Archives: Personal Portraits

Stockholm-based composer Shida Shahabi released her critically acclaimed debut album Homes with FatCat imprint 130701 in 2018 and has since then toured all around Europe, including at the Somerset House as a part of Film Four’s Summer Screen in London, Reflektor Festival curated by Max Richter and Yulia Mahr at Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, and at CCHA in Hasselt, among many others. Since 2015 she has been writing music for performing arts and film, and recently scored Charlotte Le Bon’s renowned debut feature film Falcon Lake (2022), and Teresa Sutherland’s feature film Lovely, Dark and Deep, which will premiere in 2023. She also wrote the score for Halla Olafsdóttir and Eliisa Erävalo’s dance piece Bitch in 2021. Sylph is to be the second collaboration between Halla and Shida.

Photo: Anna Sundvall

Hanna Kisch (b. 1986) is an artist and costume designer. She graduated in Free Art at Konstfack in 2015 and has since been part of several group exhibitions both in Sweden and international. Hanna has worked in performing arts productions for, among others, the Royal Dramatic Theatre (Dramaten), Dansens Hus and MDT in Stockholm. Kisch explores the notion of femininity through materials such as latex, silicone and epoxy, preferably in close collaboration with dance and performance artists.

Photo: Shirley Harthey Ubilla

Stockholm based Chrisander Brun works as a scenographer, lighting designer and a photographer. Brun studied at Dramatiska Institutet (today Stockholm University of the Arts) where zhe got a BA degree in 2010. Brun has created lights and scenography for many dance and theatre performances in Scandinavia and zhers works have been presented in several international performing arts festivals in Europe.

Brun has had longer collaborations with artists such as Halla Ólafsdóttir, Amanda Apetrea, Nadja Hjorton, Dorte Olesen, Ludvig Daae, Mychoreography, Tatu Hämäläinen, TOYBOYS, TO-EN Butoh Company, Zero visibility corp, Martin Forsberg, Björn Säfsten and Stina Nyberg.

Zhe has worked with theatres and companies such as MDT, Rogaland Teater in Stavanger, Kungliga Dramatiska Teatern, Stockholm, Riksteatret in Noge, Kulturhuset Stadsteatern Stockholm, Skånes Dansteater, Blackbox in Oslo, Dansens Hus in Oslo, Turteatern, Stockholm, Carte Blanche i Bergen, Cullbergbaletten, Staatstheater Gärtnerplatz Theater, Norrdans, and the Royal Swedish Opera.

www.chrisander.no och www.chrisanderphotographer.no

Naomi Schouten is a Dutch dancer and performer. She is currently finishing her studies at the BA Dancer/Maker education, ArtEZ University of the Arts in Arnhem, The Netherlands. She graduated from the pre-education of ArtEZ in Arnhem (2012-2019), where her passion and love for dancing got space to grow. During her time at ArtEZ she had the chance to work with different choreographers like Maciej Ku?mi?ski, Caroline Finn, Keren Levi and Astrid Boons. In addition, she danced in Roots Youth Folk Company and she performed with Blackbirds, leaded by Dalton Jansen as an internship. Next to dancing, she also creates pieces herself. In 2022 Have a seat was created, which won the Audience Award of Café Theater Festival Arnhem in 2022.

Naomi is an apprentice at Cullberg season 2022/2023.

Magalí Camps (she/her) is a dancer and performer.

Starting to dance at an early age, she continued her studies and research in dance and choreography at the Danish National School of Performing Arts in Copenhagen. In the summer of 2022, she graduated from DDSKS/Den Danske Scenekunstskole, having worked with choreographers such as Renan Martins and Matija Ferlin.

On the move between Copenhagen and Celrà, her hometown in the north of Catalonia, where she was educated at Escola Municipal de Dansa de Celrà and with Mal Pelo, her research in dance currently revolves around the notions of voice, text and linguistics, and their encounter with poetics and music(ality).

Among other interests, Magalí is currently studying Translation and Interpreting. Since 2020, she has been engaging in organizing creative projects and processes with the collective La Verema.

Magalí is an apprentice at Cullberg season 2022/2023.

Heather Birley is born and raised in the UK. Heather began dancing in her early teenage years with the National Youth Dance Company; under the artistic direction of Akram Khan. Heather then went on to complete her BA Hons and Master of the Arts at London Contemporary Dance School. Whilst studying her MA, Heather joined Cullberg as an apprentice for the season 2017/18.

Over the past few years Heather has been based in the UK, during this time she has been exploring intimacy movement for tv and film; collaborating on productions such as Brave New World and Lady Chatterly’s Lover. Additionally, Heather is passionate about enabling an inclusive dance environment and has worked closely with SEND communities through dance and personal training. In 2020 Heather began working closely with ABBA and choreographer Wayne McGregor on the ABBA Voyage production which premiered in 2022. Heather worked as a body double for Anni-Frid Lyngstad to capture the younger version of the renowned star.

Heather has worked as a guest dancer for Cullberg since 2018 and joined as a company member in 2022.

Born 1986 in Santa Maria da Feira, Portugal, Marco graduated in physiotherapy at Instituto Piaget, Gaia in 2010. He has worked as a professional dancer since 2008 and collaborated with names such as Andre? Mesquita, Hofesh Shechter, Sylvia Rijmer, Tiago Guedes, Victor Hugo Pontes and Paulo Ribeiro. Marco has worked as artistic assistant to Victor Hugo Pontes in the dance pieces Fall and Se alguma vez precisares da minha vida, vem e toma-a. In 2014 was the movement assistant of Hamlet from the theatre company Mala Voadora.

Marco’s work as choreographer has been developed around the dance existant in the urban context, in a continous research about the meaning of dance which emerges nowadays, under an abstract expressionism and self biographic. The highlight this far in Marco’s career is HU(R)MANO in 2013 which was in the Aerowaves Priority Companies (2015) and was performed all over Europe and South America.

As from 2021, Marco da Silva Ferreira performs as guest dancer in Jefta van Dinther’s On Earth I’m Done: Mountains.

Called “the quintessential modern composer” by the London Independent , Austin-based composer-bandleader-improviser Graham Reynolds creates, performs, and records music for film, theater, dance, rock clubs, and concert halls with collaborators across a multitude of disciplines. Heard throughout the world in films, TV, stage, and radio, he recently scored Richard Linklater’s Where’d You Go, Bernadette with Cate Blanchett, Kristen Wiig, and Laurence Fishburne for Annapurna Pictures, Happy Jail for Netflix, the Rude Mechs’ Stop Hitting Yourself for Lincoln Center Theater, Ballet Austin’s Grimm Tales , and a multi-year commission from Ballroom Marfa, The Marfa Triptych . He has performed on an array of legendary stages, from the Kennedy Center to the Green Mill Tavern to the Conan O’Brien Show. His Creative Capital Award winning project, Pancho Villa from a Safe Distance , a bilingual cross-border opera created with librettists Lagartijas Tiradas al Sol (Mexico City) and director Shawn Sides (Rude Mechs), has been staged in over a dozen cities in North America.

As Artistic Director of the non-profit Golden Hornet, he leads efforts which draw on the collaborative spirit of rock bands and the composer-led nature of classical music, with a focus on commissioning new music, fostering young and emerging composers, and presenting adventurous works in non-traditional settings. Alongside Kronos Quartet’s longtime cellist Jeffrey Zeigler, he curated The Sound of Science , an interdisciplinary, multimedia performance that is touring internationally.

Reynolds leads the jazz-based but far reaching Golden Arm Trio. He is a company member with the internationally acclaimed Rude Mechs theater collective and resident composer with Salvage Vanguard Theater and Forklift Danceworks. His accolades include a Creative Capital Award, an Independent Music Award, two Frederick R. Loewe Music Theatre Awards, ten Austin Critics Table Awards, the John Bustin Award, multiple Austin Chronicle Best Composer wins, and a B. Iden Payne Award. Graham released a twelve album set on Innova Recordings in early 2017 and his newest studio effort, MARFA: A Country & Western Big Band Suite , came out in November 2019.

Prior Press
“The quintessential modern composer”
The London Independent
“Eerily evocative… rich and inventive.”
Variety
“A rare talent”
PopMatters
…a fantastic player that adds a muscular edge to the rich tones he pulls out of his instrument…
capable of stretching all manner of sonic boundaries”
Jazz Times
– – –
“If the ghost of Keith Moon crash-landed in the midst of Jools Holland’s orchestra, the results might
not be so very different. The Texas-based Graham Reynolds… goes for broke with his brassy
reworkings of Caravan et al … [A] welcome change from the usual overreverential Dukish disciples.”
London Sunday Times on DUKE! Three Portraits of Ellington
“Evocative & enigmatic”
The Seattle Times on Pancho Villa from a Safe Distance
“Beautiful and raucous…”
Vogue Magazine on The Marfa Triptych
“Reynolds… brings out the evocative styles with grace, even when a movement requires sections to
repeat several times like a pop song … [The remix] portion of the disc comes off strongly, as a
complete part rather than just a repackaging of what was just performed.”
Blurt Magazine on The Difference Engine
“Stunning to behold”
PopMatters on DUKE! Three Portraits of Ellington
– – –
“For director Richard Linklater alone, Reynolds has been heartsick and wistful ( Before Midnight ),
tense and suspenseful ( A Scanner Darkly ), jaunty and blithe ( Bernie ).”
Texas Monthly
“Graham Reynolds works in extremes; short take moments of sound – whether it be a surf-like
instrumental, a country-tinged breather or the sound of stuttering insects crawling through your
hair – are all in his tick box.”
Film Music Magazine
“Film soundtracks are most often difficult beasts to love, because they’re generally so episodic that
there’s little compositional development or time to build up genuine mood. Reynolds’ soundtrack
bucks that tendency terrifically, with an entirely instrumental album that holds your attention from
the first few notes, keeps it for the best part of an hour’s duration, and makes you want to come
directly back for more.” Witch Doctor (New Zealand)
“…the unstoppable soundtrack by Texan composer Graham Reynolds is little short of a
masterpiece.”
The Arts Desk
“Best Soundtrack of the Decade”
Cinema Retro Magazine
“Last Flag Flying comes from Reynolds’ heart, yielding his most memorable theme yet”
Film Music Magazine

Links
Website: www.grahamreynolds.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/grahamreynoldsmusic
Twitter: @grahamreynolds
Instagram: @grahamreynolds
Spotify: open.spotify.com/artist/6tMpMPtrimgQsbchahB2et
Golden Hornet: www.goldenhornet.org
Pancho Villa from a Safe Distance: www.panchovillaopera.com

Cecilia Wretemark-Hauck was born in Stockholm, Sweden. She studied at the Iwanson International School of Contemporary Dance, Munich. As a dancer she worked among others at the Stadttheater Osnabrück and Stadttheater St. Gallen under the direction of Marco Santi as well as at the Staatstheater Kassel under the direction of Johannes Wieland. There she danced in pieces by Marco Santi, Johannes  Wieland, Felix Landerer, Anton Lachky, Chaty Marston and Helder Seabra among others.

In 2005 she formed a choreographer duo together with Jasmin Hauck whose versatile works can be seen in commissioned choreographies for theaters and festivals. Since 2013 they have been working closely with the director Alexander Nerlich.  Most recently, their choreographies were seen for the productions L’incoronazione di Poppea at the Konzert und Theater St. Gallen, Der Sandmann at the Stadttheater Ingolstadt, and Hexenjagd at the Staatstheater Mainz.

In 2015 Cecilia Wretemark-Hauck co-founded the dance company House of Pain – Physical Dance Theatre. The project has since realized full-length dance productions as well as short pieces and has been awarded several funding prizes in Switzerland.

Cecilia joined Cullberg season 2021/2022.

Anna Fitoussi is an artist in the field of dance, performance and choreography, holding a BA in Dance, Context and choreography (HZT) from UdK, Berlin. After her graduation in 2017, Anna worked as a freelance performer and choreographer in Berlin.

She enjoys and learns the most from collaborations, within dance, music, film and visual arts. Her work revolves around human mythologies, geopolitical histories and migration. In her practice, she attempts to flatten historical, societal and physiological hierarchies within the body.

Anna has worked with artists Myriam Van Imschoot, Colin Self and Suddenly Collective among others, before joining Cullberg season 2021/2022.

Born and raised in Barcelona, Víctor (he/they) was introduced to dance at an early age through Catalan traditions, long before completing his professional education at P.A.R.T.S., Belgium and SEAD, Austria in 2012.

Living in Brussels for thirteen years, Víctor has had the chance to collaborate with an array of European artists and choreographers; Renan Martins, Albert Quesada, Anneleen Keppens, Thierry de Mey, Pere Faura and Eleanor Bauer to name a few. Since 2014 he has been an active member of the Belgian company Hiatus, directed by Daniel Linehan. Víctor approaches movement as a chance to think beyond traditional structures and include notions of queer ecology — thinking and practicing dance as resource for social change.

Víctor joined Cullberg season 2021/2022.

Louise Dahl is working within the field of dance and choreography with Stockholm as her base. She authors her own creations as well as dances in the work of others. In her work she is interested in developing new forms of subjective and kinesthetic experience that convey the transformative potential of the body. Louise has been working with artists like Cristina Caprioli, Frédéric Gies, Margrét Sara Guðjónsdóttir,  Mårten Spångberg, Hana Lee Erdman, Mette Ingvartsen and Mirko Guido. Louise has a Bachelor of Dance and Performance from DOCH, Stockholm University of Arts, from where she graduated in 2013.

Louise Dahl joined Cullberg from season 2020/2021.

Benjamin Pohlig, born 1986, is a choreographer, dancer and researcher originally from Berlin. He has studied both in England, at the Rambert School of Dance and Trinity Laban, for his Bachelor and Master, as well as at P.A.R.T.S. in Belgium. In his work, he explores the theatre as an agora, a place in which social and political behaviors are not only practiced, but are also experienced physically. This concept appears across his works, including the participatory solo dance yourself clean (2013) and his collaborations 5 seasons (2016) and A Farewell to Flesh (2017). As a dancer, he has worked with Martin Nachbar, Isabelle Schad, Grayson Millwood and Zoë Knights, as well as internationally with Pierre Droulers and Renan Martins. As a researcher he continues to investigate both the concept of social choreography and how to speak about climate change through dance.

Benjamin joined Cullberg season 2019/2020.