistic Centre. Since 1994 she has been working as an independent scenic designer, creating decor and costume designs for theatres and dance companies, among them the Canadian National Arts Centre. Since 1998 she has been cooperating exclusively with Daniel Brooks, a renowned Canadian director, mostly on adaptations of classical texts but also new pieces. She has won many awards for her work and productions with her sets have been performed at numerous international theatre festivals. Two times she won the Dora Mavor Moore Award for the best set design and was nominated for the same award a number of times. Since 2002 she has been based partly in the Czech Republic: her set designs have appeared on stage at Prague theatres Ponec and Archa. In Canada she teaches set design at the University of Concordia and at the National Theatre School. As to her cooperation with SE.S.TA, she has created set design for the production “Kronika kostí / A Chronicle of Bones” and has lectured within SE.S.TA's summer encounters.
Born in 1980, he studies Contemporary Dance at Institut del Teatre de Barcelone. As a dancer Jordi Galí works with Emilio Gutiérrez (1997-1999), Wim Vandekeybus (1999-2001), Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker (2001-2003), Lies Pawels (2004-2005) and Maguy Marin (2005-2010). Between 2011 and 2014 he becomes Associated Artist of RamDam Arts Center (Sainte-Foy-lès-Lyon). In 1998, he is awarded with the price to the Best Dancer by the Certamen Coreográfico of Madrid, and in 2005 with the honorific price to the Best Actor by Kontact International Theater Festival of Torun (Poland) for his part on the show White Star directed by Lies Pawels. Since 2001, Jordi Galí is developing his own personal work, in 2007 he founded Cie Arrangement Provisoire and became its Artistic Director. The dialog between gesture and mater is at the core of his last works : T, Ciel, Abscisse, Stance.
Inge is a choreographer, dancer, dance-pedagog and researcher based in Vienna. Her main interest is the research on the human body and its contemporary self-conception within concrete, imagined and projected environments and structures. She studied Choreography and Performance at the Institut for Applied Theatre Studies in Gießen (DE), Contemporary Dance-Pedagogy at the Konservatorium Wien University (AT) and the University for Dance and Circus in Stockholm (SE). In 2016 she received the DanceWEB-Scholarship at the international ImpulsTanzFestival in Vienna.
After having the opportunity to work with such personalities as Maurice Béjart and Carolyn Carlson, he presented his first choreography in 1978 at Bagnolet and decided to found his own company a year later. In his choreographic work he focuses on merging diverse means of artistic expression. Within the whole of his career he has been cooperating with video-artists anD filmmakers: altogether he has co-created more than 15 dance films to date. Likewise, he has always been intensely cooperating with musicians, composers and graphic artists. In 1995 he first cooperated with director Yves Beaunesne: since then he is regularly invited to cooperate on opera productions by the latter. Two important tendencies have been detectable in his creation since the very beginning: attraction to extraordinary locations and a relentless will to tell stories about human beings, whether humorously or seriously. His productions are presented in France as well as abroad: they were performed for example at the Théatre de la Ville in Paris or at the Avignon Theatre Festival. He has created over 30 productions and 14 dance videos: the latter were presented at the Video-Dance festival at Centre Pompidou (Paris), at the Barbican Centre in London and at the Masarat festival in Palestine. Jean Gaudin works for SE.S.TA as a mentor within choreographic residencies and as an expert within the Ateliers of Reading Dance. [ www.compagniejeangaudin.com ]
Kalina is a Bulgarian freelance dancer based in Sofia. She graduated in Ballet at National School of Dance Art in Sofia in 2016. Since then she is part of ATOM theatre company and has participated in various international dance projects such as Helga_Underground and Village - Lili Jungin Lee / Choreographer / South Korea / Linz, ATOM Choreographic Series#1 / Sofia / and Euroculture projects / France. /
Stefaniya is a Bulgarian choreographer and performer based in Sofia; a co-founder of ATOM theatre company. Stefaniya graduated with a BA in Puppetry at National Academy of Theatre and Film Arts, Sofia (Bulgaria). During her education she was inspired of the base concept of the puppetry - many people who breathe as one, move as one, think as one and see through the eyes of a lifeless object with a desire to bring it to life. That concept of the collective body, motion, and mind is the base of her explorations. Stefaniya's professional choreographic debut was in 2013. Since then, she has created more than 5 works which were presented in Bulgaria, Austria, Romania, Montenegro, Turkey, Macedonia, Germany, and Greece.
He graduated in dance at the Hochschule der Künste Frankfurt am Main and at the Rotterdamse Dansaccademie. From 1989 to 1992 he studied at Erick Hawkins', David Howard's and Alvin Ailley's. Later, he was engaged by the Stadttheater Münster, Stadttheater Gießen and Amanda Miller's Pretty Ugly Dance Company. His first choreographies saw the light of the day while he was dancing at the Kibbutz Contemporary Dance Company in Israel. His work toured the USA, Sweden, Israel and Southern America, gaining critical acclaim around the world. He is an author of numerous choreographies, among them an installation in Gießen,"Nachtlichter" in Bremen, "Anlage K – Eine Nacht im Finanzamt" at Haus des Reichs in Bremen and "Tanz unterm Schwanz" for the festival Norddeutsches Tanztreffen – Tanzplan Bremen in Hannover. He has also created a number of choreographies for opera productions: "Jenufa" at Nationaltheater Mannheim (2008), "Gegen die Wand" at Theater Bremen and "Macbeth“ at Nationaltheater Mannheim Opera (2009). Since 2001 he has been involved in projects with handicapped artists. Within the project "tanzbar_bremen" he has created a number of choreographies, the latest of which, "hüben" was finished in 2009. Within the project KoresponDance Europe he was chosen as a performer for Paco Decina's duet "Waiting... Waiting For... The Night???". From 2010–2011 he was a member of the Tanztheater Bremen ensemble. He worked for SE.S.TA as a mentor at a creative residency in Bremen.
is a Franco-American writer and artist. She has published reviews, books, and articles about dance for a variety of print and electronic media. Currently editor in chief of the French dance journal Repères, cahier de danse, Marisa also co-curates the International Video Dance Festival of Burgundy and teaches the Erasmus+ university summer dance program in Paris. Initially trained in classical ballet and contemporary dance techniques in the US, Marisa also studied butoh in Japan with Kazuo Ohno. She holds degrees in interdisciplinary arts, dance history, and visual studies from Goddard College (Vermont) and the Sorbonne in Paris.
Suzon Holzer is a dancer, choreographer and teacher, she has been active in all these fields on international level. She has performed in numerous productions created by a number of European choreographers. Besides her own solos, duets and trios she performed in pieces by diverse artists, among them Dominique Petite, Harry Sheppard and Renate Pook. She has created choreographies for Karin Waehner, Agnès Denis, Odile Rouquet as well as a choreographic group at the Sorbonne in Paris. She taught contemporary dance at the Dance Department at Sorbonne, Paris. To be able to fully develop her understanding of movement she got down to studying functional analysis of movement. Since 1989 she has been a certified teacher of the Matthias Alexander method: she is considered a true expert on the method in France, especially due to her extensive knowledge and sensitive approach. In 2010 she was invited to Prague to present her first choreography, “Impromptu”, one she has co-created with Agnes Dufour. Concurrently, she also led a professional training of the Alexander technique and its applications in dance.
Freddy Houndekindo, started to dance in the street exploring HipHop and ElectroDance, until he reached international dance school, as the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Lyon and the Folkwang Universität der Künste in Essen. He worked with choreographers and artists as Malou Airaudo, Anne Martin, Heiner Goebbles, Reut Shemesh, Samir Akika, Neco Çelik, Eszter Salamon, Sharon Fridman and the filmmaker Sylvia Borges. Since 2014 he is a dancer of the Urban- dance ensemble Pottporus Renegade in Bochum, and in the same time, with Juliette Adrover, Anouk Orignac and Alice Thomas he found the ensemble Agbaza. As ensemble Agbaza they are developing the " Rhizoma Method " inspired from two French philosophers: Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari. They created a concept out of the biological organization of a plant which is call " Rhizome ".
van is a Bulgarian artist who is working in the field of contemporary art, photography, video, street and social art since 2011. Ivan-Alexander initiates a couple of platforms such as Photocorps, Mobile Workshop, Factory for Urban Art, and etc. in Bulgaria. For the last two years, he did participate in international projects for urban art, social design and art interventions in Thessaloniki and Vienna. The focus of photography work is the social environment and street photography.
Talented young Czech dancer and choreographer. She has studied at several renowned dance schools in Europe (Angers, Lausanne, Madrid, Prague, Paris) and completed a master's degree in performance and choreography at the University of Paris 8. In 2018, she completed the SE.S.TA residency program, and subsequently joined the BeInternational project. She is focused to her own choreographic work and creative-educational projects in schools.
Ran Jiao is a performance artist originally from China living in Prague. Her work explores the places that are created between bodies and relationships. She approaches relationships spatially and space as relationships. Influenced by ecofeminism, she uses performance as a tool to rethink social and environmental interconnectedness. Her performative formats straddle the boundaries of movement, installation and object performance. She holds an MA from DAMU in Prague and a BA from the University of Hong Kong. She has performed at various festivals (Tanec Praha, Malá inventura, Bazaar, PQ) and is a member of the Lovable Humans collective.
She is a dancer, teacher and producer. After her studies at the French Conservatory of Dance, she graduated from the Paris Sorbonne University. She danced in various companies and toured around Europe and Japan. From the onset she combined her dance career with that of a teacher. In 1997 she moved to the Czech Republic and has been working there ever since. She regularly teaches contemporary dance and various methods of movement analysis. She has a certificate in the Feldenkrais technique and gives workshops at conservatories and universities as well as in the private sector. She also assists theatre directors and choreographers in Paris, Prague and Brno with movement analysis. Her interest is to apply the Fedenkrais method within the creative process of dance and theatre performers as well as choreographers. She analyses movement, space, sensations and the states of the body, thus enabling each individual to further hone their movement choices. She is a founder and director of SE.S.TA, the first Centre for choreographic development in the Czech republic.
Architect, she graduated in the field of Architecture and urbanism at the Technical university of Wroclaw. Since 2006 she has worked as an architect in a couple of architectural studios in Prague. In 2015 she established her own architectural studio in Prague. She focuses on the design of private as well as commercial buildings.
Studied at the Accademia Nazionale di Danza in Rome and at the Folkwang Universität der Künste in Essen, where in 2016, she attained her Master in dance pedagogy. Since her studies as a dancer, she had the possibility to work in Germany and in Italy with choreographers like Pina Baush, Samir Akika, Norbert Steinwarz, Johannes Wieland, Kuo Chu Wu, Caterina Genta, Beatrice Libonati, Paolo Fossa, Mara Tsironi and Freddy Houndekindo. Interested in the reconstruction of repertory pieces she worked with Jim May and Libby Nye on the piece "Rooms " of Anna Sokolov and "A Choreographic Offering" of José Limon. Her interest of rediscovering the old tradition of dance is accompanied by the curiosity of the exploring the development of movement and body expression in the present time and society. Bringing theatre and somatic expression in non conventional spaces is an element recurring in her artistic research and experience as in her own piece "Gebrauchsanweisung" and her solo "Istruzioni per" developed between 2012 and 2013.
Jan Komárek was born in Prague where he also graduated from publicity at the Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague (VŠUP). In 1983 he started his theatre career at a puppet theatre MIMO THEATRE in France. Later he worked in Canada for a few years: it is at this time that he was awarded the Dora Mavor Moore Prize, for direction and light design. Since 2001 he has been working in Prague as a light designer: he has created a number of pieces of his own, these were presented at theatres Alfréd ve dvoře, NoD, Ponec, Theatre 29 in Pardubice and other venues. Komárek's projects are characteristic with precise and well-defined movement, intense work with inner tension of performers and singularity of visual elements – light delimits and changes theatre space. Komárek was teaching for SE.S.TA during their summer encounters. He is also active as a photographer and light designer, mostly at SE.S.TA's professional choreographic trainings.
Sumako Koseki studied butoh dance in Japan under the guidance of Isso Miura. She then became interested in contemporary dance influenced by No and Kabuki and collaborated with Grotowsky in Italy. In 1980 she founded her own company in France, one to have appeared several times at the Avignon Festival and one to perform regularly around Europe. Koseki cooperates with numerous important theatre directors, among them Wladyslav Znorko, Philippe Adrien at La Comédie Francaise and Tabar. She is a regular guest an guest teacher at events organized by SE.S.TA. In Prague she created a production called “A Chronicle of Bones”, a piece commissioned by SE.S.TA and presented at Archa Theatre on April 13th 2004 (sets designed by Adriena Šimotová). Sumako has returned to Tokyo, she is still though in close contact with Czech, French and Japanese dance.
Cultural manager and mediator based in Budapest, Hungary. Working as project manager, programmer, coordinator, responsible for international relations and also as mentor/facilitator in both visual and performing arts. Starting her carrier in Trafó House of Contemporary House, continuing as freelancer, being involved in several theater and dance, site specific, outdoor festivals. Working as a multifaceted organizer focusing on contemporary performing arts up to nowadays. Apart from freelancing she is now responsible for international programming, residencies and sales in Bakelit Multi Art Center and independent structure in Budapest, since 2015 July.
Barbora Látalová graduated from the Duncan Centre Conservatory in 1997. She is a dancer, choreographer and teacher who is always posing new questions and who never ceases to seek answers. To enrich her education, Barbora does not hesitate to travel around the globe in search of new opportunities. She has been performing in several projects at the same time, spanning from those of international theatre company Nie of Alex Byrne, through various works by Czech choreographers, to more recent performances for children. Together with Veronika Svabova, she has choreographed performances Od začátku do konce / From the Beginning to the End, or Údolí / The Valley. Her solo piece Margharetha vypravuje / Margharetha Tells a Story was nominated for the Czech Dance Platform Award for interpretation in 2012. As a lecturer, she has taught dance at the Norwegian school for professional actors for 3 years, and at present, she runs lessons of dance education at an elementary school in Prague as part of the Dance to Schools project. Her strong commitment and interest in work with children, as well as her highly professional approach brought its fruit and the mentor Anka Sedláčková invited Barbora to the residency programme in Bratislava.
Dancer, choreographer and teacher. She graduated from the Duncan Centre Conservatory, dance pedagogy seminars at HAMU and JAMU, courses in Methodology of Children's Yoga, Methodology of Pilates. As a dancer she has participated in many dance and theatre projects presented in the Czech Republic and abroad. In collaboration with Marta Trpišovská she has created several successful choreographies. As a dance teacher she works in primary schools, kindergartens and elementary schools, she teaches TPV within the Dance for Schools project. She cooperates with the artistic association Ostružina and the children's studio of the Ponec Theatre. Since 2023 she has been cooperating with SE.S.TA on the creative-educational project School is Dancing.
is an independent performer, choreographer and facilitator. He works in areas of artist led development, arts entrepreneurship and is a board member / advisory group member for several arts organisations and is a founding Strategic Committee member of Manchester Dance Consortium. Joseph's career spans Australia, the UK & Europe and he is currently based in Manchester, England. He has performed with various Australian and UK companies, including imitating the dog, Opera Queensland, Buzz Dance Theatre, Dance North, Willi Dorner, Eleni Edipidi, Sluglow, Wendy Wallace, Jean Tally, Bridget Fiske and Barking Gecko Theatre Company. Joseph has created and performed solo works 'Staff ID 5201' and 'The Age Of Ledger'. Joseph's choreographic work includes: 'Viva…' as part of the Dance Channels multi EU country exchange project, 'Deeper Than All Roses' for the FascinatE multimedia project between the BBC, Technicolour, University of Salford and various EU partners, 'PIIGS…Italy' as a Moving Dance Forward inaugural artist, the fine art and dance collaboration 'Drawn Together. Drawn Apart' and the 2010 TURN Prize work 'Abandoned Things'. Joseph has worked on many grassroots community engagement projects and currently lectures in Dance at University of Salford.
Helge Letonja is an artistic director, dancer and choreographer. Besides these professions, he regularly acts as senior lecturer, as well as being a member of an international panel during competitions. In 1996 he founded Steptext Dance Company in Bremen (currently: Steptext Dance Project), a company for which he creates two choreographies per theatre season. Letonja is also co-founder of ´Dance Town: Bremen´, an initiative for contemporary dance in Bremen. He is responsible for its content, conceptual and programming activity, and also develops and directs the initiative. Letonja efforts to connect the regional with the national as well as to foster diversity and dynamics of contemporary dance creation.
EN - Italian dancer, choreographer and teacher who is currently based in Paris (France). An integral part of his career of an acclaimed performer and choreographer is also an intense interest in teaching and lecturing, in which he combines his extensive knowledge of physiotherapy, movement anatomy studies and variety of somatic techniques in it. At various Parisian universities he gives lectures on his findings from multidisciplinary researches with special focus on an organic body in motion.
is a graduate in Pedagogy from the Faculty of Dance of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague (HAMU). He works in the fields of pedagogy, methodology, conceptual work, publication, and research in the area of scenic dance and movement generally. He has taught at the Jaroslav Ježek conservatory (1992 – 1998), and at the Atelier of Textile Manufacturing at the University of Hradec Králové, where he led the Movement Studio from 1997 -2002. He is currently a pedagogue at the Department of Drama in Education at the Theater Faculty of Performing Arts in Prague (KVD – DAMU) since 2002, and at Dance Faculty at HAMU (since 2007). He is the creator of the projects: Esthetic Movement as a Source of Children’s’ Joy (an educational program for pedagogues in rhythm and movement education for children); Body in Motion (a training program for students of dance at HAMU): Body as Instrument (an educational program for the Center for Creative Dramatics). He has created more than ten choreographies, and published in professional journals about children’s dance pedagogy. Since 1999 he has been a Research Fellow at NIPOS-ARTAMA in scenic dance.
Having performed with a number of contemporary companies, she was engaged by the company Ris et Danceries in 1983, where for ten years she was both a contemporary dance performer and in charge of research of possible repertoire. She was assistant and co-creator at Francine Lancelot's. In 1993, Béatrice Massin founded the company Fêtes Galantes. Her work makes use of the choreographic vocabulary of the dances of the 17th and 18th centuries, in an entirely original way. Fêtes Galantes also offers pedagogical programmes with the reconstructions of plays belonging to the Baroque repertoire (in the amphitheatre of the Bastille Opera House, the Cité de la Musique of La Villette, the CND, the Bastille Opera House).In 1999, Gérard Corbiau commissioned her to create and carry out choreographies for his film Le Roi Danse (The King is Dancing). The most recent great success of Massin's and her company is the performance “Que ma joie demeure” (Let my Joy Remain), which has been performed on tour in France, Belgium, Italy, Cambodia, Syria, Thailand, Indonesia, South Korea, Egypt and Lebanon. Importantly, the production was also invited to Prague by SE.S.TA in 2006. Massin also reconstructed a mythical opera Atys. She keeps pursuing her journey of searching for the baroque in contemporary dance: this has recently been reflected in her piece “Songes, un Voyage d'Hiver”. She was also involved in the creation of a complex DVD on baroque dance. Her long-term cooperation with SE.S.TA has brought about traditional and regular pedagogical events that are mostly nurtured by Massin's interest in merging baroque and contemporary dance.
Born in the UK, regularly visits Prague as dancer for performances in the National Theatre. Herself a dancer of baroque and contemporary dance, she is also active as theatre and film actress. She participated in a range of projects by foreign choreographers and in operas. She gained her ample experience through close collaboration with the greatest personalities in baroque dance in Europe. With her current approach, she is giving baroque dance in Czech Republic an entirely new image. Her deep interest in the baroque led her to collaborate on the reconstruction of baroque operas and to create her own performances based on movement analysis and ethnochoreographic research, for example The Baroque Body Revealed, Pentimento and Vertical Horizontal. She has worked as a director, choreographer and dancer with the early music ensembles Collegium Marianum and Collegium 1704.
Jan Minařík was born in 1945 in Prague. His path to dance led through the Army Artistic Ensemble, the National Theatre in Prague and later the Janáčkovo Theatre in Brno. From Brno he left for Innsbruck and later to Pina Bausch's Tanztheater in Wuppertal where he was a soloist and co-director of the company until 2000. Béatrice Libonati often cooperated with Suzanne Linke, with Minařík they made worldwide guest appearances. During his artistic career Minařík has tried diverse dance techniques: from popular dance to classical dance and modern and contemporary dance, always standing out in all of them. He was invited by SE.S.TA to teach at the summer encounters.
Olivia Mitterhuemer (A), spoluzakladatelka kolektivu Potpourri a festivalu Flavourama, je profesionální tanečnice zaměřená na hip hop a house dance. Vrcholem uplynulé sezóny byla premiéra jejího díla Houseward Bound a účast na festivalu SOUNDANCE v Berlíně. V roce 2020 jí rakouská spolková země Salzbursko udělila Výročním grantem v oblasti múzických umění a získala první cenu v soutěži Zero Project Art Competition. Letos bude na festivalu brut Vienna uvedena její nová produkce 4 A.M.
Studies: She belongs to a generation of dance artists with one foot in modern dance and the other firmly planted in the post modern. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Dance from the University of California-Santa Barbara (dir. Rona Sande), where she worked intensively with a former assistant to Mary Wigman and Kurt Jooss, Isa Partch-Bergsohn, as well as several members of the Graham, Limon and Cunningham companies. She received a Master of Fine Arts degree in dance under the direction of Martha Myers, exploring somatic methods, improvisation and choreography. She moved to New York City in 1977. Performer and choreographer: She has performed for several artists on stage and in film, notably Mark Tompkins, Lila Greene, Stephanie Aubin, Charles Cré-Ange, and Jacques Patarozzi. She formed her company Toss in 1985. In 1993 she created with Patricia Lopez the film "Killing was Easy" (Réalis. Sylvia Callé), selected for the Festival des Assassins at the Cinémathèque de Paris. In 1995, she co-founded the collective company Les Penelopes and collaborated with the Quatuor Albrecht Knust for the re-creation of “Continuous Project Altered Daily” by Yvonne Rainer and Steve Paxton’s “Satisf’n Lover”, and later with Dominique Brun, Valeska Gert’s “La Mor” and “La Sorciere” by Mary Wigman. She currently collaborates with the sculptor Félix Perrotin on the performance series “john and jane” and on her latest solo “that was easy”. Teacher: From 1992 to 2000, she was regularly invited to teaching residencies at the European Center for New Dance Development in Arnhem. She was also frequently commissioned to work for the Centre's twin school in Dusseldorf. She has taught professional classes and workshops for several national choreographic centres and companies in Europe, as well as the Centre National de la Danse, and the Ménagerie de Verre in Paris. She has been cooperating with SE.S.TA since 2009, regularly lecturing in Prague and working on events for Czech and Slovak dancers – these are scheduled for 2012 and commissioned by SE.S.TA.
Studied contemporary dance in Conservatoire de musique et de danse de Toulouse and the modern dance at the Folkwang University in Essen. She works among others with the choreographers Malou Airaudo, Szu Wei Wu, Mark Sieczkarek and Rainer Behr. In 2017, she joins the Folkwang Tanz Studio compagny in Essen, under the artistic direction of Rodolpho Leoni. Choreography quickly kept her attention and in 2015, beside three other emerging artists, she founds the Ensemble Agbaza and together they signed several choreographic pieces which are presented in different festivals between France, Germany, Lithuania, Slovenia.
Jean-Christophe Paré graduated into the Paris Opera Ballet in 1976 and was promoted to First Soloist in 1982. For a number of years before and after 1982 he was a member of the Paris Opera’s experimental dance group Groupe de Recherche de l’Opera de Paris (GRCOP). He left the Paris Opera to work with various contemporary French choreographers, such as D. Larrieu, R. Chopinot, F. Verret, A. Degroat, and to concentrate on his own choreography (he has created more than fifteen works to date). He has worked extensively with Wilfred Piollet and Jean Guizerix, former stars of the Paris Opera Ballet who take a very progressive approach to contemporary dance creation. In addition to collaborative work as a dancer and choreographer, he also works closely with the dance analyst Odile Rouquet in the field of research in movement. He is regularly invited to teach at various conservatoires, universities and high schools in France and abroad. In 1990 he became director of the National Centre of Contemporary Dance in Angers and then inspector of dance for the French Ministry of Culture, even later then director of the National Dance School in Marseille. He introduced new curricula at universities and high schools including choreographic analysis and coaching. He is invited by SE.S.TA each year since 1999 to teach in Prague.
Born in Belgium, Pedro Pauwels studied at the Rosella Hightower Centre in Cannes. He collaborated with Dominique Bagouet, Mathilde Monnier, Petr Goss, Viola Farber, Jean-François Duroure, Bella Lewitsky. He danced with Karine Saporta – at the Caen CCN / National Centre for Choreography, then with Odile Duboc at the Belfort CCN. In November 1990 Pedro Pauwels founded his own dance company PePau, presenting his first production, “L’Insoupçonnée” in 1991. Ever since he has been producing pieces with the company on regular basis, also creating concepts for individual events. Likewise, he also runs educational and awareness-raising activities in cooperation with the French National Board of Education, concurrently teaching at the Paris CND. In 2003 and the 3 ensuing years, Pedro Pauwels turned his attention to the field of science and technology: he got to cooperate with the University in Caen and created the project “Sens I” in his laboratory at the Enghien-les-Bains Centre. In 2006 the project “Sens I” was chosen by the dance commission of the AFAA to tour around South Africa. In 2007, “Sens I” was performed in Paris, at the Festival Caire and in Carthage, Tunisia. Upon an invitation from SE.S.TA’s he presented the production in Prague in 2007 (together with the piece “Etal“) in a version that also included the so called “sense-enhancing track“ and a pedagogical training for professionals concerned with teaching children. He currently works in the French region of Limousin from which he gains support, the same as from the city of Limoges. He keeps actively developing his pedagogical activities as well as events focused on raising awareness.
Graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts, Prague, in 1999, and received Jindřich Chalupecký Award in 2003. He occasionally works as a "guest teacher," has been the curator and collaborator of Pragues 35M2 Gallery since 2007 and organises his own as well as collective exhibitions. He was one of the founders of Studio Hrdinů, a Prague theatre situated in the National Gallerys Trade Fair Palace, and remains one of its core directors and stage designers.
Wilfride Piollet is an eminent dancer of the Paris Opera and a pedagogue at the Paris State Conservatory. In her work she focuses on dancers of classical ballet and contemporary dance. She is very much active in the field of theatre and is also concerned with Labanotation. Together with Odile Rouquet she has created a revolutionary method of Functional Analysis of Dance Movement. Wilfride Piollet' s work, on the whole, returns to classical dance and incorporates in it the most recent research in dance movement. She prepares dancers to be able to work with very varied movement vocabularies, on the basis of knowledge of the fundamentals of dance movement and the knowledge of their own body. She also insists on greater independence during classes within which she connects strong dance currents, spanning many styles from Baroque to William Forsyth. This outstanding personality has accepted an invitation from SE.S.TA to come to the Czech Republic and present her vision of classical ballet as well as her application of all dance styles.
Acteur, danseur, performeur (1962/France) Après des études de théâtre avec Sidiki Bakaba, Michel Dufresne (respectivement d’inspiration Gerzy Grotowski, Tania Balachova), Il viens du théâtre dans des mises en scènes contemporaines, classiques: C.D.N Bordeaux, Scènes Nationales en France, Suisse, Luxembourg... Des pièces de J.Genet, P.Turini, Sade, Shakespeare, Beaumarchais, Goldoni... Depuis 2000, suite sa préoccupation permanente du corps dans la scène contemporaine, son besoin de danser et son questionnement sur les entrées des médiums différents dans le champ de l’art visuel il aboutit des interventions et collaborations auprès de chorégraphes et plasticiens. Il réalise aussi lui même des performances et chorégraphies. ( danse: contemporaine, buto, danse contact, danse improvisation, approche duTaïchi et yoga) Il intervient en milieu pschyatrique fermé et ouvert, danse et théâtre.
Johana Pocková (1992) graduated from the Duncan Centre Dance Conservatory in Prague, completed a six-month internship at the Peridance Capezio Centre in New York and two years at the SEAD (Salzburg Experimental Academy of Dance). She is currently devoting herself to auteur choreography. In 2017, she won the Jarmila Jeřábková Award for her choreography MURDER! A little comic book history. She has also presented the productions Why Not Now?, Na Váhu! and Full Warehouses of Emotions in recent years and the dance film Folds of Touch. Together with Sabina Bočková, she is the creator of the performance The Lion's Den, which was selected for the Czech Dance Platform 2020 and among the top 20 productions on the European platform Aerowaves 2021. Her latest work, together with Sabina Bočková and Inga Zotová-Mikshina, Treatment of Remembering, was selected for the Czech Dance Platform 2021. In 2019 she founded the dance association POCKETART, and in 2020 she won the first Dance News Award for her contribution to the dance scene. As a performer, she collaborates with the Tantehorse group and the Cirk La Putyka. / Photo: Antonin Kratochvil
Hana Polanská, dancer, performer, choreographer, dance teacher, dance journalist and a scholar who graduated from History of Art at Charles University and Choreography at the Academy of Performing Arts. In her theoretical reflections and interviews with Czech and foreign artists, she focuses on how to give art back a voice that encourages change in society. During her prosperous artistic career, she has worked as a soloist at the National Theatre and collaborated on dozens of projects with renowned choreographers and artists. She teaches at the Academy of Performing Arts, and also with children, older people or Parkinsonians. As part of her postgraduate studies at the Faculty of Physical Education and Sport, she is working on the effects of dance on the cognitive and physical abilities of the elderly.
Nira Priore Nouak is Brazilian and has been working as a dancer and dance teacher in Germany since 1987. She studied architecture in Brazil, German language and literature, philosophy and sign language in Germany. In 2009, she completed a master's degree in Contemporary Dance Education at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Frankfurt am Main (HfMDK), and in 2011, she supplemented this with training as a learning and development facilitator at the Institute for Movement and Learning Development (IBL) in Hamburg. The core of her work is senso-motoric bodywork in the context of learning development, improvisation techniques, as well as the connection of theory and practice in group process-oriented work. She teaches contemporary dance and leads various projects, such as the further education KitaTanz, dance-in-schools projects, and in 2016 the project Odyssee_21 for the Hessian State Ballet. She is also a guest lecturer at the University of Koblenz and co-founder of DAS PLATEAU, a platform for workshops in contemporary dance in Frankfurt am Main. As of this season, she is the director of dance education for the Hessisches Staatsballett.
Mish Rais is a Czech performer, dramaturg, researcher and teacher. As a performer, she cooperated with several Czech and international artists. As a guest lecturer, she has been invited to many Czech amateur and student dance and theatre festivals, professional Czech and international institutions and international festivals and conferences of various contexts (film and theatre, cultural psychology and other). As a member of CreWcollective company (since 2017), Mish Rais is involved in several projects in different roles. Her long-standing interest lies in improvisation as stage form, participative and pedagogical format (LAB4TOOLS). She studied linguistics (2011, MA), authorial creation and pedagogy (2015, MFA) and authorial acting, its theory and psychosomatics (2020, PhD.). She currently works as a pedagogue (since 2015) and as the Head of the Authorial Acting BA/MA Program (since 2020) at the Department of Authorial Creativity and Pedagogy at DAMU.
Dancer and choreographer, graduate of the Duncan Centre Conservatory. She has been working on her own work while gaining teaching experience as a Montessori teacher in kindergarten. She graduated from the Choreographer in Creative Learning educational cycle and is currently leading creative-educational projects School is Dancing and dance classes at Žďár n/S Castle.
Anne-Marie Reynaud is a teacher, dancer and choreographer. Among other things, she studied at Alvin Nikolais‘, performed in pieces by Carolyn Carlson at the Parisian Opera and co-founded the association Four Solaire. She worked as the director of The National Choreographic Centre in Nevers and later as the director of the the IPCR – the Education and Pedagogy Centre for Professional Dancers. She is currently director of the National Centre of Dance (Centre National de la Danse) in Paris, an institution which provides further training for professional dancers and teachers around France. Despite the many leading positions in management she has occupied, she has never resigned on her activities in the field of choreography and pedagogy. Anne-Marie Reynaud passed away in 2009, leaving behind her an exceptional career of a great pioneer in French contemporary dance. She was one of the first in France to support SE.S.TA from the very beginning of its existence. She also came to Prague to teach upon an invitation from SESTA’s. SESTA considers Anne-Marie its godmother.
Born in 1990, Badi Rezzak begins his artist's route in Ecole de la Villa Arson in 2010 in Nice. He will there discover the great courtyard : the italien cinema, the dance, the experimental music. He decides to see more and further and he pursued his studies in Bruxelles. There, he meets Chritophe Wavelet, critic and curator, who introduces him the art of performance. Today his work is primarily based on the investigation of his algerian origins. He collects gestures, attitudes, and catches them into sculptures, writings, performative propositions.
Serge Ricci studied classical ballet at the Rosella Hightower Centre in Cannes. As a performer he cooperated with a wide range of companies and received education in a variety of dance techniques (e.g. Alexander, Body Mind Centring) but it was the Feldenkrais technique that has become most important to him. The first production he presented as a choreographer was the duet “Les Jardins Obscurs” that was on the line-up of Hivernales d'Avignon in 1994. Later that year he founded the company Mi-Octobre for which he has created the following choreographies: Educere (1994), Retour à ses tours (1996); Phalène, phalène (1996); (1997); Champs clos Ilinx (1998); the trilogy Partiellement Effacé (2000) – Humor (2001) – Endless (2003). In Ricci' s work focus moulds the form and priority is given to corporal discourse, which moulds the space. Ricci is a great performer endowed with exceptional fantasy which he underscores with technical preciseness. Last but not least, he is also a unique teacher and as such he is regularly invited to Prague by SE.S.TA. In 2009 he came to Prague to present his productions “Cisfinitum“ and “Par Dessus Bord“.
Already as a student of music and literature, Alban Richard worked with such choreographers as Karine Saporta at CCN de Caen, Christian Bourigault, Christine Gaigg, Odile Duboc, Olga de Soto and Rosalind Crisp. After creating a few choreographies of his own, he and a few of his closest colleagues founded the group L’Ensemble l’Abrupt in 2000. He received the Young Talent in Choreography Award (Jeune Talent chorégraphique) from the SACD. He regularly creates productions for prestigious events, among them the festival Mouvements d’Automne de Paris, the festival Faits d’Hiver (Paris), les Rencontres chorégraphiques internationales de Seine-Saint-Denis, Vif du Sujet d’Avignon, l’IRCAM (Institut de Recherche et coordination acoustique / Musique), Toronto Dance Theater and Montpellier Danse. He also occasionally co-works with the National Centre of Dance in Paris (Centre national de la danse de Paris). His precise choreographic notations reveal a clear development and structure of his work in which a number of scores merge: dance score that takes into account diverse states of the body, music score including the rhythmical aspects and the score of light. He makes all of them part of one universal concept. His style is unique and very much respected, among other things also for his great knowledge of impediments in dance and his great capacity of coping with them.
Benjamin Richter (DE) is a transdisciplinary artist working from a base of juggling and dance since 1991. He works with the relationship between body, object and space in the fields of contemporary circus, sculpture and performance art. The basis and starting point of all of his work is his object-oriented practice "TLO, The Language of Objects“ with which he combines improvisation strategies and somatic practices in teaching, choreography and performance. In addition to his own performance works and choreography/coaching for other companies, e.g. Rapid Eye (DK), Andrea Salustri (ITA) and Hippana/Maleta (D/IRL), he has performed all over the world with companies such as Gandini Juggling and Cirkus Cirkör. Since 2016 he has been collaborating with Cox Ahlers and Jenny Patschovsky on site-specific processes and performances for the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation. Benjamin has taught at the circus department at SKH, Stockholm at BA, MA and PHD levels since 2003. He also runs the independent course “Artistic Development in Circus Disciplines”. Benjamin loves juggling and moving and believes the synthesis of the two art forms to be a unique abstract-expressive language positioned between dance and the visual arts.
She is dramaturg, project manager and artistic consultant of Danae Festival, a multidisciplinary project by Teatro delle Moire taking place in Milano (Italy), aiming at giving visibility to new experiences of the living arts, keen on contemporary dance, theatre and music. She began to work quite early during her studies in Philosophy and Aesthetics, when she founded and leaded for 7 years a festival interested in creating new experiences for the audience trough live arts.
Claudia Rosina studied theater, film and television studies in Cologne and Amsterdam. She was a co-organizer of Bern Dance Days, she chaired the Commission for dance and theater in Berne canton and for several years was also a project manager in the Swiss Dance Archive in Zurich and Lausanne. She lectures at many institutions and universities, including the University of Bern and Basel.
Coming from the scenic arts as a choreographer, performer, teacher and dramaturge her professional specialization is mainly the "Body-Mind Centering". Her ability to successfully lead groups and individuals has paid off in various fields. She invites notable experts such as Simone Forti, Nigel Charnok or Susan Klein to her teaching sessions. Rivca Rubin is engaged in explaining the processes and accurate reflections with enthusiasm and thus she becomes a reliable support for the artists. She belongs among one of the pioneers of artistic coaching and later also managerial coaching. She is interested in behavioral sciences, interpesonal and interdepartmenal communication and likes to interconnect individuals through art. By the means of her work she has contributed to deepening of many methods such as PNL.
Studied Ballet at the Vienna Opera School and completed her studies in Contemporary Dance at the Codarts University Rotterdam (NL). During and after her studies she performed in works by Emio Greco, Edan Gorlicki, Stephen Shropshire and Anouk van Dijk, in Europe, USA and Asia. In Vienna she collaborated with Christine Gaigg in several productions at steirischer herbst, Impulstanz, Wien Modern, Tanzquartier Wien, in Munich she collaborates with Sabine Glenz and the Munich Philhamonic Orchestra and in 2016 received a scholarship for dancers and choreographers from the State of Austria. As a Countertechnique-teacher she is invited to teach in various contexts, such Tanz die Toleranz, Tanzquartier Vienna, Tanzhaus Zürich, Codarts and Kampnagel Hamburg K3. In her own choreographic projects, she brigdes dance to other fields - spoken word, visual art and collaborates with artists in the field of experimental new music; her current work "Vestris 4.0" is supported by the city council of Vienna and shown at imagetanz festival brut wien.
Laurent Schneegans studied theatre technique in Paris. He has cooperated with renowned directors and has also gained experience in the field of lighting open-air performances. His first encounter with dance was that with Paco Decina in 1996: since then, they have been professionally collaborating on regular basis. The public had the opportunity to see his work in Prague in Autumn 2007: he came with his pieces “Salto nel Vuoto“ and “Knights without Armours“. He regularly leads workshops of theatre lighting. His work in lighting is based on close collaboration with choreographers: his lights are above all supposed to provide conditions in which the body and movement can stand out and develop. He often unwittingly includes lively colours in his lighting to help the audience enter the world of the performance more easily. He holds the view that however important light design is in a performance, it should never play the leading role. The Czech public knows Laurent Schneegans as a light designer of Paco Decina's pieces (hosted in Prague by SE.S.TA) but also as a lecturer of light design (lectures held by the Institute of Lighting Design).
In over 40 years of work in the arts, Sue Schroeder, Core Dance Artistic Director, has created more than 110 original dance works for theatres, museums, green spaces, architectural works, and water environments. Her work has appeared throughout the United States and Mexico, Israel, France, Germany, Poland, Georgia, Slovenia, Czech Republic, Iceland, United Kingdom, Sweden, Canada, Guatemala, and Hungary. Schroeder’s multidisciplinary vision has led to collaborations with influential voices in dance, music, spoken word, visual arts and design. Additionally, Schroeder is recognized as an Arts Activist and Mentor and the Founding Artistic Director of Core Dance. As a contemporary Dance Maker, Schroeder focuses on the creative process, movement research & exploration, using dance-making as a catalyst for social change. Sue has created 110+ original dance works for theatres, museums, green spaces, architectural works & water environments in the U.S. and internationally. She integrates prominent voices in dance, music, spoken word, visual arts and design, using dance to catalyst social change. She is an Arts Activist, Mentor and Founding Artistic Director of Core Dance. / Photo: Jerry Siegel
She graduated from the Dance Department of the Music and Dance Faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava (Slovakia) where she also completed her postgraduate studies in the field of contemporary dance pedagogy. Later on she has worked as a pedagogue of contemporary dance. She was selected for a residency at the EDDC Arnhem in Holland where she worked in as a guest teacher in 1999. In 1998, she danced for the Marta Renzi & The Project Company within their tour around the USA. In 2001 – 2002, she received the Fulbright Scholarship to attend the Hampshire College, MA USA. Since 1986, she has been creating her own choreographies, performing at many festivals at home, in Europe and the USA. Since 2000, she has been studying the BMC in the USA: since 2006, she is the certified Infant Developmental Movement Educator and Somatic Movement Educator in BMC® and Somatic Movement Educator. Recently she has enrolled in the BMC Practitioner program in Germany. She does research in the field of developmental movement, teaching in Slovakia, the Czech Republic and France. She regularly comes to Prague upon an invitation from SE.S.TA's to lead pedagogical trainings on teaching young children. In recent years, she has been giving these in close cooperation with Sophie Billy.
Mara Serina is an expert in communication strategies, she elaborates editorial and communication plans, develops brand identity and empowerment processes. She founded the iagostudio agency in Milan, specialising in the conception, organisation and communication of cultural events. His clients include Piccolo Teatro, Teatro degli Arcimboldi, Milan City Council. She worked for a long time as head press office for numerous festivals and from 2008 to 2017 she was artistic consultant at Fondazione Teatro Piemonte Europa for the international festival Teatro a Corte. Since 2014 she has been co-artistic director of the festival Ipercorpo where she curates the special projects Italian Performance Platform and Masterclas Internazionale Scena Europa. From 2017 to 2021 she was project manager at CLAPS, the Circuito Ministeriale della Lombardia. Since 2018 she has been curating CloseUP, an international festival of contemporary circus, dance and video. Since 2021 she has been Strategic Communication Expert at Hangar Piemonte. Training has an important value for her: she has taught at the Masters of the Catholic University of Brescia and at the School of Higher Education of the Emilia Romagna Region, she teaches at the seminars of the magazine Hystrio, with SE.S.TA centre for the promotion of dance in the Czech Republic and she is a lecturer at the Civica Scuola di Teatro Paolo Grassi where she curates the BeInternational project, winner of the Boarding Pass Plus call.
Iman (meaning faith/magnet) Siferllah-Griffin is a dance practitioner and facilitator of healing based in Atlanta, GA. She is the co-creator and member of the internationally known dance duo Al Taw’am LLC. Genres that inform her movement style are Hip Hop, Traditional West African, Dance Hall, Popping, House, Waacking, Modern, Capoeria Angola, Yoga, and other Black American vernacular dances. Iman’s current focus is harnessing her intuitive and spiritual abilities intersectionality with dance. / Photo: Awa Mally
Studied classical ballet at Teatro alla Scala Milano and Académie Classique in Montecarlo. In 1994 she was introduced to contemporary and release techniques and involved with the Olympic Contemporary Ballet, on Wayne McGregor’s choreographies in London and New York. Her opera engagements as a dancer include: Teatro alla Scala Milan, Rome Opera, Maggio Fiorentino Florence, Bunkakhan Tokyo, Teatro Lirico Cagliari, Arena Verona, Carlo Felice Genoa, Opera Bilbao, Bayerische Staatballet Munich. In 2006 she cooperated on Dance Greenhouse project in Sarajevo, a series of performing arts workshops for children from orphanage and disadvantaged Sarajevo schools. In 2012 she founded an association Pandanz and directs the international multidisciplinary festival Pillole and Vuoti Urbani in Milan. She has been a long term collaborator with the international Déjà Donné company and took over took it’s artistic direction in 2015.
Marked by four major influences (seeing Rosas at age 14, producing a post-punk show at age 15, studying with Deborah Hay at age 21, and watching for decades the TV series Law & Order), Michèle Steinwald is a Canadian, feminist, DIY, artist-centered, pseudo-forensic, embodied, community-driven, cultural organizer based in Minneapolis, USA. Michèle Steinwald is an independent curator and dance producer, and former assistant curator for the performing arts at the Walker Art Center. Since retiring as a dancer and choreographer, Steinwald has managed performing arts projects and professional development programs for On the Boards, New England Foundation for the Arts' National Dance Project, Dance/USA, and the Deborah Hay Dance Company. Steinwald is a board member of the Visual Artists Network / National Performance Network and Movement Research and is a graduate of the Institute for Curatorial Practice in Performance at Wesleyan University. She has served on panels for the National Endowment for the Arts, National Performance Network, McKnight Foundation, and United States Artists Fellowships, and has been an artist mentor for Creative Capital's Artist Retreat and Arts Midwest's ArtsLab. In 2016, she served as a Pew Fellowships panellist.
Laith Stevenson is a movement artist and published poet from rural Alabama. She attended Emory University, where she received her B.A. in Political Science and Arabic. In addition to her primary studies, she maintained an active presence in the Dance and Creative Writing programs. Here, she began her training in Ballet and Modern Dance. After graduating, she began cultivating her process into movement and choreography to facilitate insightful dialogue on identity and interpersonal relationships. She currently resides in Atlanta, Georgia, where she works with Core Dance. / Photo: Christian Meyer
Dancer, choreographer. She is one of the first graduates of the Duncan Centre Conservatory (1997). She then studied at the P.A.R.T.S. Dance Academy in Brussels and spent three years with the international dance company Déja Donné (Lenka Flory and Simone Sandroni). In 2003, she returned to the Czech Republic and began to collaborate on projects by other artists. "Nora Sopková", "Serge Ambert", "Krepsko", "Andrea Miltnerová", "Lenka Tretiagová", "Divadlo bratří Formanů" and others. She became a founding member of the dance group NANOHACH, where she worked as a dancer and choreographer. During the fourteen years of its existence she performed in twenty-five projects. In 2006, she won the Sazka Award for performance, her choreography Hechizada de Luxe was awarded The Best Contemporary Award (Russia, 2011) and was nominated for the Sazka Award 2008 in the category of discovery in dance. She currently teaches contemporary dance technique, improvisation and creation at the Duncan Centre Conservatory and collaborates with Post bellum. She is recently collaborating with SE.S.TA on the creative and educational project School of Dance.
Since 1987 Gyork Joseph Szakonyi has been involved in the creation of eight works with Josef Nadj's company. He has also co-created Catherine Diverre’s project “Le double de la bataille”. He holds a diploma in teaching contemporary dance and has taught both in France and abroad since 1995. Together with Joseph Nadj he leads the Regional Creative Workshop of the National Choreographic Centre in Orleans (CCN v Orleans). He once lead a creative workshop organized by SE.S.TA in Prague.
Atsushi Takenouchi is a Japanese soloist and performer who has improvised in the open at more than five hundred locations around Japan and abroad and has lead many workshops for a wide spectrum of social groups: artists, children, the mentally disabled, etc. In order to broaden and deepen his understanding of his work, he has been travelling around the world, coming into contact with different cultures and different types of dancers. His creations stem from the most basic forms of traditional butoh. He was involved in a butoh workshop organized by SE.S.TA. He also lead a professional training in Prague and brought his piece “Jinen“ to the Czech metropolis.
For twelve years Mariko Tanabe was a principal dancer, teacher and associate rehearsal director to the American modern dance pioneer Erick Hawkins. In 1996 she became assistant to Marie Chouinard. Currently, she is the artistic director of her company Mariko Tanabe Danse in Montréal. She has presented her choreographic work around the world including Prague, receiving a number of important awards. As a guest artist Mariko Tanabe has taught at several Universities (Germany, Canada, the USA, Austria, Mexico, the Czech Republic, etc.). Her background includes work with Japanese dance forms, Flamenco, Middle Eastern Dance, experimental theatre, the Alexander technique, yoga and the healing arts. She holds a diploma in the Body Mind Centring technique. Upon an invitation from SE.S.TA and the Duncan Centre Conservatory she came to Prague to lead a course of Body Mind Centring and its applications in dance.
After a dance education in Ballet and Contemporary dance as well as Theater, in the Conservatoire de musique et de danse de Toulouse, Alice Thomas followed a Theater and a Dance Bachelor in University (Toulouse 2 and Paris 8). In 2014, in Germany (Essen), she founded the Ensemble Agbaza with Juliette Adrover, Freddy Houndekindo and Anouk Orignac. Within this group driven by a collective mind and a knowledge pooling, she develops her artistic research feeds on theatrical, musical and plastic influences and meetings.
Choreographer and dramaturge for dance. He takes part in several projects where the divulgation of dance is at the centre: He writes articles for Dance Theatre El Mercat de les Flors in Barcelona. He collaborates as a lecturer with Choreographic platform Coreolab.eu. He is currently working on his PhD research around the poetics of Dutch choreographer Hans van Manen.
Eva Urbanová (SK/CZ) graduated from the Department of Choreography at Prague’s HAMU, and studied at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance, London. As a dancer, she has worked with Yuki Suzuki, Petra Fornayová, and Jana Stárková, among others; as a choreographer, she has worked with the Dance Conservatoire Prague, Janacek Conservatory in Ostrava and the junior dance company Bohemia Balet. In 2019, she created the work DANCE is not DEAD! for the Central European Dance Theatre in Budapest. Her work Women of Dust was chosen by the 2020 Malá Inventura festival in the "Young Blood” category. Eva’s movement vocabulary is predominately inspired by contemporary Israeli dance and physical theatre. In 2021, Eva is being supported by SE.S.TA Centre for Choreographic Development as part of the KoresponDance at Work programme. / Photo: Petr Kiška
following training at Northern School of Contemporary Dance, Laura worked with ACE dance & music, Shobana Jeyasingh, Coda Dance, Keneish Dance, Motionhouse, Rutherford Dance Company, Room 2 Manoeuvre, Aakash Odedra (Rehearsal Director). Laura currently works closely with Sonia Sabri Company & Autin Dance Theatre, Often In collaboration. She is a nationally recognised dance artist with a strong teaching reputation in the West Midlands, working regularly with DanceXchange (lead teacher contemporary and ballet). In 2013 Laura received ACE her first R&D funding for dance film project 'Angles In Life', which led to her establishing Vanhulle Dance Theatre (VDT) in 2014. Her first full full-length production 'Angles In Life' toured nationally in 2015. She created a short dance film of the same name, which continues to tour internationally to film festivals e.g. Pool 15 (Berlin), Dance Film Festival UK (London) & Dance on Film, 2018 Women in Dance Leadership Conference (New York), Jan 2018. 2016 was a year of artistic professional development for Laura: Selected to work with DV8 Company in Berlin for 2 weeks, learning the methods they use in creating dance and movement. Awarded the Choreographer strand of Choreomatch, an extension of BDN's 'Introducing'. Selected for a flying low program with Vangelis Legakis & worked with The Van- L Dance Company in Hong Kong. She was selected for the International Choreography Platform in Shanghai, performing a solo version of 'Infinite Womanhood'. In 2017 Laura undertook an R&D for 'Infinite Womanhood', funded by ACE and DanceXchange, from whom she was awarded a Residency Choreography Award. Laura was commissioned by Lighthouse (Poole), to create a site- responsive work 'Echo', now touring nationally and most recently performed at Birmingham Weekender. Laura teaches Nationally and Internationally and keeps developing new and creative ways on how to reach people. Last Project was the Young Composers project Through Birmingham City University where she worked with Young Composers through Dance and Choreography.
She is an opinion journalist writing on dance, a dance critic and a graduate of the Faculty of Arts at Charles University in Prague. She was banned from publishing under the Communist regime and could only enter the public field after the Velvet Revolution in 1989. In the 1970s and 1980s she lead a group of independent movement theatre. She publishes her articles in a number of journals and magazines. From 2000 to 2004 she was editor-in-chief of the magazine Dance Zone (Taneční Zóna) where she currently works as Senior Editor. She works for SE.S.TA as a Czech lecturer within Ateliers of Reading Dance.
Artistic director of Company Danza Flux. Dancer, choreographer and teacher of contemporary dance. He trained in Italy and abroad. He danced with international choreographers such as Teri Jeanette Weikel and Carolyn Carlson. He took part in international festivals dedicated to contemporary dance and research in Italy, France, England, Brazil, Turkey, Finland, Chile. In 2016 he was selected as choreographer by the National Academy of Dance in Rome.
Universe of Tomeo Verges is a fantastical world that is at once theatrical and physical with a note of humour. Based in Paris his company Man Drake founded in 1992 has cultivated a conception of life and dance that borrows heavily from the theater of the absurd. Understanding dance as raw, energetic, enigmatic beats based on the deepest impulses of man. Tomeo's theatrical universe is built of space and textures, or rather objects, often used in unexpected ways. His work is anchored in passions that rule our days and illuminate our nights like a watchtower. His choreography moves between true and false, jumping over boundaries. The titles of his pieces Pièce(s) détachée(s), Body Time, Idiotas and Meurtres d'intérieur, at once convey the tone of his pieces, and provide a window onto his preoccupations.Tomeo Vergés is appreciated not only for his dance pieces, but also for the workshops and events he leads for people of all ages and abilities.
Historian and writer by profession, Geneviève Vincent lectures on the history of dance and the history of arts at universities and art academies in Montpellier, Rouen, Tours, etc. Since the 1970s she has been involved in a diversity of projects that included many artists, among them Viola Farber, Susan Buirge, Mathilde Monnier, François Verrete and Marca Vincent. She performed in productions by Germen Civery, Antonio Baerh, Michèle Murray and many more. The year 2007 saw the publishing of her first novel entitled “Trop de corps” in French (Too Much of the Body). She is currently working on her second novel, “Le Murmure du sang” (Blood Whispering). In the season 2010/2011 she was assistant to Bernard Monet in his work on the pice “Des Hommes”. Her cooperation with SE.S.TA includes co-organization of Atelier of Reading Dance and co-working on European projects.
Libuše Voběrková graduated from Music faculty Academy of Academy of Performing Arts (AMU) in Prague, the calss of Professor Drahomíra Drobková. She worked for the theatre Slezské divadlo in Opava, Music theatre in Karlín, Prague, Prague Army Art Ensemble, went on tours at home and abroad. As a pedagogue she holds singing - lessons on the Faculty of Theatre at AMU in Prague. In The TAP TAP band she has a role of voice pedagogue. At the same time she co-operates with the Czech technical university chorus, where Libuše provides voice training as well as goes regullary on tours with them. As a voice adviser she collaborates with Prague National Theatre and other Prague theatres. Frequently she leads song workshops within the accreditation courses called "Summer school" for dance pedagogues at Duncan Centre Conservatory. Libuše also teaches Music lessons at the Petr Strozzi Basic school and Kindergarten in Prague.
A dancer, teacher and choreographer, she graduated from the Duncan Centre Conservatory and holds a BA in Dance Studies from HAMU. She also studied at Brighton University in Dance with Visual Arts. She was a founding member of Nanohach, where she worked from 2004-2011. She is dedicated to her own work (she received the 2nd and 3rd prize in the international choreographic competition The Jarmila Jeřábková Prize and several nominations for the Sazka Prize). She has choreographed with Nablízko and Minor theatres, and currently also with the National Theatre and the Forman Brothers Theatre. She also teaches contemporary dance and performance at the Duncan Centre Conservatoire. He has a long-standing collaboration with SE.S.TA on the creative-educational project The School of Dance and runs educational seminars for artists and teachers. He is actively involved in the development of the School of Dance Methodology.
Musicologist, organist, harpsichordist of European renown and specialist in the hammerklavier, Barbara Maria Willi has received a number of prizes as a harpsichordist and interpreter of the historical hammerklavier. She collaborates with leading artistic personalities, performing on famous podiums and is a regular guest dramaturg of the renowned international music festival Concentus Moraviae, as well as the leader of the Department of Organ and historical interpretation at the Janáček Academy of Music and Performing Arts in Brno.
Zuzana Žabková born in Slovakia and based between Frankfurt and Prague, is an artist, dancer and choreographer working in the frame of performance, video and installation. She likes thinking in permacultural ways and questioning failing utopias. She works alone and together and apart from her solo projects she likes projects that reconsider ways of valuing labour and care. In this way she has worked with Apart collective, Bjornsonova, Catalina Insignares, Fero Király, René Alejandro Huari Mateus, Laura Eva Meuris, Lucie Mičíková, Tanja Sljivar, Nik Timková or Else Tunemyr. Zuzana holds a M.A. in Visual Art Academy and B.A. in Performing Arts and Dance Academy in Bratislava in Slovakia. Currently she is following a M.A. program Choreography and performance in Institute for Applied Theatre Studies in Giessen, Germany. She is a recipient of a 2016 artist-in-residence in Triangle Arts Association, New York, and a 2016 danceWEB scholar at ImPulsTanz in Vienna under the mentorship of Tino Sehgal. In 2015 she was a recipient of a Salzburg Academy scholarship, ERSTE Stiftung, Austria, an artist in residence in Meetfactory Prague, Czech Republic. In 2014 an artist in residence in Regular Line Santa Cruz, California, U.S., 2013 an artist in residence in AQB, Budapest, Hungary, 2012 an artist in residence in Halle 14, Leipzig, Germany. She is the 2013 winner for the Essl Art Award for Slovakia within the VIG special invitation award and winner of the Oscar Cepan Award 2017 (YVAA).
Wladyslav Znorko založil ve Francii divadelní skupinu Cosmos Kolej, která měla příležitost už několikrát vystoupit v Praze. Ve Francii je znám svými divadelními kreacemi, příbuznými světu Tadeusze Kantora. Pro SE.S.TA vedl, ve spolupráci s Marií Kinsky, stáž pohybového divadla.
Roman Zotov-Mikshin was born in Tula (Russia) and since he was 17 he has lived in Prague. During his studies at Prague Duncan Centre, he learned contemporary dance, modern techniques such as Graham, Limon or Cunningham, martial arts, street dance and he took part in many choreographies as an author and dancer. Since 2015 he has entered various kinds of stages. He has worked with Nadar Rosano, Sue Schroeder, Maxim Diděnko, Lenka Flory, Michal Záhora, Mirka Eliášová, Jana Bitterová and many other artists. He cofounded Ferst Dadler company. Since 2018 he has taught improvisation, composition and other dance-related subjects at Prague Duncan Centre. He was awarded the Jarmila Jeřábková award in 2015. / Photo: Dmitry Pryakhin
Celoroční činnost SE.S.TA je podporována Ministerstvem kultury ČR, Magistrátem hlavního města Prahy a společností Veolia ČR.