Jana Ressel (Leipzig)

Vita Jana Ressel

Jana Ressel studied violin, classic and modern dance, pedagogy as well as choreography in Lübeck, at the Palucca Schule Dresden and at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater „Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy“ in Leipzig. Study visits brought her to New York and Vienna/Wien. Amongst others, she danced with the Tanztheater Lübeck, as a guest with the Theater Erfurt, and the Modern Dance Company M. Kusumie Frankfurt/Main.
In 2000 she founded the dance theatre company “Orbis Pictus” in Weimar for which she created her first choreographies as well as choreographies commissioned by the children’s choir of the Oper Leipzig and the Festival für Zeitgenössische Musik (festival of contemporary music) in Würzburg. She produced projects for the LOFFT and the Schaubühne in Leipzig, the Tanzherbst and the Tanzwoche in Dresden, the Ballet Kiel, and the city of Leipzig to mark the Schumann Year in 2006.
A grant of the Kulturstiftung (cultural foundation) of the Dresdner Bank helped her to realize the German-Israeli dance project “LOOPS” in Tel Aviv.
Jana Ressel works as an independent choreographer, she teaches dance at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater „Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy“ in Leipzig and holds workshops in Weimar, Stuttgart and Tel Aviv.

Verbum (working title)

by Jana Ressel
Music: Hartmuth Dorschner
Stage design: Till Exit
Dancers: Bettina Stieler, Silke Neumann, Sonia Castellanos, Giacomo Corvaia

Based on images of M.C. Escher Jana Ressel wants to explore formal principles of dance, music, and stage design within a kind of laboratory. At first the working process will be investigated in relation to mutual adaptable formal elements in dance, music and stage design and then according to one or various drawings by Escher the working process separates out mutual formal principles. It is about continuously returning processes in different situations which seem identical, but the first impression is wrong. Our perception of movement, expression and situation is multi-stable, our senses can be tricked.

Jana Ressel wants to work towards a bigger project with several performances in Leipzig.

Ben J. Riepe (Düsseldorf)

Vita Ben J. Riepe

Ben J. Riepe studied dance and choreography at the Folkwang Hochschule, Essen. He worked at Neuer Tanz, Düsseldorf and was a guest-dancer in the Ensemble of Pina Bausch at the Tanztheater Wuppertal. While still a post-graduate student of choreography he came to public notice with his first productions.
In addition to that he taught classes and workshops both in Germany and internationally. The Company Ben J. Riepe exists since 2004 and has already performed four full-length productions. On behalf of the Goethe-Institut he tutors a contemporary dance production with Malay artists in Kuala Lumpur in Autumn 2007.
With „Happy End – dealing night again“ he was chosen by Tanzproduzenten-Konferenz-NRW for the first Tanzplattform NRW „tanz nrw 07“.

LIEBE, TOD UND TEUFEL (Love, death and devil)

- Aktion: üben Schönheit zu sehen (- Action: practicing to recognise beauty)

Choreography: Ben J. Riepe
Dancers: Fa Hsuan Chen, Evgeny Pankratov, Julian Stierle
Music: Alex Aleves Tolkmitt
Costume design: Anna Kleihues
Light desgin: Dimitar Evtimov.
Others: Jan Riepe, Linda Nordström
www.benjriepe.com

Bild 3: Liebe, Sex und Eitelkeit (Image 3: Love, Sex and vanity)
In the third image of his five part series LIEBE, TOD UND TEUFEL Ben J. Riepe detects the first concept of his triune title. After the death conspiracy in the surreal chase room (Image 1) and an encounter with the devil in the black room (Image 2) the third image shows the abysses and profanities of love. The subtitle of the series “Action: practicing to recognize beauty” describes the agenda: the production summons up powerful images, daringly looks at our great passions and twinkles evilly at love between vanity and sexuality. Searching for new artistic ways of expression these five images of the series are created in short and intense processes.

The production was premiered at the Internationale Tanzmesse Dusseldorf (27 – 30/08/2008).

Massimo Gerardi (Köln)

Vita Massimo Gerardi

Massimo Gerardi started his dance education in Udine and in Reggio Emilia. Following this he had his first professional engagements in Italy with the Balletto Comunale di Firenze, the Teatro la Fenice di Venezia, the ATERballetto, the Balletto di Venezia, and later on in Germany with the Stadttheater Augsburg. He subsequently performed as solo dancer with the Ballet Nürnberg, the Ballett Dortmund, the Landestheater Linz and the Staatstheater Oldenburg. He danced pieces by various renowned choreographers including Birgit Cullberg, William Forsythe, Rui Horta, Amanda Miller, Jacopo Godani, Jean Renshaw, Robert Poole, Martin Stiefermann, Jenny Coogan, Gregor Zöllig, Antonio Gomes, David Sutherland, Amedeo Amodio, et al.
In 2000 he received a choreography grant from the Kunststiftung NRW (Cultural Foundation of North-Rhine-Westphalia) allowing him to gain work experience at the Nederlands Dans Theater, the Icelandic Ballet, the Göteborg Balletten and the Komische Oper Berlin.
He currently works as a guest choreographer, rehearsal coach (for ballet and contemporary dance) and as assistant choreographer at various theatres. Since 2003 he together with Emanuele Suavi runs the dance department of the independent dance and theatre collective "movingtheatre.de" in Cologne/Köln. In 2006 he was awarded the Tanztheaterpreis (dance theatre price) for his choreography “Pop Eye”.

CLUBBING (working title)

by Massimo Gerardi
Dancers: Florian Bücking, Irene Schröder, Anne Jung, Romani Guion, Carsten Keller

The club is an open institution where people who understand music and the club as more than a recreational pleasure detached from reality, meet. A room for debate where different contemporary movements meet and absorb each other. Participation, the necessary contact, dancing, expression ascend to connoisseurship where exchange of knowledge and knowing about delicate details is as important as the actual gathering along with the appropriate music. Within this context Massimo Gerardi wants to conceive an artistic study of clubbing in the shape of a dance theatre piece. On one hand the visitors are the audience but then they become active players as they have the possibility to step onto the stage and be in the middle of it and become part of the piece: in that way a situation as it happens in a club will be created. The participating dancers may interact with the audience. In doing so, the progress of the piece will always be different. At the same time the choreographic structure will remain the same.

One part of this production was created during the Creative Residency in Dresden, another part in Cologne where this piece will be premiered in November this year.

Christine Peters (Frankfurt)

Vita Christine Peters

Christine Peters is a freelance curator. She lives and works in Frankfurt/Main.
Ms. Peters studied theatre, English and French literature in Giessen, Dublin and Frankfurt/Main.
From 1992-98 she was project director and personal assistant to the general director at Künstlerhaus Mousonturm, Frankfurt/Main, an international and interdisciplinary centre for contemporary arts.
There she worked as Artistic Director from 1998-2003, presenting a year round programme dedicated to international and interdisciplinary arts.
She initiated, curated, published, presented and produced numerous network and thematic projects and symposiums in a European context concerning the dialogue between art theory and practice, such as „Vision Future 1-3“, "Plateaux - platform for young emerging arts", "European Production Centres – Crossing Borders in Theatre“, "Portrait", „International Summer Academy 1-4“ , etc.

Since 2004 she works as freelance curator, e.g. for: Festival Tanz & Theater Hannover, 2004, Festival Theater der Welt, Stuttgart 2005 (e.g. produced and presented artists such as: Raqs Media Collective / New Delhi, Hans Ulrich Obrist / F, Walid Raad /NYC & Beirut, Asta Gröting / Berlin, Forced Entertainment & Sophie Calle / GB / F), Festival Steirischer Herbst, Graz 2006 (here co-curated the group exhibition "Protections" at Kunsthaus Graz. www.kunsthausgraz.at.)
Is the dramaturge of the research and production platform "The Bakery" (Richard Siegal), Paris-Berlin. Lectures interdisciplinary practice at the theatre, media & film department, University Frankfurt.