Winston Ricardo Arnon (b. 1984) is a freelance dancer, choreographer, educator and creative director. Winston Arnon was born in Suriname. He studied business and then completed a BA in contemporary dance, jazz and musical at the Amsterdam University of the Arts, before receiving a scholarship to attend the Alvin Ailey School in New York. He danced with Conny Janssen Danst in Rotterdam from 2009 to 2013, and from the 2013/14 season to summer 2020 was a solo dancer in the Bern Ballett ensemble under dance director Estefania Miranda, performing in works by, among others, Nanine Linning (Swiss Dance Award 2015 with “Requiem”); he also created pieces of his own during that period.
Marco Cantalupo (born 1961) runs Compagnie Linga along with Katarzyna Gdaniec. Marco Cantalupo was born in Genoa. After briefly studying circus he enrolled in the La Scala ballet school in Milan and received his dance diploma from the Staatsoper in Hamburg. He danced in a number of ballet ensembles, including the National Ballet of Portugal, the Deutsche Oper Berlin, the Stadttheater Bern, and finally the Béjart Ballet in Lausanne. From 1989 onwards he began choreographing for various independent companies in Italy. Compagnie Linga has been resident at the Octogone, Théâtre de Pully, since 1993. The company’s piece “Flow” won a Swiss Dance Award in the Current Dance Works category in 2019.
Tiziana Conte (born 1966) currently works as a freelance culture journalist with Radiotelevisione Svizzera and is also responsible for cultural projects in the association Arturo prod., as well as communication and PR at the Museo Vincenzo Vela. She has a Master's degree in art, music and theatre from the University of Bologna, and worked at the Department of Culture of the Commune of Chiasso from 1996 to 2010 and as artistic director of the Chiassodanza dance festival from 2002 to 2010. In 2005, Tiziana Conte was a member of the Education Working Group in connection with the Dance project in Bern. She was a member of the jury for the Swiss Contemporary Dance Days in 2006 and the festival's coordinator in 2009.
Patrice Delay (born 1968) has been co-director of the Ecole de Danse de Genève and the Ballet Junior since 1999. He trained at the Ecole de Danse de Genève under Beatriz Consuelo and worked with the Royal Ballet of Flanders before joining the Victor Ullate Ballet and then the Malandain Ballet Biarritz. He was a member of the Education Working Group in connection with the Dance project in Bern as well as the commission dealing with the Federal VET Diploma and Vocational Baccalaureate qualifications in dance. Patrice Delay has sat on the pre-selection jury for the Prix de Lausanne five times and was in charge of organising the event's 40th anniversary gala.
Alexandre Demidoff (born 1966) is a journalist on the Culture and Society section of "Le Temps", where he covers theatre and choreography. He studied stage production at the Institut national supérieur des arts et techniques du spectacle (INSAS) in Brussels. He holds a Master's degree in French literature from the University of Geneva and a Master of Arts and Sciences from the University of Pennsylvania (USA). A culture journalist and critic since 1994, he was involved in the launch of "Le Temps" in 1998, editing the Culture and Society section from 2008 to 2015. He received the Fondation Greulich award in 2008 for his work as a dance critic.
Isabelle Fuchs (born 1963) has been an inspector and advisor for dance at the French Ministry of Culture since 2010. Originally from Strasbourg, she began her dance career at the Ballet de l’Opéra National du Rhin before moving to the United States and Germany, where she was a successively a choreographer, lighting designer and educator. As a manager, she was responsible for securing international visibility and recognition for the choreographers Felix Ruckert (Germany) and Olga Mesa (Spain and France). She subsequently worked on dance at La Filature – Scène nationale performing arts theatre in Mulhouse, before offering her services to cultural policy on dance in France.
Béatrice Goetz (born 1959) is a sports scientist and dancer who studied at the University of Basel and “Dance experience”. After completing her training she danced for the MAJA LEX group in Cologne and in the Cathy Sharp dance ensemble in Basel. Since 2002 she has headed miR Compagnie, with which she won a Current Dance Works award in 2015 for “bits C 128Hz”. She lectures in dance and gymnastics in the University of Basel’s Department of Sport, Exercise and Health and works as a freelance choreographer. Béatrice Goetz heads the dance play club at the Theater Basel, which gives children and young people a chance to become actively involved in dance. In 2008 she choreographed the opening and closing ceremonies for the European Football Championship in Switzerland.
Guillaume Guilherme (born 1985) works as a cultural mediator at the Tanzhaus Zurich. He trained as a dancer and performer at Le Marchepied in Lausanne, Coline in Istres and the Research Cycle of P.A.R.T.S., and subsequently danced for Mathilde Monnier, Yvonne Rainer and David Zambrano. Since 2004 he has been creating discreet on-site performances with Rhodia. He was responsible for archiving the Sigurd Leeder holdings of the Swiss Dance Collection, and was then in charge of promoting Compagnie Nuna before obtaining a specialist diploma in communication. He is also president of the association that organises the Premio award for up-and-coming theatre and dance artists.
Karin Hermes (born 1966) is a choreographer, dancer, dance coach and specialist for dance notation. She trained as dancer at the Ballettakademie Zürich and the School of American Ballet in New York. She studied dance pedagogy, movement analysis and notation at the Hochschule für Musik und Tanz Köln and the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris, where she was awarded a "1er prix" in core area reconstruction for her "Cycle de Perfectionnement". She has created choreographies for numerous dance-theatre productions and has experimented with various working techniques in dealing with historical dance works. 2005 and 2008 she was guest artist at the Centre National de la Danse Pantin/Paris. She has been the Chair of the Interantional Council of Kinetography Laban. Karin Hermes has realised numerous projects in the area of dance mediation and is a lecturer in Berne as well as a guest lecturer at various universities abroad.
Brigitta Luisa Merki (born 1954) is the choreographer and artistic director of the dance company Flamencos en route, founded in 1984, for which she has choreographed 30 productions, the most recent of which are characterised by a close relationship with live music and collaboration with visual artists. In 2007, she founded the dance concept tanz&kunst königsfelden at Königsfelden monastery church in Aargau. She works as a choreographer and teacher in Switzerland and abroad. She has provided tuition at the Hochschulen für Tanz Dresden and Mannheim and holds summer courses in Italy and France. Brigitta Luisa Merki has won numerous prizes, including the Hans Reinhart Ring in 2004.
Caroline Minjolle (born 1964) is a freelance photographer and works under contract for cultural institutions, dance companies and the press. She studied dance in Toulouse and Paris and was a member of the Stadttheater Bern Ballet and the Ballett der Bühnen der Stadt Bonn. In the 1990s, she was Head of Dance at the Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia. She has sat on a number of dance juries and is a specialist in dance, theatre and photography for various cantonal and cultural bodies.
Bertram Müller (born 1946) was Artistic and Managing Director of tanzhaus nrw in Düsseldorf from 1998 to 2013. He studied philosophy and theology at the Universities of Heidelberg and Berlin as well as psychology and clinical psychotherapy at the University of Bonn and has worked as a Gestalt therapy teacher ever since. He also acts as expert, advisor and organiser for a variety of programmes and projects in the fields of dance, theatre and culture, both in Germany and throughout Europe. Bertram Müller was President of the European Dancehouse Network from 2009 to 2013. He started a festival of cultural exchange with China, sits on several juries and is a member of the Ständige Konferenz Tanz association in Germany. In 2014 he was awarded the German Dance Prize.
Philippe Olza (born 1961) is a freelance project consultant to various institutions, companies and artists. He trained at the Scuola Teatro Dimitri and the Mudra school in Brussels, where Maurice Béjart engaged him to work with the Ballet du XXe siècle as a dancer, actor, acrobat and designer. As a freelance performer, he built a career at institutions internationally, and has produced his own dance theatre projects since 1998. In 2008 he became involved in promoting theatre arts throughout the world. In 2013, he was a member of the jury of the Journées de danse contemporaine suisse. Philippe Olza is a Chevalier des Arts et Lettres.
Gabriel Schenker (b. 1983) is a dancer. He heads the BA in Contemporary Dance at the Manufacture in Lausanne, along with Thomas Hauert. Gabriel Schenker was born in Washington D.C. in the US, grew up in Brazil, and has lived in Brussels since 2004. After gaining initial dance experience in Rio de Janeiro, he studied at P.A.R.T.S. in Brussels and co-founded the Busy Rocks collective, with which he toured as a dancer and choreographer until 2014. As a performer, he has worked with Eleanor Bauer, Robin Jonsson, Doris Stelzer, Louise Vanneste, Alexandra Bachzetsis, and in particular, on a regular basis, with Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker’s group Rosas and Thomas Hauert/ZOO. He also holds MAs in philosophy and anthropology.
Christian Spuck (born 1969) took over as Director of the Ballet Zurich for the 2012/2013 season. He trained at the John Cranko School in Stuttgart and started his dancing career with Needcompany under Jan Lauwers and the Rosas ensemble under Anne Teresa de Keersmaker. In 1995, he joined the Stuttgart Ballet, where he was choreographer from 2001 to 2012. He has created productions for a number of renowned companies in Europe and the US. In 2006, he won the German Dance Prize "Zukunft" for most promising dancer. His production "Poppea//Poppea" was awarded the German theatre prize DER FAUST in 2011 and was named by Dance Europe as one of the top ten dance productions of 2010. Christian Spuck is also an opera director, amongst others at the Deutsche Oper Berlin.
Esther Sutter Straub (born 1948) is a freelance culture and dance journalist. She studied classical dance at the Theater Basel and the Royal Ballet School in London as well as modern and contemporary dance in New York and Dresden. She worked as a dancer for the Basel Ballet and the Deutsche Oper am Rhein Ballet in Düsseldorf. Esther Sutter Straub has been in charge of communications for the Migros Culture Percentage Dance Festival Steps for a number of years. In parallel with her work in journalism, she runs a dance and tai chi studio in Basel. She has also been a member of the Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia's Board of Trustees with responsibility for dance and international relations.
Christina Thurner (born 1971) is a professor at the University of Bern Institute for Theatre Studies. She was a Research Assistant in the German Literature seminar at the University of Basel from 1996 to 2007. She was awarded her doctorate in 2001 and her postdoctoral lecture qualification in 2008. During this period, she worked as a dance journalist for Neue Zürcher Zeitung and various international dance magazines. Christina Thurner is also a member of several commissions and committees for dance and the performing arts, for example at the University of Bern, the Institute for the Performing Arts and Film at the Zurich University of the Arts and the Swiss Dance Collection.
Nunzia Tirelli (born 1958) Analyst of Movement CMA issued by LIMS, New York, is a trained choreologist (Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance/London) and dance therapist (Art Therapy Italiana/Bologna) who previously worked as a dancer and actor in various ensembles. She is closely involved in projects teaching dance and theatre at primary and secondary schools in Italian-speaking Switzerland. Since 2002 she has been researching and working on Rudolf Laban and organising the Laban Events on Monte Verità. In 2014 she received a Dance as Cultural Heritage award for her reconstruction of Rudolf Laban’s dance works “Der Trommelstock tanzt” and “Istars Höllenfahrt”.
Simone Toendury (b. 1972) is jointly responsible for the performing arts programme at the La Bâtie festival in Geneva, along with Claude Ratzé. From 2014 to 2021 she was head of programming and production director for the performing arts, street arts, performance and installations at the Festival de la Cité in Lausanne. Simone Toendury was born in Bern and completed a BA in political science at the University of Lausanne. Her first involvement in culture came in 1998 as part of Expo.02. In 2007 she co-founded Tutu Production, a production and distribution agency for the performing arts that supports artists including Cindy Van Acker, Marco Berrettini and Massimo Furlan.
Simona Travaglianti (born 1976) is a researcher in the field oftheatre and dance. She studied theatre, the history and aesthetics of the cinema and art history at the universities of Bern and Lausanne. In 2013 she received a doctorate from the Hochschule der Künste Bern with an interdisciplinary work entitled "Spaces in situation: On the emergence of theatrical spaces in site-specificity". She has acted as assistant to the chair of dance studies and as an independent dance dramaturge. Simona Travaglianti has worked in various mediation formats, including mentoring workshops, introductions and encounters with artists for dance festivals and productions.
Mark Wuest (born 1961) trained as a dancer and now lectures in dance and body work on the BA and MA courses in contemporary dance at the Zurich University of the Arts and the Höhere Fachschule für zeitgenössischen und urbanen Tanz in Zurich, where he was involved in constructing the programme. Mark Wuest comes originally from the USA. He was a competitive swimmer and obtained a BA in dance from the University of Iowa. After further training he danced with, among others, the Kansas City Ballet, Joffrey Ballet in New York, the ballet of the Grand Théâtre de Genève and the Zurich Ballet. He has worked as a choreographer for ballet, contemporary dance, opera and musicals and is currently a member of the City of Zurich Dance Commission.
