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LAURENT VAN KOTE
French Ministry of Culture and Communication (F)
is currently director of dance for the French Ministry of Culture after being a dancer, choreographer, artistic director and music and dance advisor in a regional directorate of the Ministry of Culture (DRAC).
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DR. FREYA VASS-RHEE
Dramaturge (D)
did her doctorate in dance theory and history at the University of California, Riverside. After a 16-year career as a dancer, ballet master, choreographic assistant, and choreographer, she completed a study course in cognitive and linguistic science at the University of California, Los Angeles. Since 2006 she has been working as a dramaturge and production assistant with The Forsythe Company in Frankfurt and as a freelance dramaturge at, among others, the Semperoper in Dresden. From 2002 to 2005 she taught at the University of California, Riverside and St. Mary’s College of California. Since 2008 she has been a lecturer at the Frankfurt University of Music and Performing Arts (HfMDK) in the Master’s study course Contemporary Dance Pedagogy.
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LAURA VIRGILLITO
Dancer (D)
completed her dance studies at the Martha Graham Dance School in New York, where she worked with numerous choreographers. She works as a freelance dancer and lecturer with various dance companies in Germany and abroad. She danced with, among others, the Rodolpho Leonie Dance Company and the x.x.y. Theater of Geraldo Si. She is a Gyrokinesis® master trainer, Gyrotronic® trainer and pre-trainer and operates her own studio in Cologne. Her teaching combines various dance techniques with the Gyrokinesis® and Gyrotronic® System.
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ANNA VITA
Choreographer, ballet director (D)
choreographed for the first time for the Opernstudio of the Deutsche Oper am Rhein, followed by commissions for operas and operettas at, among others, the Opéra de Nice, as well as choreographies in the frame of the ‘Junge Choreographen’ for the company of the Deutsche Oper am Rhein. Since the 2004/05, she has been the ballet director at the Mainfranken Theater Würzburg. After ‘Der Welt Lohn/Carmina Burana’, she created numerous ballets in the following seasons and worked for musicals, operas and operettas there including ‘Die Rattenfalle’, ‘Romeo und Julia’, ‘Nussknacker’, ‘Electric Ladyland’, ‘Die Sieben Todsünden’, ‘Dyskolos – der Menschenfeind’, and ‘Dracula’. She has furthermore created various choreographies for, among others, the Ballett der Deutschen Oper am Rhein and the Ballett Theater Augsburg, as well as for the Oper Halle and the Theater Augsburg.
Anna Vita is the award-winner of the Würzburger Theaterpreis 2007. -
PROF. DR. RUPERT VOGEL
Lawyer (D)
is a partner of the corporate law firm Vogel & Partner in Karlsruhe and Stuttgart which is specialised in copyright law. He is a specialist lawyer for IT law and gives legal advice to creatives, users and cultural institutions regarding issues at the intersection of IT and copyright law (e.g., the ZKM Karlsruhe). He is also honorary professor at the Universität Mannheim (copyright law, French law) and managing director of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Recht und Informatik e.V.
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HORTENSIA VÖLCKERS
© Gerhard KassnerArtistic director and member of the board, German Federal Cultural Foundation (D)
was born in Buenos Aires and has been the artistic director and a member of the board of the German Federal Cultural Foundation in Halle an der Saale since 2002. With the German Federal Cultural Foundation, she has developed numerous programmes for international cultural exchange, the promotion of dance in Germany and socially relevant themes such as migration, shrinking cities or the future of labour. She studied art history and political science in Munich and New York. From 1989 to 1995 she was responsible for the concept and organisation of the Internationale Tanzbiennale München. From 1995 to 1997 she worked as a member of the artistic direction of documenta X in Kassel and then directed the Wiener Festwochen until 2001.
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DR. MARC WAGENBACH
Research and development manager, Pina Bausch Foundation (D)
studied theatre, film and television studies and classical archaeology in Bayreuth, Sydney and Cologne. His research focuses are on performance theory, rehearsal studies and global culture. He has been working for the Tanztheater Wuppertal since 1998. From 2007 onwards, he was Pina Bausch’s assistant and was responsible for the systematic care and further development of her archive. In 2009 he became the research and development manager and manager of the archive for the Pina Bausch Foundation in the frame of the project ‘Pina lädt ein. Ein Archiv als Zukunftswerkstatt’.
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HELENA WALDMANN
Dance director (D)
lives in Berlin. She studied applied theatre studies at the Universität Gießen and learned her trade under Heiner Müller, George Tabori and Gerhard Bohner, among others.
Waldmann developed her productions (including ‘GlückStück’, ‘revolver besorgen’, ‘BurkaBondage’, ‘Return to Sender – Letters from Tentland’) as a freelance choreographer, but also in cooperation with municipal and state theatres. Her pieces have toured internationally. In addition to her artistic work, she has teaching assignments and in 2012 she curated the ‘TryAngle Performing Research Laboratory’ at the tanzhaus nrw and at other European partners. -
AMIN WEBER
Digital artist (D)
studied ‘Experimental Spatial Concepts’ and ‘Electronic Image’ at the Offenbach University of Art and Design. He works as an artist and designer in the field of animation and video. Since 2011 he has been a member of the online-score team with the Motion Bank project of The Forsythe Company.
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ANJA WEBER
Dancer, psychologist, physician (D)
was trained to become a dancer at the International School of Contemporary Dance (Iwanson) in Munich. She received her M.A. in philosophy, musicology and theatre studies (thesis on Lyotard’s postmodern aesthetics) and is a qualified psychologist and physician. She worked as a biopsychological/neuroscientific assistant at the Max-Planck Institute of Psychiatry, the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität and the Technische Universität (all in Munich). She has been a dance pedagogue and choreographer since 1990. CLMA (Eurolab). Anja Weber directs the study group Neuroscience at tamed e.V. She has had several teaching posts in dance pedagogy and dance medicine/psychology and published on dance and neuroscience, dance pedagogy, dancing with youths, and dance as therapy.
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DR. CHRISTEL WEILER
Theatre scholar (D)
is based at Freie Universitaet Berlin where she also teaches at the theatre department. Since its beginnings she is associate director and program manager of the International Research Centre ‘Interweaving Performance Cultures’ where she is also responsible for the ‘tea-time-events’. She has edited a series of books and published a number of essays on contemporary theatre and performance, with a special focus on the work of the body and related methodological questions of performance analysis.
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ARND WESEMANN
Journalist (D)
studied applied theatre studies in Gießen. Since then he has been working as a freelance journalist and as editor of the magazine ‘tanz’. His latest book is ‘Immer Feste Tanzen’ (Transcript Verlag, 2008).
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KATHARINA VON WILCKE
© Bettina StößDirection Dance Congress 2013 (D)
graduated 1991 in German (theatre and medias) and Romance (Spanish) studies at the Universität Hamburg. In 1995 she founded the production office DepArtment. As project manager Katharina von Wilcke is working for different dance and theatre companies as well as for cultural events, among others Theater der Welt 1996, Expo 2000 Hannover, Dance Platform Germany 2000, ErsatzStadt at Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz, Festival Politik im Freien Theater 2002, Heimspiel 2011. Together with Sabine Gehm she was the director of Dance Congress 2006 and 2009. She is co-editor of the publications ‚Wissen in Bewegung’/’Knowledge in Motion’, published 2007 by transcript.
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REGGIE WILSON
© Antoine TempéChoreographer (USA)
a graduate of New York University, Tisch School of the Arts, founded his company, Reggie Wilson/Fist & Heel Performance Group, in 1989. He draws from the movement languages of the blues, slave and spiritual cultures of Africans in the Americas and combines them with post-modern elements and his own personal movement style to create what he calls “post-African/Neo-HooDoo Modern dances.” His work has been presented nationally and internationally in the United States Europe, and Africa. Most recently, Wilson received the 2012 Joyce Foundation Award for his new work ‘(project) Moseses Project’, premiering 2013 as well as being an inaugural Doris Duke Artist.
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CHRISTOPH WINKLER
Choreographer (D)
studied choreography at the Hochschule für Schauspielkunst Ernst Busch. From 1999 to 2006 he was artist in residence of the Tanzfabrik Berlin. In 2007 he founded the agency ‘Berlin Gogos’. He has done commissioned work for, among others, the Interface Festival, Volksoper Wien, Palindrome Nürnberg, and the Toronto Dance Theatre. He was a resident upon the invitation of the Goethe Institute in Montreal, St. Petersburg and Alexandria. In April 2011 Christoph Winkler presented a retrospective of his work. That same year, the series ‘Böse Körper’ was continued with ‘Baader – Choreografie einer Radikalisierung’ and ‘Maldoror – Amped’. In 2012 ‘Baader’ was invited to Tanzplattform and other festivals in Germany and abroad. ‘Dance! Copy! Right?’ premiered in May 2012 at the Sophiensaele with the support of the Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung.
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BRITTA WIRTHMÜLLER
© Christian HeckChoreographer (D)
studied stage dance at the Palucca Schule Dresden and received her Master of Arts in Performance Studies from the Universität Hamburg. In 2009, she was granted the NRW Tanzrecherche stipend for her artistic research ‘Körper an den Grenzen der Realität (Bodies on the Borders of Reality)’. In the cycle ‘Antibodies’ (2009 – 2012), she and Petra Zanki dealt with bodies and movements that elude everyday perception. Since 2011 she has been artistic associate in the BA study course ‘Dance, Context, Choreography’ at the Inter-University Centre for Dance Berlin.
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GABRIELE WITTMANN
Dance critic (D)
Writing about dance – this has been the key occupation of critic and scholar Gabriele Wittmann. Since 1993, she has published extensively for German Public Radio (DLF/NDR/RB/SWR) and Television (ZDF/3sat), for newspapers like the taz, magazines like Tanzdrama and the Annual Proceedings of the Society of Dance Scholars (GTF). Since 2003, she teaches Writing and Dance History at the Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst in Frankfurt/Main, where she develops the course syllabus ‘Creative Scientific Writing’. She directed the Frankfurt branch of the Tanzplan-initiated national research project dance techniques 2010.
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THOMAS WODIANKA
© Sebastian HoppeActor (D)
studied acting at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Hamburg. Afterwards he was an ensemble member of the Schauspielhaus Zürich from 2002 to 2004. He has since then been working as a freelance actor with directors such as Christiane Pohle, Falk Richter, Egill Heiðar, and Simone Aughterlony. In addition to his stage work, Thomas Wodianka played in the films ‘Snowman’s Land’ by Tomasz Thomson and ‘Lollipop Monster’ by Ziska Riemann.
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WOLF-WERNER WOLF
Dancer, body therapist (D)
completed his dance studies at the Folkwang Hochschule in Essen, Juilliard School and School of American Ballet, New York. He has 12 years of theatre practice as a dancer, trainer/coach and choreographer (among others, Wuppertaler Tanztheater, Pina Bausch; Cullberg-Ballett, Stockholm), movement analyst (Laban/Bartenieff Institute of Movement Studies, New York and Europäischer Verband für Laban/Bartenieff Bewegungsstudien) and dance therapist (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Tanztherapie). Wolf-Werner Wolf has been working with movement and dance in different areas for twenty years, both in his own studio in Düsseldorf and for various training institutes.
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NINA WOLLNY
© Sebastian HoppeDancer (D)
was born in Bremen and studied modern dance at the Rotterdam Dance Academy. After she graduated in 2002, she joined anoukvandijk dc and performed in the productions ‘Trust’ and ‘Protect Me’ by Anouk van Dijk and Falk Richter, and others. Since 2004 she has been teaching the counter-technique developed by Anouk van Dijk and contributed to the text on counter-technique in ‘Tanztechniken 2010 – Tanzplan Deutschland’. Since 2007 she has been the artistic assistant of Anouk van Dijk.