TEAM & ARTISTS
CURIOUS SEED
CHRISTINE DEVANEY
Christine Devaney is the Artistic Director of Curious Seed [UK] and has an outstanding track record as a performer, choreographer and teacher. Passionate about dance and the transformative possibilities of experiencing dance, theatre and art through participating, creating or the observing of it, Christine has always been interested in, and continues to explore and develop her creative process in relation to, working and collaborating with high calibre, prolific and acclaimed artists and collaborators from a range of art forms.
HANNAH VENET
Hannah Venet is a choreographer, performer and facilitator from Edinburgh, Scotland. Her work centres around connection and is inspired by collaborating with children and young people, alongside other artists across diffe- rent disciplines. She makes work for film, theatres, as well as outside in places and spaces where you might not expect to find dance. Hannah also performs in other artist’s work, is a movement director for theatre and screen and designs and delivers projects with young people in schools.
HENDRIK LEBON
Belgium-based dance artist, Hendrik Lebon has collaborated with Christine Devaney and Curious Seed over many years; performing around the world in our acclaimed production Chalk About and contributing to our workshops and learning projects in many different contexts. Hendrik was involved in the development of our MAKE project as well as being co-lead facilitator on our Teenage Times Remix project with teenagers in Kolkata in 2018.
HOLLY IRVING
Holly Irving is an experienced performer, teacher and movement director, who has always been passionate about how dance and theatre can be used to educate, inspire, rehabilitate as well as entertain a diverse range of audien- ces. After graduating from the Northern School of Contemporary Dance in England, Holly sought to use her skills to promote the amazing possibilities in dance, working in hospitals, prisons, secure training units, specialist schools and with refugees and migrants.
VICKY RUTHERFORD O'LEARY
Vicky Rutherford-O'Leary is a producer and arts manager, currently working with the award-winning dance theatre company Curious Seed. Before joining Curious Seed, Vicky was the Director of Catalyst Dance Management at Dance Base which she founded in 2006, to nurture choreographic talent and to develop and produce the work of independent contemporary dance artists and companies in Scotland. She was producer for the award-winning productions Enclosure 44 – Humans! (Janis Claxton Dance), The Red Room (David Hughes Dance) and Found (Curious Seed) as well as the internationally acclaimed work Chalk About (Curious Seed).
LES SCHINI'S
GAETAN BOSCHINI
Gaëtan Boschini is a dancer, choreographer and collector of ideas, encounters and movements. He is at the origin of the company's first project, "Nivette" (2018), which brings together a French-Spanish artistic team.
He started dancing at the age of 25; two years later, he joined the Seed's training in Spain directed by Peter Mika and Olga Cobos, where he worked with many choreographers such as Anton Lachky, Roberto Olivan and Laly Ayguade.
Quickly spotted, he joined the Cobosmika company for the piece NMNW and also Alain Gruttadauria's company La licorne, with whom he toured throughout Europe.Questioning himself on the staging, the narration of the movement and the gesture, he turns to the theatre of movement and trains with the company Théâtre du mouvement directed by Claire Heggen and Yves Marc.
MÉLODIE CECCHINI
Mélodie Cecchini is a dancer, choreographer and observer of gestures, bodies and situations and considers contemporary dance as a tool for personal development. After training with Anna Sanchez for three years, Melodie began her career as a dancer in 2009,at Cobosmika in Spain, where she performed until 2017. During that time, she also participated in numerous international projects directed by choreographers such as Akram Khan, Hofesh Schechter or Sharon Fridman.
Melodie has been invited to share her vision in many training centres for dancers in Europe, and is continually transmitting her experience to various groups of students.
PATRICIA CANHOTO
Patricia Canhoto is a multidisciplinary artist, who focuses her work on both, dance and theatre work. Graduating from the Cuenca-Es Fine Arts, she has a special relationship with performance, installation and video art.
She has worked together with different dance and theatre companies and developed an interest in works combining performing arts and social inclusion, after participating in several exchanges across Europe, which led her to work with different associations, putting into practice the performing arts as a methodology for change and social inclusion within the Erasmus + programs.
KINGA SZEMESSY
Kinga Szemessy is a contemporary dancer/choregrapher, and was trained in Dance Anthropology and in Theatre Studies. As a PhD student at the interuniversity programme of MOZ & PLUS Salzburg (Austria), Kinga has been looking at and designing maps and scores for participatory dance performance events that 1) welcome discom- fort and contemplation (instead of comfort and activation), and 2) hold a non-anthropocentric standpoint. As an action and artistic research project (mostly carried out with the SVUNG Research Group), her work contributes mostly to the critical analysis of the growing scene of ‚dance theatre-in-education‘ in Hungary, but to the wider related international discourse as well. These allowed her to monitor the conchances network‘s goals and their realization, and also to provide written documentation of the Budapest and Bordeaux TNMs.
APPART / ARTMAN
BERNADETT JOBBÁGY - coordinator and dance artist
Bernadett JOBBÁGY is a Budapest based choreographer, performer and multimedia artist, founder of Onopordum Performance. She graduated as Landscape Architect at Corvinus University of Budapest. Later she studied in the Budapest Contemporary Dance Academy, and then completed the audio-description study program provided by the University of Theatre and Film Arts (SZFE) and FSZK. She works as an independent artist, movement pedagogue and audio-describer, mainly in project-based structure, and in collaborations. As a member of ArtMan Association, inclusive performing practice is also part of her work. Her defining background in movement is contemporary dance and improvisation, Body-Mind Centering® somatic approach, Tai Chi and Qigong. In 2021 she finished film editing study in Lumiere Film School. Currently she is a researcher artist at the Doctoral School of the Hungarian University of Fine Arts, and following the SME program of The School for Body-Mind Centering®.
GÁBOR CSABA MÁRTON - representative of AppArt/MáSzínház, and drama pedagogue, theater director
Gábor Csaba MÁRTON is an actor and drama teacher, who participated in the creation and realization of eleven theatre in education performances so far, and more than twenty theatre pedagogy/outreach programs for youth in the age group of six and twenty-one years olds, inter alia, about authority, bullying, breakaway. Also worked on ten human rights education programs focusing on LGBTQ, gypsy, and homeless people. In 2013, he joined the community of MáSzínház and has established an educational play where intellectually disabled actors and healthy actors played together. In 2017 and 2018 he worked as an EVS volunteer at Galway Community Circus in Ireland where he studied social circus. Since then he has been teaching acting skills and circus classes in MáSzínház and directed an inclusive theatre show. The most important values for Gábor are critical and reflective thinking and his faith in equality. His motto is to question the unquestionable with respect.
ANDREA MÉSZÖLY - associate dance artist
Andrea MÉSZÖLY, dancer, choreographer, somato-pedagogue. After experiencing many different fields of contemporary dance, her interest turned towards another direction. In 2006 she started to work with people who live with special needs (Down syndrome, Physical Disabilities). Her concept was to make the practices of movement studies and the expressive arts (performative arts) available to people with special needs and to offer a creative environment where life experience can be shared and mutual learning can happen in an equal partnership of participants of all abilities. Since 2011 she has been a member of ArtMan Association for the Arts and Movement Therapy. Her first project, where she worked together with a dancer, actor and two people with physical disabilities was in 2011, and it gained her many experiences. Recently she is interested in the relationship between contemporary dance and social sensitivity. How we can integrate people who live with special needs to the stage work and how dissimilarity can be transferred to the audience.
CONTWEEDANCECOLLECTIVE / DE DANSERS
JOHANNA KNEFELKAMP-STORATH
Johanna Knefelkamp-Storath completed her Master's degree in 2017 as International Artist Educator at the ArtEZ University of Arts in Arnhem. For several years she has been working in various fields of dance on an international level and with interdisciplinary colleagues. In the art and culture scene, she enriches festivals, congresses and workshops, works as a guest lecturer at universities and accompanies theatre projects that integrate movement and dance.
LAURA SAUMWEBER
Since finishing her studies in Barcelona and Arnhem in 2017, Laura Saumweber has been invited to perform and create at and for various festivals in Spain, Hong Kong and Cyprus. Her focus and means of expression is the body as a medium, repository of memories and experiences, and as a space for non-verbal exchange. In this context, she is strongly engaged in creations for children and elderly people. Besides her artistic work, Laura is educating herself as International Arts & Cultural Manager at the professional school of Leuphana University.
JOS DAAMEN
Jos Daamen (1988) is a teacher, mover and maker graduated in Dance from the Amsterdam University of the Arts. Currently she works for dance company De Dansers, community theatre ZID and the Universities of the Arts of both Amsterdam and Utrecht.
MARTHA KRÖGER
Martha Kröger is working as a freelance artist for body, dance and movement practice based in Berlin since 2014. She finished her studies in Physical Theatre in the Accademia Dimitri (Switzerland) in 2016. Her focus and me- ans of expression is the spontaneous and playful body, the refinement of various movement techniques in order to find interdisciplinary and cross-cultural forms of expression. To make communication possible in supposedly impossible places and to find spaces where bridges can be built is her motor. Her work oscillates between inde- pendent productions and the founding of companies, solo work and projects as well as temporary and permanent engagements as an ensemble member and artist in various productions.
SANNE WICHMAN
Sanne Wichman (1988) originally graduated as a dancer and holds a Master of Education. She is in charge of the education projects and context programs of De Dansers, besides she’s a lecturer at Fontys university of applied science (School of Fine and Performing Arts). In her work she facilitates the connection between people and dance. Without compromising on the art, Sanne likes to create good contexts in order to make dance approachable.
FOKUS TANZ / TANZ UND SCHULE E.V.
ANDREA MARTONAndrea Marton is a freelance dance artist based in Munich and is part of the management team of Fokus Tanz, responsible for further training, specialist support and projects. She is active in both dance-artistic and dance-mediated contexts in the context of participatory projects. She works with different people between 14 and 90 years, with and without disabilities, and with different backgrounds – from refugees to pupils.
BARBARA GALLI-JESCHECK
Barbara Galli-Jescheck is a dance mediator and initiator of dance projects for and with young people in Munich. Apart from teaching in schools, she teaches in refugee camps and in the Schauburg, a theatre for young audiences. What she enjoys most about her work with this generation is observing how different young people develop their own ideas and movements, while figuring out what their individual topics and perspectives are.
LARA PASCHKE
Lara Paschke is a contemporary dancer, dance facilitator and choreographer in and around Munich. Since 2015 she has been working independently and for various institutions (including Schauburg, Fokus Tanz, GRENZENLOS, Nantesbuch, Impro macht Schule) and initiates participatory dance projects for people from different social and cultural backgrounds. Creating encounters and new spaces of experience for diverse groups through her mostly interdisciplinary projects is a major concern of hers. Her most recent projects as a performer are for example for MIT TANZ UND ARCHITEKTUR or STADT TANZ FLUSS as part of the Think Big! Festival or in the performance series "Creatures of the sea" at the Kulturbuehne Spagat.
The project "conchances" is co-funded by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union.
