With the format SPRUNGBRETT <> DANCE RESEARCH NRW the festival tanz nrw and the NRW KULTURsekretariat form a special alliance for open-ended research residencies. Since 2015, these cooperation partners have teamed up with tanzhaus nrw Düsseldorf and PACT Zollverein to enable aspiring young artists and recent North Rhine-Westphalian art academy graduates to conduct an in-dept examination of a specific topic and develop new ideas. For two weeks, each resident has access to the facilities and expertise of the two production centres. Afterwards, the festival offers them the possibility to present the latest results of their research in multiple cities without pressuring them to end up with a finished production. For the 2021 edition of the festival, two groups have been selected:

Igor Meneses Sousa / Paula Pau
These two performers are investigating the intersection between queerness and spirituality. While Igor Meneses Sousa comes from a Protestant, North Brazilian background, Paula Pau hails from a Taoist family. As with many other traditionally conservative religions, these faith groups maintain a binary view of gender and sexuality. The key question they have identified for their research: in light of their upbringing and the corresponding principles of faith they were taught to uphold, where does their queerness fit in?

Joana Kern / Sonja Reischl / Wenta Ghebrehiwet
These three choreographers and dancers have chosen to tackle their identities as women – both in everyday life and in the world of dance. As a purely female urban dance collective, they have worked to make their mark in a genre often dominated by men and to render their strengths and skills visible. They have set out to explore the differences and similarities in their styles and forge connections between urban, traditional and contemporary vocabularies of movement. They view their SPRUNGBRETT residency as a chance to grow both as a group and as individual women.

Funded by NRW KULTURsekretariat