2026-2027 Choreographers
Isam Abad Montalvo
Soutenu par L’Abri – Genève
Isam est un performeur équatorien basé à Lausanne. Il a grandi à Quito, au cœur de la cordillère des Andes. Dès son plus jeune âge, il s’est intéressé à différentes formes de mouvement, passant du ballet au breakdance, de la natation à la capoeira, de l’improvisation de contact au travail en duo, de l’acrobatie à la danse contemporaine, en passant par la boxe, l’escalade et le pole dance.
La fine di tutte le cose / l’inizio di tutte le altre est sa première pièce en tant que chorégraphe. Coproduite par Emergentia 2022, elle a été créée au Pavillon ADC en novembre 2022, puis invitée au 25e anniversaire du Festival Artdanthé au Théâtre de Vanves (Paris), au Roxy Birsfelden (Bâle) et au Festival GOGOGO au Théâtre du Grütli (Genève).
Catarina Barbosa
Supported by TROIS C-L in Luxembourg
Catarina Barbosa is originally from Portugal. She joined the Portuguese National Conservatory in Lisbon in 2009. She completed her professional training abroad at the Ballet Junior de Genève, until 2014. She had the opportunity to work on pieces by Stjin Celis, Roy Assaf, Gustavo Ramirez, Lucinda Childs, and others. During her last year with Ballet Junior, Catarina also joined Compagnie Gilles Jobin (CH) and took part in the creation “Quantum” in July 2013, which toured internationally.
Based in Luxembourg since 2016, she works for her company AWA As We Are, of which she is Co-founder and Artistic Director with Baptiste Hilbert, and also works as a freelance artist. She collaborates with various choreographers including Benvindo da Fonseca (PT), Arthur Pita (UK) and Léa Tirabasso (LU/UK) and others. Léa Tirabasso’s piece The Ephemeral Life of an Octopus gave her the chance to perform in one of the Last twenty pieces in the renowned Aerowaves competition.
Catarina is now leading the artistic part of the company creating the trio MARY’S DAUGHTERS, opening in May 2025, and a solo estranha forma, opening in November 2025.
Caroline Allaire
Soutenue par POLE SUD – CDCN de Strasbourg
Caroline Allaire a été formée au Conservatoire de Nice, puis au Conservatoire National Supérieur de Paris. De 1995 à 2004, elle est interprète au Ballet de l’Opéra de Nice puis au Ballet de l’Opéra National du Rhin. Elle devient artiste indépendante en 2004 et collabore avec Louis Ziegler, Association Woo, Christian et François Ben-Haïm, David Brandstätter et Malgven Gerbes. Elle a participé à tous les projets de création de KiloHertZ-Vidal Bini. Parallèlement, elle met en œuvre depuis plusieurs années un enseignement basé sur les différentes pratiques qu’elle a rencontrées dans son parcours professionnel et sur des outils originaux qu’elle développe auprès d’enfants mais également du corps enseignant et de jeunes danseurs.
Matteo Sedda
Supported by Grand Studio in Brussels
Matteo Sedda, choreographer, dancer, and activist of Sardinian origin, has collaborated and continues to work as a freelance for various artists, including Jan Fabre, Enzo Cosimi, Aïda Gabriëls, Igor x Morena and Dag Taeldeman & Andrew Van Ostade.
Since 2018, Sedda has been pursuing choreographic research, deeply marked by his experience with HIV. Exploring desire and vulnerability, he aims to create new representations of AIDS that renew the dialogue between historical memory and artistic remodelling.
His works pays tribute to the artists lost to complications related to GRIS (Gay-Related Immune Deficiency), establishing a contemporary dialogue with the past and making his infected body the started point for a new choreographic writing.
After his first solo POZ!, in which his coming out as a person living with HIV became both a political and artistic manifesto, he continued his journey with FUCK ME BLIND, a choreographic duet adwarded the DNAppunti Coreografici 2024 prize.
As an activist he shares his personal experience to provide information and support regarding HIV. He collaborates with several organisations from Europe, including LILA, Sensoa, Ex Aequo and Plateforme Prévention Sida.
Ana Rita Xavier
Soutenue par Teatro Municipal do Porto
Ana Rita Xavier (née en 1995, Portugal) est performeuse, chorégraphe et chercheuse, basée à Porto. Elle fait actuellement partie du collectif Amparo99. Diplômée de l’Escola Superior de Dança (Lisbonne, 2016), elle met l’accent, dans sa pratique de performeuse co-créative, sur la collaboration avec Gustavo Ciríaco, Guilherme de Sousa et Pedro Azevedo, Jo Castro, Bod Wilson Trio et Wura Moraes, Gil Mac, André Braga et Cláudia Figueiredo, Xana Novais et Aura. En tant que chorégraphe, elle a créé Zona 1 (TMP, 2019), Título meramente descritivo ou duas mulheres e uma plateia, en co-création avec Sofia Alvernaz (TMP, 2021), Ming the Clam and the Immortal Jellyfish (TMP, 2023), BEAUTIFUL, en co-direction avec Daniel Conant (Festival DDD, 2025), et Tender Riot, également en co-direction avec Daniel Conant (création au GUIdance, 2026). Son projet de recherche actuel, Instimulável, s’intéresse à la collaboration, à l’horizontalité, à la visibilité, à la spectatorialité, aux dynamiques de pouvoir, à l’interdépendance et à la résistance.
Karolin Stächele
Soutenue par le Theater Freiburg
Karolin Stächele crée depuis 2014 des pièces de longue durée pour différents espaces et scènes sous le label DAGADA dance. Basée à Fribourg, elle travaille avec un groupe dynamique d’artistes issus de divers horizons et développe un répertoire comprenant aussi bien des solos que des créations collectives. Dans un discours artistique ouvert et participatif, elle chorégraphie un langage dansé vibrant, toujours en lien avec les transformations sociales qui l’entourent. La compagnie a présenté ses œuvres en Allemagne et à l’international, notamment à Berlin, Leipzig, Bâle (CH), Haarlem, La Haye (NL), Brest (FR), Barcelone (ES) et Prague (CZ). Karolin a été cofondatrice et membre active de tanznetz|freiburg (2018–2022). Depuis septembre 2021, elle est co-directrice des programmes de formation à bewegungs-art freiburg.
“My work is loud and tender; it seduces and confronts. It challenges by refusing to simply please, daring instead to explore the raw and uncomfortable – that which lies deep within us all and is a part of who we are.” Karolin Stächele
Audrey Merilus
Supported by CCN – Ballet de Lorraine
Audrey Merilus is a French artist of Afro-Caribbean descent based between Brussels and Paris. She studied at the Conservatoire Régional de Paris (CRR) and continued her training at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Lyon (CNSMDL), before obtaining her bachelor’s degree in dance from the Training Cycle at P.A.R.T.S.
She has worked with various international productions and artists, including: Gisèle Vienne, Soa Ratsifandrihana, Florentina Holzinger, Maud le Pladec, Michiel Vandevelde, and Rosas for the revival of Drumming.
As an extension of her artistic journey, Audrey’s evolving practice has extended into curation. For the tenth edition of Radiant Nights at DeSingel (Antwerp), she initiated the project COLLECTIVE MEMORIES, a program in which she invited several artists to share their work during two evenings composed of performances, literature, visual arts, textiles, and sound. She’s currently working on the second edition in Atelier 210 in Brussels (2025).
Recently, she has taken on the role of dramaturg for Stanley Ollivier’s last work Spine of Desire: Wounds Without Tears, Out of One Skin in Diamonds and Shit (2025). She joined CROWD by Gisèle Vienne, and is a performer of her forthcoming creation which will premiere at the Schauspielhaus Zürich (2026).
Audrey’s ongoing journey merges diverse artistic practices and collaborations, establishing her as a dynamic actor in the international dance and performance scene.
Léo Gras
Supported by the Ballet de l’Opéra national du Rhin
A choreographer and performer, Léo Gras trained and graduated from the Pôle National Supérieur de Danse Rosella Hightower from 2010 to 2019 in study sports, before becoming a professional dancer-performer at the Centre Chorégraphique National Ballet de Lorraine under the direction of Petter Jacobsson, he participated in numerous creations with various choreographers (M.Cunningham, T.Brown, M.Le Pladec, O.Dubois…).
In 2024, he founded the structure BOIS DORMANT, to enable him to develop his choreographic and artistic projects. Choreographing since his studies, he created his first project, I’ll Give You My Eyesin 2020, followed by his first piece Les Phalènes in 2022. Since then, he has developed a body of work combining dance, costume, theater, film and doll design, questioning identity and self-definition. Since 2022, he has been working on the reproduction of his own body through the creation of human-sized dolls. His aim here is to question the notion of individuality and personality through the act of doubling.
He obtained his state diploma as a classical dance teacher in 2023 from the Centre National de la Danse in Pantin. At the same time, he has been studying at SciencesPo Paris in the Certificat pour Sportif de Haut Niveau since 2020.