ABOUT
ABOUT
Premiered in June 2018 in P.A.F - Performing Art Festival Berlin
ABOUT

© Katja Strempel
I am an Italian freelance dancer, choreographer and dance teacher based in Berlin.
The practice of dance is the way to connect to myself and my body and therefore to connect with other bodies.
The body is a space where all our past, present and maybe even future physical, psychic and emotional experiences accumulate. Dance is a way to explore, move them and bring to the surface new or old meanings for these experiences.
I use dance as a tool to research the ways in which the individual enters (or doesn´t enter) in contact, is (or isn´t) formed, informed and influenced by others and by society. Dance and choreography give us the possibility to create new worlds and new positions for the self and for the spectator.
BIOGRAPHY
My dance education started very early with ballet. After many years, my interest shifted towards other forms like modern and contemporary dance.
After attending several workshops in Italy and Europe and graduating in foreign Languages and Literatures in 2009, I joined two professional contemporary dance education programs in Italy (Tilt Spazio Danza in Milan, with focus on release technique, and Modem Atelier in Catania with the Zappalá Company) and in 2012 I´ve completed my dance education at SEAD (Salzbrug Experimental Academy of Dance).
While studying dance, I´ve worked in several dance projects (a. o. cie. Willy Dorner, Compagnia AiEp – Ariella Vidach) and after graduation I began a collaboration with the puppetry and dance company Zaches Teatro, touring in Italy and Europe.
I live in Berlin since 2013, where I am active in the independent dance scene. In 2013 I have participated as a guest in the project "Forest: the nature of crisis" by Constanza Macras - Dorky Park, worked together with the video artist Yvon Chabrowski on several projects (most recently in 2019 "We have a body" in Uferstudios).
In 2015, I have choreographed and performed the piece "Liven" in collaboration with Annukka Hirvonen, which was shown in Oulu (Finland), Milan (Italy) and several times in Berlin. In the same year I took part in the production "Part of you" by Grupo Oito (under the artistic direction of Ricardo de Paula) and since then I am a member of the collective.
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In her solo "A-letheia" (2016), she began to incorporate feminist topics into her choreographic work. For her now, dance is a medium with which she questions social constructs, explores psychological processes and provokes change (in her own body and in the audience).
In 2021 she received, together with Grupo Oito, a grant for the research "Anti-Norm" from FondsDaKu and in 2021 she received a DIS-TANZ SOLO grant for the research "Medusas: a research on women's anger, its bodily expressions and the practice of re-appropriation in a choreographic context".
Since living in Berlin, she has been giving regular classes and workshops in contemporary dance.
THE WORK WITHIN THE COLLECTIVE
Since 2015 I work with the dance collective Grupo Oito, funded in 2006 by Brazilian choreographer Ricardo de Paula. Through movement, Grupo Oito explores the body as a political microcosmos and looks for physical potentials of transformation. We carry on a research on social and political topics and modes of discrimination, especially racism, from a postcolonial and feminist perspective, developing practices of resistance and empowerment.
The choice of working in a collective way and the effort of allowing diversity to exist is, in itself, an attempt to break common hierarchical structures and another playground for the self in relationship with others.
I have danced and co-created in the following productions: "Part of You" (2015), "Dance for Sale" (2015), "Unrestricted Contact" (2017), "K/no/w-go-zones" (2018), "Borders & Corners" (2020), "Ubiquitous Assimilation" (2021), "Present Body 2" (2023), "NAME IT" (2023) and I am involved in the artistic and organizational processes of the group.