Isabelle Schad
Dancer and choreographer Isabelle Schad first studied ballet at the John Cranko School in Stuttgart. After working in various classical ensembles for six years, she moved on to contemporary companies, including Ultima Vez, led by Wim Vandekeybus, in Brussels. From 1999 onwards she initiated her own projects. Her work focuses on the body and its materiality, processuality and knowability, as well as the relationship between the unity of body–mind–soul, choreography and (re)presentation, and the issues of community-building and political engagement. She has co-initiated several collaborations in her search for new research methods and working possibilities. In 2003 she founded the international artist network Good Work with Bruno Pocheron and Ben Anderson. In 2010 she co-founded the Tanzhalle Wiesenburg, a place for artistic research, creation and interdisciplinary collaboration in Berlin Wedding. Here she initiated the Open Practice Sessions, a format aimed at sharing her movement research with the Berlin dance scene and beyond. She also collaborates on a continuing basis with the visual artist Laurent Goldring, with whom she created Unturtled #1 & 4 (2008), Der Bau (The Burrow, 2012/13), Personne (2021) and Collective Jumps (2014), the latter of which is now part of a trilogy together with Pieces and Elements (2016) and Refection (2019). She has a long-standing connection with the theatre HAU Hebbel am Ufer in Berlin as a performance venue. Her works have been performed at international festivals, including ImPuls Tanz Wien, Tanz im August (Berlin), Montpellier Danse, International Arts Festival (Beijing) or the Venice Biennale in 2016 as well as in museums and visual art contexts.
Her pieces have frequently been selected for the Tanzplattform Deutschland (German Dance Platform), and she has collaborated with the Goethe Institut on multiple occasions around the world. She is a shiatsu and aikdo practitioner, teaches regularly at TEAK Helsinki, DOCH (Stockholm), HfMDK (Frankfurt), HZT Berlin and elsewhere, conducts workshops worldwide and is committed to the independent dance scene in the Balkans. In 2019 Isabelle Schad was awarded the Deutscher Tanzpreis for her outstanding artistic contribution to contemporary dance. Her work Harvest (2021), a collaboration with Theater o.N. and Offensive Tanz für junges Publikum, was nominated for the Ikarus Prize 2022.
Source and more information: https://isabelle-schad.net/
