Since his youth, the passion for dance has led Dhélé Tchekpo Agbetou to many different countries and cultures of contemporary and urban dance styles. He has since developed into a versatile dancer, choreographer and mediator. His artistic side is closely coupled with social and political commitment - especially in his homeland, Ostwestfalen-
Lippe, which he links with the whole world.
After training in stage dance and dance pedagogy at the "Dansart Tanznetworks" Bielefeld, Dhélé went to the "Centre du Jazz Rick Odums" Paris, France, and then contemporary dance led him to the "Kibbutz Contemporary Dance Company (KCDC)" Israel.
Due to his talent across dance styles, he was recognized as part of various companies and crews, including "Armstrong Jazz Ballet Paris", "Hype N Spice Hip-Hop Company Paris", "Company Moritz Ostruschnjak" Munich, and "Company Frederik Rydman" Sweden. He also danced in engagements in his home country, especially with "Tchekpo Dance Company" Bielefeld and "Samadhyana Company" Essen. With the choreographer Simone Sandroni he performed two years for the City Theater Bielefeld.
As a solo artist, Dhélé is in demand internationally, as in Europe, Japan, USA and South Africa. He shares his performance art and transdisciplinary experiences from then on. He passes these on as a lecturer, facilitator and performer. His unique style is based on contemporary dance techniques and intertwines with hip hop (hype), waving, isolations, floorwork, African dance, Afro jazz and footwork (house, Chicago footwork).
In 2011 Dhélé founded his own dance crew "Wake up OWL" (Youngcompany) and thus a movement for the region OstWestfalen-Lippe. This was joined in 2017 by the "Urban Stylez Festival" with workshops, battles, performances, jam sessions and panel discussions. This dance style-diverse platform for international exchange, which has since taken place annually under his artistic direction in Bielefeld, was successfully expanded to Berlin in 2021 and to Israel in 2022.
Due to his dance career and social commitment, Dhélé was awarded the cultural prize of the city of Bielefeld in 2021. As the youngest council member of the Dachverband Tanz, he is committed to the expansion of sustainable and future-proof structures in the urban dance world.
Sabine Gehm is artistic director of the international festival TANZ Bremen, freelance curator, dramaturge and cultural manager. Decades of work in various cities, projects and constellations in the field of dance and performance provided me with a wealth of experience in many respects, which I would like to contribute to the umbrella organization.
Due to my program research in Germany and abroad, my international networks, and through my several years of voluntary work as chair of the board of trustees of the Fonds Darstellende Künste (Performing Arts Fund), I am constantly gaining up-to-date insights into the national and international dance work of artists. In addition, as a long-time festival director, curator, coordinator, project manager, jury member, applicant and consultant, I am familiar with the day-to-day work of performing arts projects from a variety of perspectives. Especially as an artistic director, I see myself as a host not only for invited artists or speakers, but also for spectators or participants, as well as a mediator or moderator between art, politics and the public.
Paul Hess is a choreographer, director, dancer, and performer, as well as a production and festival manager. He studied stage dance and choreography at the Folkwang University of the Arts and has been engaged at the Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch, the Tanztheater Münster, and the Theater Trier, among others, and has worked in productions by Pina Bausch, Susanne Linke, Anna Konjetzky, David Hernandez, Rolf Dennemann, Julio Iglesias Ungo, and Jérôme Bel.
Since 2008, he has been creating his own choreographies and directing works in Germany and Europe. His productions have received numerous awards, including his solo piece “Totilas – Der Ritt” as “Best German Dance Solo” (euro-scene Leipzig). His works span the genres of dance, theater, performance, and installation, with a particular interest in performing in alternative venues and developing new formats.
In addition to his artistic work, he takes on production and festival management roles as well as the design of complex work processes in theater operations. At Theater Trier, he was director of drama and production manager for special projects and was responsible, among other things, for the organizational management of the Rhineland-Palatinate Theater Days 2024 and the artistic direction of the Fringe Theater Festival Trier.
In terms of cultural policy, Paul Hess is committed to fair working conditions, improved funding structures, and strong representation of the interests of dance professionals. He is co-chair of the dance professional group and a member of the main board of the German Stage Employees' Cooperative (GDBA), deputy member of the administrative board of the German Stage Pension Fund, and honorary assessor at stage arbitration tribunals.
Helge Letonja is a choreographer, festival and project developer, dance producer, organizer, and lecturer, and has been the artistic director and managing director of steptext dance project Bremen for over 20 years. After his training in classical and contemporary dance, his international career as a dancer took him to the Bremen Tanztheater with Susanne Linke, among others. There he founded steptext in 1996 as a freelance company and has since choreographed around 40 dance pieces presented in Germany and abroad. In 2003 he was one of the concept developers and founders of the Schwankhalle Bremen. He is involved in a wide range of institutional and artistic collaborations for the regional and international development of dance, opening it up as a mediator of cultural diversity, social participation, interdisciplinary art and research. His activities include: 2005-10 concept and direction of the "independent companies" section of the Norddeutsche Tanztreffen - Tanzplan Bremen in whose context the festival Xtra Frei, continued 2011-12 with the ballet of the Hanover State Opera. 2009-11 the EU-project KoresponDance Europe, 2011-12 the European-West African training and production project HOME 52° 30' N 13° 23' E ELEV 37 m, 2014 the foundation of the festival AFRICTIONS - CAPTURED BY DANCE, organized with numerous partners in three cities nationwide, with over 100 artists_ from the African continent. Since 2015 collaboration with the University of Applied Sciences Bremen, founding member of the Tanzinitiative Bremen, since 2016 Bremen transnational project SEHNSUCHT EUROPA and currently the project THE CHOREONAUTS - artistic relations between Europe and Africa within the framework of the fund TURN. He is also active as a guest choreographer at home and abroad, as well as for opera productions at the Staatsoper Berlin, the Semperoper Dresden, the Opéra national du Rhin and the Salzburg Festival, among others.
Born in Pune, India, and raised in Bangalore, Rajyashree Ramesh received extensive training in the solo dance theatre forms Bharatanatyam and Kuchipudi, and in classical singing, parallel to her schooling and degree (B.Sc). Living in Berlin since 1977, she was confronted with the connotation "temple dancer", coupled with a deep admiration to the point of exoticization on the one hand and ignorance to rejection on the other.
Her over four decades of cross-cultural dance mediation since then, through performances, teaching assignments, workshops, lecture performances, essays, academic papers, the founding of her own Academy for Performing Arts in 1993 and Rasika Dance Theatre International in 1996 for multi-genre, cross-cultural stage productions, brought opportunities, but also great challenges and questions about the prevailing understanding of dance in general and non-European dance forms in particular. After being certified as a Laban/Bartenieff Movement Analyst in the USA, she channelled her questions into academic research in 2008 and received her doctorate from the Europa- University Viadrina in 2019. In her doctoral thesis, which was evaluated as opening up a new field of research, she unveiled the as yet unexplored connection between Indian dance and body knowledge in theory and practice and the latest findings from Linguistic Gesture Research, Cognitive Linguistic Research, Brain Research on Emotions and Fascia Research.
At the same time, she developed the first of its kind transcultural-interdisciplinary Dance/ Movement Studies programme. At this interface between art and science, she sets her mediation forth for a still needed global yet diversified understanding of dance today, beyond the still prevailing dichotomies and tendencies to contextualize, categorize and segregate.
Thomas Thorausch is acting director of the German Dance Archive Cologne.
After studying theater studies, general and comparative literature, and American studies at the Free University of Berlin, he worked as an assistant director and dramaturg in Essen, Cologne, and Regensburg, as well as on various independent theater productions in North Rhine-Westphalia. He also worked as a research assistant for the German Academy of Dance, the German Dance Archive Cologne, and the Historical Archive of the City of Cologne.
Since 1996, Thomas Thorausch has created numerous exhibitions, including several on the subject of photography and dance. For the German Dance Archive Cologne, he initiated and curated the exhibition series “Photographers See Dance,” the photographic documentation project "Dance.Portraits. Who Moves Dance in Germany?“ and the exhibition ”Light Plays: How Film and Photography See Dance.“ In 2006, he developed the touring exhibition ”Paused Time: Images of Dance" for the Goethe-Institut, which presented contemporary positions on the photographic exploration of dance in Germany.
Thomas Thorausch curates annual themed exhibitions from the archives of the German Dance Archive Cologne, which was redesigned in 2008, together with Klaus-Jürgen Sembach until 2018. His organized but always playful and theatrical approach has resulted in exhibition titles and themes such as: “Dance, Elegance, and Femininity,” "In the Face of Modernity. The Magic of Dance 1900-1932,“ ”The Echo of Utopias. Dance and Politics,“ ”Thinking in Spaces. Stage-Dance-Space,“ ”The Enchantment of the World. The Classics of Dance 1713-1913,“ and currently ”It's Me! Self-Presentation in Dance."
Thomas Thorausch has presented the work of the German Dance Archive Cologne and the history of dance archiving in several texts and lectures. Thomas Thorausch is currently the spokesperson for the Association of German Dance Archives (VDT).