Dance Techniques 2010

300 Who’s Who
Daniel Roberts grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania,
and started playing the piano at the age of seven. He
was piano accompanist at various ballet schools. He
studied ballet and modern jazz at the CLO Academy
in Pittsburgh then took a Bachelor of Fine Arts in
Dance at the Ohio State University, with a specialization
in performance and Labanotation. Roberts
received a scholarship to the Merce Cunningham
Studio in New York and apprenticed with the Merce
Cunningham Dance Company (MCDC). He joined the
company in 2000 and danced in a vast amount of
repertory, including films about Cunningham (for example,
in Merce Cunningham: A Lifetime of Dance in
the reconstruction of Totem Ancestor). He left the
MCDC in 2005 and taught Cunningham Technique at
the Danish National School of Contemporary Dance
in Copenhagen. He is currently rehearsal director for
Danish Dance Theater. Daniel Roberts has taught the
Cunningham Technique at The Place (London Contemporary
Dance School), at the Royal Academy of
Dance in London, at the National University of Arts in
Korea and at various companies, dance schools and
festivals in Europe, Russia, the U.S., and Asia.
Theo Van Rompay has a Masters in Sociology (K.U.
Leuven, 1978). He cofounded the arts center STUK in
Leuven, Belgium, where he was director from 1978–
1986. Afterwards he worked for Kaaitheater in Brussels
(1986–1987) and for the Dutch theater company
Maatschappij Discordia, based in Amsterdam (1988).
In 1989 he became director of Beursschouwburg
(Brussels) and in 1991 program director of the international
arts center deSingel (Antwerp). In 1994
Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker asked him to assist in
setting up a new dance school. Since then he has
been deputy director of Performing Arts Research
and Training Studios (P.A.R.T.S.), a school for contemporary
dance that opened in September 1995.
He was cofounder (1982) and editor (1982–1991)
of the performing arts magazine Etcetera. He was
co-founder of the Vlaams Theater Circuit (1980) and
later of the Flemish Theatre Institute V.T.I. (1988). He
was a member of the V.T.I. board for twenty years,
and from 2006–2008 served as president. In 2008
he was appointed by the minister of Culture to be
a member of the Advisory Board for the Arts of the
Flemish Community.
Salva Sanchis is a choreographer and dancer based
in Brussels who graduated with the first generation
of P.A.R.T.S. in 1998. He has been choreographing
his own work since then and presenting it across
Europe. He co-choreographed with Anne Teresa De
Keersmaeker the pieces Desh and A Love Supreme,
and has been a guest choreographer for Rosas. He is
also a guest teacher of dance technique and improvisation
as well as research coordinator for the Second
Cycle of P.A.R.T.S., and teaches dance technique in
several other schools and companies in Belgium and
abroad.
Vera Sander, Prof., studied at the London Contemporary
Dance School and the Theaterschool Amsterdam.
Before developing her first choreographies as a
soloist at the Cologne Danceforum, she danced with
the Dansgroep Krisztina de Chatel, with Itzik Galili,
and as a soloist at the Saxon State Opera Dresden,
among others. She has worked as a choreographer,
dancer, and teacher of contemporary dance since
1996. In addition to the invitations she receives to
be guest choreographer throughout Germany and
abroad, she is artistic director of the VeraSanderArtConnects
dance ensemble. The artist has been recognized
with several awards for her work, including
the Cologne Dance Theatre Prize, the Choreography
Prize Hanover, and the German Video Dance Prize.
Vera Sander is director of the Centre for Contemporary
Dance and professor for contemporary dance at
the University for Music and Dance, Cologne.
Sylvia Scheidl is a graduate of the Master of Arts
program in contemporary dance pedagogy at the
University of Music and the Performing Arts in
Frankfurt. Her work focuses on movement research
and body consciousness. She practices methods of
body–mind integration such as the Alexander Technique,
Body–Mind Centering, and ideokinesis, and
investigates ways of using these in contemporary
dance techniques. Supported by the Crespo Foundation,
she led a model project at a children’s daycare
center in Frankfurt in which she enabled teachers
and children to access communication and movement
through contact improvisation. She works as a
freelance artist in her hometown of Vienna.
Katharine Sehnert trained to be a dancer, choreographer,
and dance educator from 1955–1963
with Mary Wigman in Berlin. In 1962 she cofounded
Motion. From 1970–1974 she danced with the Folkwang
Tanzstudio in Essen and assisted Pina Bausch.
From 1974–1981 she taught in Frankfurt and in 1976
founded Mobile Frankfurt, which won a prize at the
International Choreographer Competition in Bagnolet
in 1978. She created productions at the Theater am
Turm and held advanced teacher–training courses.
Since 1982 she has worked as a dancer, choreographer,
and educator in Cologne, which is where
she also founded TANZRAUM as a creative center,
and the Kontinuum group. She was the first winner
of the Cologne Dance Theatre Prize in 1994. In
1992 she initiated the MultiArt—Künstler zu Gast im
TANZRAUM series with regular interdisciplinary performances.
She has been a freelancer since 2004,
working on guest performances and regular seminars,
and provided coaching for the A Mary Wigman
Evening reenactment project by and with Fabian
Barba at the K3 Kampnagel Hamburg. In 2009 she
was awarded the City of Cologne Theater Prize for
her life’s work.
Irene Sieben counts Mary Wigman and Manja
Chmièl among her most important dance teachers.
She danced in the first independent ensembles
of the 1960s (Gruppe Neuer Tanz Berlin and Motion),
studied somatic learning methods, and has
been a Feldenkrais teacher since 1990. In 1981 she
cofounded Tanz Tangente Berlin. She has taught
applied anatomy and the Feldenkrais method at the
Universität der Künste Berlin, Faculty of Music, and
has worked as a dance and movement research journalist
since 1970. She has been a correspondent for
Tanzdrama, ballettanz, Tanz–Journal, jetzt Tanz and
is author of Das große Feldenkrais Buch (Hugendubel,
with A. Peters), and co-author of Gesundheit,
Lernen, Kreativität (Huber) and Wissen in Bewegung
(transcript publishing). Sieben also coached Fabian
Barba for his reconstructions of A Mary Wigman
Evening at K3–Center for Choreography / Tanzplan
Hamburg and at the fabrik Potsdam.
Gerald Siegmund, PhD, is professor of dance and
director of the Choreography and Performance program
at the Justus Liebig University Giessen. He
studied theater, English, and Romance studies at the
Frankfurt am Main University. His research focuses
on developments in contemporary dance and in postdramatic
theater in the transition to performance and
the visual arts. Books he has published include William
Forsythe—Denken in Bewegung (Henschel) and
Abwesenheit. Eine performative Ästhetik des Tanzes—William
Forsythe, Jérôme Bel, Xavier Le Roy,
Meg Stuart (transcript publishing).
Martin Stern, PhD, studied sport science, chemistry,
educational science, and philosophy at the Free
University Berlin. From 2001–2007 he was a lecturer
at the Institute for Sport Studies at the Humboldt
University Berlin (Physical Education and Philosophy
of Sports) as well as a Research Fellow at the ‘Cultures
of the Performative’ interdisciplinary research
center at the Free University of Berlin. Currently he
is a guest professor of education science of sports at
the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz. His main
research topics are sociological and anthropological
dimensions of modern sport cultures, educational dimensions
of sports, ethnographic approaches to new
performance cultures and contemporary dance, and
theories of the social body and gender. Publications
include: Stil-Kulturen. Performative Konstellationen
von Technik, Spiel und Risiko in neuen Sportpraktiken
(transcript publishing).
Patricia Stöckemann, PhD, is a dance author, dance
journalist, dramaturg, was editor of tanzdrama magazine
(1987–2003) and of tanzjournal (2003 / 04)
and is a board member and program director for
the Mary Wigman Gesellschaft. She has also taught
dance history and theory at various academies, colleges,
and universities, lectured throughout Germany
and abroad, and curated dance exhibitions. Her research
and publications focus on (modern) dance in
Germany and she has published Etwas ganz Neues
muß nun entstehen—Kurt Jooss und das Tanztheater
(K. Kieser Publishing), among other works. Since
the 2004 / 2005 season she has been dramaturg at
the Tanztheater Bremen at the Theater Bremen,
and since 2007 director of dramaturgy and member
of the directorship of the nordwest / Tanztheater
Bremen & Tanzcompagnie Oldenburg.