DIRECTION & CHOREOGRAPHY
Neel Jansen
Neel Jansen was born in Belgium in 1982 and completed his formation as a classical/contemporary dancer at the Royal School of Antwerp. In 2001 he received a scolarship to dance in the young company "Jeunes Ballet d’Europe" in Aix-en-Provence, directed by Jean Charles Gil and on the same year another scolarship from Rosemarie Stuzzi-Thomi-Stiftung, Basel. Thanks to this, he could choose any dance school in the world to complete his dance studies and Neel chose the Rudra Bejart Ballet School in Lausanne, directed by Michel Gascard. Before he finished the 2 years formation, he was selected by Maurice Béjart to join the Bejart Ballet Lausanne in 2003. Neel danced during 8 years for M. Béjart and he worked with choreographers like Gil Roman, Joost Vrouenraets, Etienne Bechard, and was trained by Azari Plissetsky, Koen Onzia & Julio Arozarena. He danced all over the world, due to the many tournees that the company programmed, and learned in this trips a lot about the different cultures and styles of dance. In 2010 he decided it was time to give a step forward and to join a more modern company, such as Staatstheater am Gärtnerplatz in Munich. He danced for 8 years under the direction of Hans Henning Paar and later on Karl Schreiner. Thanks to the many contemporary choreographers that constantly came to create, Neel had the chance to learn from them, develop his own way of choreographing and find his own dance style. Some of those choreographers are Milo Fernando, Gustavo Ramirez, Christian Spuck, Edward Clug, Marco Goecke, Alexander Ekman, Jo Stromgren, Marguerite Donlon, Katja Schneider, Antony Rizzi, William Forsythe, Christopher Roman, Georg Reischl, Emanuele Soavi, Cayetano Soto, etc.
It is since 2010 that he started choreographing as freelance with Graciela Martínez pieces like “Il eté une fois a Shanghai” for the Expo-Shanghai 2010, “Die Schöpfung” and “The new world” for the Madrigal Chor in Brackenheim, or “Vivaldi Reloaded” with the Kammerorchestra of Zurich and Daniel Hope. Besides that he has created many pieces for the Pizzi Dance Art Company, and for the Grundausbildung Bühnentanz ZTTS in Zurich.
In 2017 he moved out of Munich and came to Switzerland to become a Freelance Dancer/ Teacher/ Choreogapher based in Kanton Aargau.
At side of his career as a choreographer, he teaches ballet and modern dance in Tanzwerk 101, ASVZ University of Zurich 2019 and for the Bachelor Contemporary Dance, Zurich University of Arts and he gives often workshops in Bern and Zurich.
Graciela Martínez Arribas
Graciela was born in Madrid in 1982, where she studied at the Professional Conservatory of Dance from 1989 to 2002. In 1998 she won her first prize as a dancer at the National Competition of Torrelavega and in 1999 she won again the fisrt prize at the International Competitions of Zaragoza. In 2001 she received a scolarship to dance at the Ballet des Jeunes d’Europe in Aix-en-Provence under the direction of Jean Charles Gil. And in 2002, after getting her diplome, she joined the English National Ballet in London.
Graciela joined later on the Ballet of the Theater of Leipzig, directed by Uwe Scholz. And in 2004 she got her first Solo contract at the Ballet de l'Opera de Nice.
In 2007 she worked under the direction of Richard Wherlock in Ballet Basel. Later on she joined the Ensemble of Aterballetto / Fundazione Nazionalle della danza, directed by Cristina Bozzolini and Mauro Bigonzetti. And in 2011 she was engaged by the Staatstheater am Gärtnerplatz in Munich. She has danced for choreographers such as Mauro Bigonzetti, Ohad Naharin, Uwe Scholz, Mauricio Walnrot, Karl Schreiner, Hans Henning Paar, Erna Omarsdottir, etc.
Thanks to this diversity of companies, choreographers and styles she developed her own identity as a choreographer and dance teacher and since 2017 she is living in Switzerland.
She holds a degree in Choreography and Performing Arts from Escuela Superior de Danza y Musica in Madrid and teaches in different places such as ASVZ ETH- Zurich, Tanzwerk101, Dancetown, etc.
In 2019 Graciela and Neel they got the support from Bühne Aarau and Aargauer Kuratorium and they stablished thei own company called Lit Dance Company.
dancers
Steven Forster
Steven Forster was born in 1988 in Switzerland. In 2012 he started the 3 years formation to become a dancer at the Zürich Tanz-Theater-Schule, after his studies he inmediately joined the Pizzi Dance Art Company while he performed in many productions from The Opernhaus Zurich, such as Parsifal, Faust, Die Zauberflöte, Turandot, Rote Laterne, Pagliacci, Alcina, Mahagonny, or Incoronazione di Poppea in 2018. Steven is a very versatile dancer-actor, he has recently played in Geist in Bewegung in 2018 and Jesus Christ Superstar at the Thèâtre Emmen. He´s danced solos for Carta Blanca Dance company in Basel, performed at the Kunstmuseum Zürich choreographies from Francesca Waldvogel and danced at the Salzburger Festspiele, La Bohème in 2012 and Faust in 2016, choreographied by Giorgio Madia.
Sabine Nüssli
Sabine-Maria Nüssli began her dance education at the Ballet School Lambert in Rapperswil and continued at the Schweizerische Ballettberufsschule, very soon she got a scholarship from the Pierino Ambrosoli Foundation. She has danced for the Opera House Zurich in different productions such as Don Quixote and Die Fledermaus and since 2014 she´s a member of Pizzi Dance Art Productions where she danced main roles in “Love' s in Dance”, “Tanz und Artistik”, etc. Besides that she often participate in classical and neo-classical dance projects like Die verkaufte Braut at the Werdenberger Schlossfestspiele or Mozart Moves in Zurich.
Maxim Gilles Guenin
Maxime Gilles Guenin was born in Switzerland. He attended the school for Urban and Contemporary dances in Zurich where he trained extensively in Ballet, Contemporary, Jazz, Hip-hop, Breakdance, Popping, House and improvisation. Before joining the school he spent a year in Havana at the Cuban National Ballet where he built a strong Ballet, Latin dance and Afro background.
He graduated in August 2016 and has been freelancing in the contemporary scene all over the world. In the contemporary scene, he has worked most recently with choreographers such as Iratxe Ansa and Igor Bacovich, Ching Ching Wong, Francesca Harper, Ismael Ivo, Jochen Heckmann and Paula Lansley and has been part of “You dance Festival” and “Wuzhen Festival” in China as well as teaching in the University of Xi’an, Shenzhen, and at the Dalian and Shenyang Conservatories of Dance.
Anja Neukomm
Anja Neukomm completed her training as a contemporary dancer in 2015 at the Zurich Tanz-Theater Schule. She then spent several months training in New York before completing the five-month Kibbutz Contemporary Dance Journey Program in Israel. During and after her education she worked with different choreographers in Switzerland and abroad, such as Ihsan Rustem, Lotem Regev, Luca Signoretti, Rébecca Spinetti, Iratxe Ansa, Igor Bacovich, Ching Ching Wong, Paula Lansley, Sarah Keusch, Natalie Wagner, Rami Beer, Julia Ehrstrand, Emily Greenwell etc.
Anja Neukomm currently works as a freelance dancer and teaches at various schools. Since her education she choreographed various short pieces. She is the choreographer of the newly founded, project based MOViN Dance Collective Company, with whom she performed her first performance evening "you could have chosen anything" in Aarau at the end of September 2018. At the moment she is both in training as an actress, as well as working as an assistant director in various theater productions.