HELLERAU – European Center for the Arts

Michi Maxi Schulz, Luana Àsiba Madikera and Virginnia Ogechi Krämer form a unique triple since collaborating for „#yodo -you only die once“ residency at Heizhaus Berlin in fall 2023. Coming from different backgrounds and interests such as traditional and urban african dance, acting, political organising, end-of-life care, dance education and poetic research, the three aim to further develop immersive artistic formats that invite people to get in touch with (their own) death, dying, grief and understanding of care work. They curiously curate containers to open up, exchange and learn together on these topics which are otherwise culturally marginalized in western contexts. Part of their emerging research is visiting dying people at local hospices, inviting death and grief experts for exchange and developing various artistic practices and scores around questions like: Would I regret anything if I would die today? Where can I feel grief in my body? What do I want to wear at my own funeral? 

We are a group of recent creation, we seek teamwork based on the affinity of our individual work and previous alliances in diverse teams, as well as our common ideology that can be summarized in the search for social justice, the work from mutual comprehensions, rigusority and black feminisms. The name comes from the recurrent use, among us, of the word “sister”. We feel twinned by life, by the struggles and by the way we look at life… we are optimists who think that the biggest revolution is working from and with tenderness and love, and that the way we want to work as a group of Afro-descendant women. 

The ANART project represents the next step for Denmark-based creatives united by their passion for the intersection of movement, dance, and sound within Teater A. Originating in Copenhagen, Teater A’s foundation evolved from the production “Flowers also cry” by Anastasia Krasnoshchoka. This documentary dance piece sheds light on the lived experiences of Ukrainian women amidst conflict, amplifying their voices and advocating for justice. Teater A is dedicated to promoting human rights and democratic values through their work, using the universal language of dance to advocate for equality, freedom, and justice. Their performances serve as a call to action, encouraging audiences to uphold and protect these fundamental principles. 

The Age of Love is a multidisciplinary performance collective that was born in the summer of 2021. Samuel Valor Reyes founded this collective in search for underrepresented diverse talents rooted in Limburg, Belgium. These diverse talents were discovered in various ways to even getting inspired by interesting bodies and identities on the streets. The Age of Love quickly became an inclusive community focused on brave spaces. The philosophy of brave spaces allowed the performers to always start from a place of empowerment. In the summer of 2022 The Age of Love debuted their performance ‘The Age of Love’, transforming their philosophy in a performative setting. ‘The Age of Love’ talks about being reborn and finding community and support in different identities coming together. It shows the possibility of finding love through our differences and similarities with the idea of ‘black or white, straight or queer: it’s all disco.  

Artefactourists* are a collective of four choreographers Valeria Januškevitš, Keity Pook, Sigrid Savi and Kadri Sirel and the dramaturge Kerli Ever. The dancers share a history of studying at Viljandi Culture Academy and the group recently worked together on a performance at Sõltumatu Tantsu Lava (2022). Their autobiographical investigation includes memory, labour, and the inherited working body in the Eastern European context. The group is developing a co-creative nomadic performance practice that, emerging from the body, remains truthful to individual needs within a group while concentrating on the experience of rooting amongst scattered identities.

* the act of remembering through movement; memories triggered by travelling through places and artefacts.

STICKY Productions (Edginton/Lothe/Olsen/Parsons) is a collective of queer, female, dance artists based in Norway. Their practice delves into the bodily and the sensitive, the playful and the peculiar. Using the receptive and expressive body to investigate their subject matter, their performances play between literal and abstract to offer audiences proximity to imagination and opportunity to kinesthetically absorb stories. The artists share a drive to create environmentally conscious work that centres new or untold narratives. Between 2020-22, STICKY created their first work, Økohelter, a performance for children played at Dansens Hus, Sentralen, Bærum Kulturhus amongst others, and selected for the touring network Dansenett Norge Spring 2024. STICKY is in development of their new dance work OOZE, approaching nature from a Queer Perspective. Through an imaginary, sensory, and somatic journey into the world of slugs, we invite sexuality, sex, fluidity and transformation into the room.

(previously known as C A L L S)

We are Caroline, Amelie, Lisa, Laura, and Steph, a loose crew of performers, dancers, artists, strippers, musicians, stage and costume designers, media artists, and researchers. We don’t all embody all of these categories, but we all sail through several of them. As individuals we are seasoned practitioners with our own practices but together we form a formidable crew that is as interested in chartering the unknown as we are in keeping the ship clean, i.e. holding space for each other and following the spiral all the way down. The enmeshment and collaboration between us is complex and sticky, and this group is not so much of a fixed collective as a container for chaotic growth. We are interested in alternative narratives as antidotes to neoliberal hegemony, gender as a vehicle against the state, representations of femme anger, decolonising the gaze, and the poetics of the cosmos found in the synecdoche of the human body.