J

• JASON JACOBS

  

  Choreographer, performer, dance teacher (D)

  is a dance teacher, maker and performer. He has worked with artists including Hofesh Shechter, Johannes Wieland, Alonzo King and Dwight Rhoden. Together with Ekaterine Giorgadze, he is part of the artistic collaboration MuddyBoots. Jason’s choreographic work has been presented at Hofesh Shechter’s In Good Company 2011, tanzhaus nrw, Mousonturm, International Tanz Festival Ingolstadt, and TanzArt Ost/West. As a teacher, he uses improvisational tools to encourage awareness and cultivate an understanding of movement quality. To further improve his artistic development and refine his ability to communicate movement, Jason joined the Master’s Program Contemporary Dance Education at the Frankfurt University of Music and Performing Arts.

• JANEZ JANŠA

  Artist, writer, performer (SLO)

  is a director of interdisciplinary performances a.o. ‘We are all Marlene Dietrich for performance for soldiers in peace-keeping missions’ (with Erna Omarsdottir), ‘Pupilija, Papa Pupilo and the Pupilceks – Reconstruction’ and ‘The more of us there are, the faster we will reach our goal, Who is next?’. His work contains a strong critical and political dimension and it is focused on the relation between art and social and political context. He is the director of Maska, institute for publishing, production and education based in Ljubljana.

• FLORIAN JENETT

  Digital artist (D)

  studied “Electronic Media”, among others, at the Hochschule für Gestaltung Offenbach. He works as an artist in Frankfurt a.M. and has been teaching at various institutions of higher education since 2007. Florian Jenett has been a member of the Motion Bank team since 2010.

• PROF. DR. CLAUDIA JESCHKE

  

  Dance scholar (D)

  studied theatre and German studies in Munich. She received her PhD in 1979 and was a research associate at the Institut für Theaterwissenschaft of the Universität München from 1980 to 1990. In 1994 she became professor at the Institut für Theaterwissenschaft in Leipzig and honorary director of the Tanzarchiv Leipzig e.V. In 2000 she went as a professor of dance studies to the Hochschule für Musik in Cologne and in 2004 to the Universität Salzburg, where she directed the Derra de Moroda Dance Archives. Visiting professorships led her to various European, American and Asian universities. Claudia Jeschke also works or has worked as a dramaturge, choreographer, exhibition organiser, and (co-)author of television programmes and DVDs on dance.

• NAVTEJ SINGH JOHAR

  

  Choreographer (IND)

  one of India’s leading dancers and choreographers is also a yoga exponent and an urban activist. Trained in Bharatanatyam at the Kalakshetra, Chennai, he also studied at the Department of Performance Studies, New York University. His dance work traverses between the traditional and the contemporary and is closely informed by the sociopolitical history of Indian dance. As an urban activist his focus is upon placing the ‘body’ at the center of urban designing. Widely traveled, he has performed, lectured and conducted workshops at prestigious venues all over the world. Johar is the founder of Studio Abhyas (New Delhi), a non-profit organization dedicated to dance, yoga, humane urban design and the care of stray animals.

  abhyastrust.org

• HEATHER JURGENSEN

  

  Dancer (USA/D)

  from Carlisle, Pennsylvania, was trained at the Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet and the School of American Ballet in New York. She was an ensemble member of the New York City Ballet. She simultaneously studied at Fordham University, New York City. She then went to the Hamburg Ballett, where she became the principle soloist and created numerous pieces with John Neumeier.
  After ending her stage career, she studied culture and media management at the Culture Academy in Riga. She is deputy ballet director at Ballett Kiel, member of the board of trustees of Stiftung Tanz Transition Zentrum Deutschland, and mother.

• KRÕÕT JUURAK

  © Krõõt Juurak

  Choreographer, performer (EE/NL)

  was born in Tallinn, Estonia and now lives in Amsterdam, Netherlands. She is a choreographer and performer whose work (performances, presentations, texts, workshops, mood shifts) tends to fall out of fixed definitions of choreography and performance. Juurak studied choreography at ArtEz Institute of the Arts, Arnhem, where she graduated 2003. Currently she is obtaining an MA in Fine Arts from Sandberg Institute, Amsterdam. She has presented her work in a variety of forms at venues including Mindaugas Triennial (CAC), Vilnius (2012); Impulstanz Vienna (2012); de Appel Boys School, Amsterdam (2012); Künstlerhaus Büchsenhausen, Innsbruck (2010); Kampnagel, Hamburg (2010); Tallinn Art Hall (2009); deSingel, Antwerp (2008) among numerous others.

K

• ERIK KAIEL

  Choreographer (USA/NL)

  has been making dances for many years. In subway stations, sculpture gardens, empty swimming pools, city streets, as well as for the stage. In 2003, after a decade in New York City, he moved to the Netherlands. He performs, choreographs and teaches throughout Netherlands, Europe, and the world. In the last few years, he has built a number of performances with young people. He also taught and built public space performances with local dancers in Benin, Senegal, Utrecht & the Hague. He is the artistic director of Crosstown Den Haag, a choreographic fellow at Danslab, and a faculty member at the Artez Dance Academy in Arnhem. Recent projects include ‘O Snap’ (a co-production with tanzhaus NRW/Het Lab), a cross-border collaborative work with Dutch and Belgian youth.

• BARBARA KAUFMANN

  

  Dancer (D)

  made guest appearances at the Tanztheater Wuppertal from 1985 onwards and has been dancing since 1987 as a permanently employed ensemble member in many repertory pieces and new productions of Pina Bausch. Since 2003 her tasks have been expanded to include restudies and rehearsal directing and, since 2005, working as an assistant for various repertory pieces. In 2008 she began her activities in the area of archiving, which since 2009 has led to collaborating with the Pina Bausch Foundation.

• ANNE TERESA DE KEERSMAEKER

  Choreographer (B)

  After studying at the Mudra Dance School in Brussels and the Tisch School of the Arts in New York, Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker created ‘Asch’ (1980), her first choreographic work. 1982 saw the premiere of ‘Fase’, four movements to the music of Steve Reich, one of the most influential pieces of choreography of the era. In 1983 De Keersmaeker set up her Rosas company while creating the work ‘Rosas danst Rosas’. Focussing on the relationship between dance and music, she has used the music of composers from several periods. While Rosas was resident at La Monnaie (1992 – 2007), De Keersmaeker directed a number of operas. The relationship between dance and words is another thread running through her work. Her recent productions have been characterised by cooperation with visual artists. In 1995 she established the P.A.R.T.S. dance school in association with La Monnaie.

  rosas.be

• JOHANNA KEINÄNEN

  

  Choreographer, dancer, comedy artist (FI)

  received her Master of Arts in Dance from the Finnish Theatre Academy in 2000. She worked from 1991 to 2006 as a dancer, choreographer, performer at the Dance Theatre Minimi, Kuopio, Finland. She has written and directed various forms of dance theatre and physical theatre. Johanna Keinänen loves to combine dance and comedy. Her stand up-comedy performances tend to become flat back-comedy or lay out-comedy performances that salute the art of dance and the artists who make it happen with all the honor and respect they deserve.

  johannakeinanen.com

• DAVID KERN

  © Dominik Mentzos

  Dancer (D)

  has been a dancer and choreographer since about 1980, a computer programmer since about 1974, a songwriter since about 1965. He started working with William Forsythe in 1986. He’s still doing all the above mentioned activities.

• ANNE KERSTING

  

  Dramaturge (D)

  studied art history in Bochum and applied theatre studies in Gießen. Up until 2011, she worked as a curator for field of dance and live art at Kampnagel in Hamburg. With Jochen Roller she developed the Live Art festival, which was initiated in 2009, and curated the first three editions. She worked as project coordinator and dramaturge for the Dance Congress 2009 in Hamburg, and together with Anne Goalard/Paris she founded the Netzwerk junger europäischer Zuschauer. As a freelance dramaturge, Anne Kersting has been working for years with, among others, Antje Pfundtner and Jenny Beyer. She teaches dance dramaturgy as a lecturer at the Freie Universität Berlin and the Theaterakademie Hamburg.

• MARTINA KESSEL

  

  Project coordinator, tanzhaus NRW (D)

  studied dance and dance pedagogy at the Rotterdamse Dansacademie and the Folkwang-Hochschule Essen as well as ethnology, Islamic studies and pedagogy at the Universität Köln. She then had posts in teaching and special research at the universities of Göttingen and Cologne. Since 2003 she has been working at the tanzhaus nrw, where she directs the junge tanzhaus and the cross-institutional project ‘Take-off: Junger Tanz’ (formerly Tanzplan Düsseldorf). She is a founding member of the Bundesverband Tanz in Schulen e.V., she has been on its board since 2007 and its chairwoman since 2009.

• UH-YOUNG KIM

  Uh-Young Kim has been active in pop culture for more than 20 years ss a DJ, author and curator. The native of Cologne was the first German-Korean rapper and at the beginning of the 1990s he founded the S.O.M.A Festival. From 1998 to 2002 he worked as an editor for Spex magazine. Uh-Young Kim works as a journalist for, among others, Spiegel Online, taz, Deutschlandradio and Funkhaus Europa. For the Goethe Institute he curated the worldwide travelling exhibition “musik plus x” on pop culture in Germany as well as events in Seoul, South Korea. Uh-Young Kim is currently dealing with the globalisation of local rhythms in Weltmusik 2.0 and with hybrid dance music between 80 and 160 bpm.

• PROF. BARBARA KISSELER

  © Fabricius

  Senator of Culture Affairs, Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg (D)

  studied theatre, film and television studies, German studies and pedagogy at the Albertus-Magnus-Universität Köln. From 1977 to 1978 Barbara Kisseler worked at the Deutschlandfunk and WDR radio stations and as a research associate at the Carl-Duisberg-Gesellschaft. From 1978 to 1981 she was a research associate at the Department of Cultural Affairs of the City of Bonn. She was head of the Department of Cultural Affairs of the City of Hilden from 1982 to 1986 and of the state capital of Düsseldorf from 1986 to 1993. In Hannover, Kisseler was head of the Department of Cultural Affairs of Lower Saxony’s Ministry of Science and Culture from 1993 to 2003. In Berlin, she was State Secretary for Cultural Affairs in the Senatsverwaltung für Wissenschaft, Forschung und Kultur from 2003 to 2006, and afterwards until 2011 head of the Senate Chancellery. She has been Senator of Cultural Affairs in Hamburg since March 2011.

• PROF. DR. GABRIELE KLEIN

  Dance scholar, sociologist (D)

  is professor at the Universität Hamburg and director of its Zentrum für Performance Studies. In 1990 she received her PhD in social science and habilitated in sociology in 1998. Her fields of work and research are the cultural and social theory of bodies and movement, the theory of dance and performance, the cultural and social history of dance, urban movement cultures and popular dance cultures, youth and pop theory, as well as gender studies. Her most recent publications include: ‘Dance [and] Theory’ (2013 with Gabriele Brandstetter), ‘Emerging Bodies. The Performance of Worldmaking in Dance and Choreography’ (2011 with Sandra Noeth), ‘Choreografischer Baukasten’ ed. by Gabriele Klein (2011 with Gitta Barthel and Esther Wagner), ‘Tango in Translation. Tanz zwischen Medien, Kulturen, Kunst und Politik’ (2009).

  performance.uni-hamburg.de

• KATARINA KLEINSCHMIDT

  

  Dance scholar, dancer (D)

  studied dance at the Frankfurt University of Music and Performing Arts and dance studies at the Freie Universität Berlin. She has worked with choreographers such as Josè Biondi, Dieter Heitkamp, Martin Nachbar, and companies including Ensemble9.November, ms-tanzwerk and Theater der Klänge. As a dramaturge she worked for the productions ‘Tremor’ and ‘wallen’ by Sebastian Matthias. Since 2010 she has been associate researcher at the Hochschule für Musik und Tanz Köln and is currently doing her doctorate on knowledge forms of contemporary choreography.

• PROF. DR. ANTJE KLINGE

  Sports scholar (D)

  The main focus of the professor of sports pedagogy and sports didactics at the faculty of sports science of the Ruhr-Universität Bochum is on the exploration of learning and educational processes in the mediums of body, movement, sports, and dance. She is a founding member and a member of the board of the Bundesverband Tanz in Schulen e.V. Her current project is dedicated to the development and implementation of a profile titled “Cultural Education” as an offer in the frame of training teachers at the Ruhr-Universität Bochum.

• KOFFI KÔKÔ

  Choreographer (F/BJ)

  The dancer, choreographer and voodoo priest Koffi Kôkô, who lives in Benin and France, counts as one of the most important co-founders of the modern African dance scene. Kôkô created a dance style whose ritual characteristics became the basis of the reception and re-creation of modern dance and theatre culture. He was the curator and together with Johannes Odenthal the artistic director of the festival ‘In Transit’ (HKW, Berlin). With Ismael Ivo he choreographed and danced the piece ‘Die Zofen’ under the direction of Yoshi Oida. Koffi Kôkô’s most important works include ‘Passage’, ‘D‘une rive à l’autre’, ‘Terre rougeâtre’, ‘Ça’, and ‘Les feuilles qui résistent au vent’, as well as his latest solo piece ‘La Beauté du Diable’. Koffi Kôkô has been working for some time on establishing a choreographic centre in Benin/Ouidah.

• HENRIKE KOLLMAR

  Dramaturge (D)

  After being trained as a dance and movement pedagogue, Kollmar studied theatre, film and television studies as well as German studies at the Albertus Magnus Universität Köln. As a freelance writer, editor and assistant director, she has worked for the radio stations Westdeutsche Rundfunk and Deutsche Welle, and was a freelancer for ballet/tanz international, tanzdrama and the deutsche Tanzarchiv Köln. With Madeline Ritter and others, she founded tanzperformance köln and teaches as a lecturer for contemporary dance at the Hochschule für Musik und Tanz Köln. As a dramaturge at the tanzhaus nrw, she curates thematic programmes and residence programmes, assists productions and develops lab projects and conference formats.

• PROF. DR. KLAUS-PETER KÖPPING

  

  Anthropologist (D)

  received his doctorate in social anthropology (ethnology) on millenarian and nativistic religious movements in modern Japan based on field research between 1966 – 1969. From 1969 – 1972, he was appointed to a Associate Professorship in Fullerton, California; in 1972, Senior Lecturer and Reader at the University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia; from 1984 – 1991, Foundation Chair (Baldwin Spencer Chair of Anthropology) at the University of Melbourne, Australia. In 1991, appointed professor at the Institute of Ethnology, University of Heidelberg, Germany (emeritus since 2005). Guest-Professorships in Japan at Sophia and Nagoya City Universities, ANU Research School of Pacific Studies, Canberra, Australia, and in the Philippines. Visiting Professor at Goldsmiths College, London, (2005 – 2007). Currently he is Senior Advisor at the International Research Center ‘Interweaving Performance Cultures’.

• EVA-MARIA KRAFT

  

  Dance pedagogue, nutrition trainer, dancer (AT)

  studied pedagogy of contemporary dance at the Konservatorium Wien PU and completed her studies to become a nutrition trainer. Since 2002 she has been teaching contemporary dance, contemporary ballet and Chladek® technique in the field of education and to laypersons. Eva-Maria Kraft holds seminars and lectures on the theme of ‘nutrition in dance’ in Austria and abroad. In 2010 she wrote the information leaflet ‘Gesund essen’ for Tanzmedizin Deutschland e. V. and has been a member of the team of lecturers of the study course ‘Zertifikat für Tanzmedizin’ since 2012. Eva-Maria Kraft is the chairwoman of the Österreichische Berufsvereinigung für Zeitgenössische Tanzpädagogik and director of the studio and the association salon emmer in Vienna.

  tanzpaedagogik.at, salonemmer.at

• PAULA KRAMER

  

  Dancer (D/UK)

  is an outdoor practitioner-researcher, who performs, teaches and researches in remote rural as well as urban sites. She has a background in political science and is currently completing her PhD in Dance at Coventry University, UK, where she is editorial assistant of the Journal of Dance and Somatic Practices and actively involved in research and teaching.

  paulakramer.de

• DR. HANS-GEORG KÜPPERS

  Cultural advisor (D)

  studied German studies, philosophy and pedagogy in Bonn. From 1989 to 1996 he was the head of the cultural office of the City of Mülheim an der Ruhr, from 1997 to 1998 head of the department for regional cultural policies at the Ministerium für Stadtentwicklung, Kultur und Sport des Landes Nordrhein-Westfalen, and from 1998 to 2007 department head of culture, education and science of the City of Bochum. Dr. Hans-Georg Küppers has been the cultural advisor of the State Capital of Munich since July 2007 and chairman of the Culture Committee of the German Bundestag since October 2008.

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• TIMMY DE LAET

  

  Dance scholar (B)

  is a PhD candidate at the University of Antwerp, member of the Research Centre for Visual Poetics, and fellow of the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO). He is currently preparing his doctoral dissertation, entitled ‘Re-inventing the Past. Re-enactment in Contemporary Dance and Performance Art.’ In 2011 he was awarded the Routledge Prize for excellent research paper at postgraduate level at the PSi#17 conference in Utrecht.

• ADRIAN LAHOUD

  Architect, urban designer, researcher (UK)

  Through private practice, teaching and research, he explores the disputed, conflicting and often paradoxical transformations of cities. His architectural work has been featured in the Wall Street Journal and USA Today. In 2011, his work was exhibited at the Prague Quadrennial, Gwangju Design Biennale Seoul curated by Ai Weiwei. His current theoretical research work explores the problem of scale and complexity in architecture and the city. Currently, he is a Lecturer at Centre for Research Architecture, Goldsmiths, University of London.

• ANUSHA LALL

  Choreographer, dancer (IND)

  works in the field of classical and contemporary performance in New Delhi. Her education began with the classical form of Bharatanatyam under Guru Leela Samson. After performing classical repertoire, she joined the company of Shobana Jeyasingh and studied at London Contemporary Dance School. She returned to India in 2003, co-directing a research project on Bharatanatyam in Bangalore, where she helped to set up the first Diploma Program for Contemporary Dance in the country. In New Delhi, she has co-devised structures to facilitate training and support for dancers. Her choreography ‘Tilt’ is currently on tour. 

• GUDRUN LANGE

  

  Choreographer (D)

  studied modern dance in Rotterdam and New York. She lives in Düsseldorf and works as a freelance choreographer and performer. Her works deal with the perception of (body) systems and their social context. She manoeuvres in the field of tension between individuality and cliché, autonomy and system-orientation, actual presence and determination through the media. Among others, she received the Förderpreis of the Künstlerinnenpreis Nordrhein-Westfalen and a choreographer’s grant from the Kunststiftung NRW. In the next three years she will receive the promotion of excellence dance from the federal state of NRW.

• JOANNE LEIGHTON

  © Laurent Philippe

  Choreographer (F)

  is director of the National Choreographic Center of France-Comté in Belfort since May 2010. Joanne Leighton has made more than twenty choreographic works, including pieces such as ‘Display/Copy Only’ (2004); ‘Made in Taiwan’ (2004); the site-specific ‘Made in...’ series (from 2010 editions in Strasbourg, Oldenburg, Metz, and Vesoul); and ‘Exquisite Corpse’ (2012). During 2010 Joanne was associate choreographer at the Pole Sud theatre in Strasbourg, as well as choreographer in residence at the Scène Nationale of Orléans. From 2011 to 2014, Joanne Leighton is associate choreographer at the Rive Gauche in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray. Her new work ‘Un Solo’ will premiere in Belfort in March, 2013.

  ccnfc-belfort.org

• PROF. DR. ANDRÉ LEPECKI

  Dance scholar (USA)

  is Associate Professor in the Department of Performance Studies, New York University. He is author of ‘Exhausting Dance: performance and the politics of movement’ (Routledge 2006) and editor of several anthologies on dance and performance theory. André Lepecki curated the ‘In Transit’ festival at Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin (2008 and 2009) and was co-curator with Stephanie Rosenthal of the Digital Archive on Dance and Visual Arts since 1960s for the exhibition ‘Move’, Hayward Gallery (2010). He was a research fellow at the International Research Center ‘Interweaving Performance Cultures’ at Freie Universität Berlin (2009), and visiting scholar at MoMA for the ‘Contemporary and Modern Art Perspectives (C-MAP) in a Global Age: A Program for Research at The Museum of Modern Art’ (2011). 

• JOANNA LEŚNIEROWSKA

  © Agnieszka Szenrok

  Curator, dramaturge, critic (PL)

  was the first regular professional dance writer for ‘Didaskalia’ magazine, one of Poland’s leading theater journals. She has also written on Polish dance in ‘Theater der Zeit’ (Germany), ‘Dance Today’ (Israel), and ‘Dance Zone’ (Czech Republic); she contributed the chapter on dance theatre to the ‘Dictionary of Theatre Terms’ (Bielsko-Biała, 2006).

  In 2004, Leśnierowska established and runs the dance program ‘Old Brewery New Dance’ based at Stary Browar Art Center in Poznań. Since 2009 she is giving lectures on dance and new choreography at Poznań’s Adam Mickiewicz University. Since 2011 Leśnierowska is a member of Artistic Board of Music and Dance Institute in Warsaw.

  starybrowarnowytaniec.pl

• KEREN LEVI

  Choreographer (NL)

  born in Israel, Levi today lives and works in the Netherlands. She has built an international profile since 2004, as a choreographer with a body of work performed in over 20 countries including the pieces ‘Territory’ (2004) and ‘Couple-Like’ (2006 in collaboration with Ugo Dehaes). In the past couple of years Levi has been touring with ‘Big Mouth’ (2009, made and performed together with Oren Laor and Niv Sheinfeld) and ‘Couple-Like # 2’ (also in collaboration with Dehaes – a new version for youngsters and a winner of a Silver Cricket award for 2011). She teaches dance, body-work and choreography in the School for New Dance Development (SNDO) and the Modern Dance Department in the School for Performing Arts Amsterdam (AHK), as well as in festivals, training programs and companies across Europe.

• LIGNA

  (D)

  The artists’ collective was founded in 1997. It consists of the media theorists, radio, theatre and performance artists Ole Frahm, Michael Hueners and Torsten Michaelsen. In shows, performative interventions and installations, the group examines the significance of dispersal in and of radio. It develops models of using the radio in different, performative ways, e.g., the radio ballet, and with its theatre and performance works expands the role of the recipient in the theatre and in public space. Since 2002, Ligna has been regularly working with the format of performative radio plays: Movements and actions that each individual participant would not perform become possible in dispersed yet joint listening to the radio.

  ligna.blogspot.com

• FAUSTIN LINYEKULA

  © Agathe Poupeney

  Choreographer (CGO/F)

  works between Kisangani, where he lives today, in the northeast of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kinshasa, Paris, and the rest of the world. In 1997 he founded the first company of contemporary dance in Kenya, the company Gàara. In June 2001 after his return to Zaire, Faustin set up the Kabako Studios, a place devoted to dance and visual theater. His latest works include ‘La Fratrie Errante’, performed in Paris and Limoges (2007), and in seven cities in Central Africa (2008), ‘Bérénice’ (2009) by Jean Racine, ‘Pour en Finir avec Bérénice’ (2009), ‘more more more...future’ (2009). In 2009 he performed together with Raimund Hoghe the duet, ‘Sans-titre’. His new piece ‘Drums and Diging’ will premiere in June 2013 in Kinshasa.

  kabako.org

• GREGORY LIVINGSTON

  

  Dancer, choreographer (USA/D)

  received his Bachelor of Fine Arts from State University of New York Purchase College and is a guest artist with the Limón Dance Company. Since 1994 he has been performing & collaborating in Germany & internationally with Roberto Galvan, Rui Horta, Jean Renshaw, JosephTmim, Tanzlabor_21, K3, the Limón School, The Royal Swedish Ballet School, Balettakademien Stockholm, Folkhögskola Härnösand, Codarts, Korean National University of Arts & New York Institute of Dance & Education. He is presently attending the Frankfurt University of Music and Performing Arts for his Masters in Contemporary Dance Education and continues to guide dancers to reach their goals.