Guests

  • Lecturer for Classical DanceChris Jensen was born in Los Angeles. He studied under Albert Ruiz in Los Angeles and Stanley Williams and Andrรฉ Eglevsky at the School of American Ballet in New York. He has danced for the Geneva Ballet, the Harkness Ballet in New York, the Dans Theater in the Netherlands, and, for 12 years, for the Basel Ballet. He has also served as ballet master for Heinz Spoerli in Basel, Dรผsseldorf and Zurich. In recent years, he has choreographed numerous Spoerli ballets in Basel, Dรผsseldorf, Graz, Helsinki, Hong Kong and the Netherlands.

  • Lecturer for the Cunningham Technique

    Julie Cunningham trained at the Rambert School of Ballet and Contemporary Dance in London. Between 2004 and 2011, she danced for the world famous Merce Cunningham Dance Company. During this time, she performed in several premieres staged by that ballet master and  also toured with the company around the globe. She taught at Merce Cunningham Studios between 2008 and 2011. After 2011, she helped choreograph works by Merce Cunningham as a choreographic assistant at the American Ballet Theatre. Julie Cunningham now lives in London again. She currently works for the Michael Clark Company and teaches the Cunningham Technique at various schools and institutes โ€“ including Zurich University of the Arts, where
    she has a repertoire class that focuses on selected choreographies from Merce Cunningham. Among other things, Cunningham explains to course participants how Merce Cunningham worked with and choreographed his dancers.

  • Lecturer for Improvisation

    Michael Schumacher began dancing while growing up in his hometown of Lewiston, Idaho. He then went on to receive a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Dance from the Juilliard School. Later he moved to Europe and settled in Amsterdam. As a dancer, he has been a member of several famous groups, including The Forsythe Company, Twyla Tharp Dance, the Feld Ballet, the Pretty Ugly Dance Company and the Magpie Music Dance Company. He has participated several times in Peter Sellarsโ€™ productions as well, appearing in Bijbelse Stukken, Peony Pavilion, El Niรฑo, Bach Cantatas and La Passion de Simone, among others. Schumacher has also been featured in choreographic productions by Cora Bos-Kroese, Dana Caspersen, Anouk van Dijk, Mark Haim, Chico Katsube, Ruth Meyer and Paul Selwyn Norton.

    As a choreographer, Schumacher has twice collaborated with The Forsythe Company โ€“ on Splendor Shed (1990) and Blender Head (1994). He has also choreographed performances for Nederlands Dans Theater, the Dutch National Ballet and Dansgroep Amsterdam. With his brother Steven, he created Unwrapped (1995). In collaboration with Daniela Graรงa, Marcelo Evelin and Anat Geiger, he created ANDAMAMI (2000) and Glashuis (2001). Since the end of the 1990s, Schumacherโ€™s choreographic work has been featured regularly at the Holland Dance Festival.

    As an improvisational artist, Schumacher has collaborated several times with cellist and composer Alex Waterman โ€“ on Heaven Is A Radio (2003) at the Frascati Theater in Amsterdam, on Dans le Jardin at the Biennale de la Danse in Lyon in 2004 and at the STEPS Festival in Switzerland in 2006, and on Six Suites (2005) at the Holland Dance Festival in Den Haag. Schumacher was awarded both the Gouden Zwaan and the Jiri Kyliรกn Ring in 2008.

  • Lecturer for Classical Dance for Contemporary Dancers

    Marta Nejm studied dance at a private dance school in Brazil. Between 1980 and 1989, she performed as a dancer and a ballet mistress at Teatro Guaรญra in Curitiba, Brazil, where she also worked as a choreographic assistant. In 1990, she began working as a choreographic assistant at Ballett Schindowski in Gelsenkirchen, Germany.
    Since 2000, she has been teaching classical dance at ArtEZ in Arnhem in the Netherlands. Marta Nejm is a regular guest lecturer at, among other places, Skanses Dansteater Sweden, Ballett Giessen in Germany and Introdans in Arnhem, Netherlands.

  • Lecturer for Classical Ballet

    Kevin Richmond was born in Nottingham, England, and studied dance and theatre at young age. He then trained as a dancer, after which he began his career at the London Festival Ballet / English National Ballet. Richmond has worked with famous dancers such as Dame Beryl Grey, John Field, Peter Schaufuss, Ivan Nagy, Derek Dean, Christopher Gabel Woytec Lowski, Elisabeth Anderton, Fredrick Ashton, Natalya Makarova and Rudolph Nureyev. He has been teaching dance since 1999.

    In his capacity as ballet master for Richard Wherlock and the Basel Ballet, he had the opportunity to work with choreographers such as Nacho Duato, Jiri Kyllian, Christopher Bruce, Claude Brumachon, Mauro Bigonzetti, Patrick DelCroix and Jorma Elo. After serving for four years as ballet master at the Basel Ballet, he continues to work as a freelance ballet teacher / trainer / choreographic assistant. He currently resides in Basel.

  • Lecturer for Classical Ballet

    Dmitry Govorukhin was born in Izhevsk, Russia, and educated at the renowned Perm Ballet Academy. From 1999 to 2001, he studied at the Swiss Professional Ballet School (SBBS) in Zurich as a Nureyev Foundation scholarship holder. In 2001, he became a member of the Zurich Ballet, where he appeared in numerous ballets by famous choreographers โ€“ including Heinz Spoerliโ€™s โ€œNutcrackerโ€, in which he danced the principal part of Fritz. Various companies have invited him to perform as a guest dancer, and in 2005 he was nominated โ€œYoung Artist of the Yearโ€. Govoroukhin has a teaching certificate from the American Ballet Theatre (ABT). He has been a teacher at the Yen Han Dance Centre since 2013, and in summer 2015 he took on additional responsibilities there as an Assistant to the Managing Director. He has also been a member of the pre-selection board at the Prix de Lausanne since 2014.

  • Lecturer for Classical Ballet

    After beginning ballet at the age of 8 with Shonach Mirk Robles continued her classical training in some of the worldโ€™s best schools, including the School of American Ballet, The Royal Ballet School of London and Maurice Bรฉjartโ€™s MUDRA. She was principle dancer of Bejartโ€™s famed Ballet of the Twentieth Century from 1974 to 1986 and also performed with Switzerlandโ€™s Zurich Opernhaus, Germanyโ€™s Hamburg Ballet and Italyโ€™s Ballet de Torino. Her dance career was abruptly stopped when a banal foot accident forced her to leave the stage. After starting to teach ballet she realised that as a dancer, she had never really understood how to use her body and began to study Spiraldynamikยฎ while also completing her MAS at ZhdK. The combination of these two advanced trainings has informed her approach to teaching ballet technique through the integration of Spiraldynamikยฎ principles. Shonach founded her own school in Horgen in 2005, is a Spiraldynamik(R) instructor in French and English and teaches regularly at the Bates Dance Festival and internationally in Japan, Germany and Spain.

  • Lecturer for Classical Ballet

    Pilar Nevado completed her dance training at the Real Conservatorio de Musica y Danza de Madrid and at the School of American Ballet in New York. She was a solo dancer at the Victor Ullate Ballet, the Zurich Ballet and the Basel Ballet. She has danced in both classical and contemporary pieces by choreographers such as Balanchine, Bรฉjart, Killyan, Forsythe, Van Manen, Christie, Ullate, Wherlock, Wheeldon, Spoerli and Duato.
    Pilar has participated in dance galas around the world and was awarded the title โ€œDancer of the yearโ€ in 2004. She is also a trained dance teacher and teaches at the Zurich Opera House Ballet School.

  • Lecturer for Classical Ballet

    Udo Kersten was trained as a stage dancer at the Tanzhochschule Dresden (Palucca). The training as a certified ballet teacher took place at the Ballet Academy Munich (Musikhochschule) with Prof. A. Prokofiev. He attended seminars with Prof. M. Puttke and David Howard. As a solo dancer he was engaged at the Semperoper Dresden, the Komische Oper Berlin and the Bayerische Staatsoper Munich. Numerous international guest performances in various metropolises of the world have taken him to the stages of New York, Seoul, Shanghai, Beijing, Manila, Calcutta, Delhi, Bangalore, Mumbai, Saint Petersburg and Prague. He taught at the Munich Ballet Academy, the Dresden Dance Academy, the Berlin State Ballet School, the Augsburg State Theatre, the Gรคrtnerplatz Theatre and the Bavarian State Opera in Munich. In 1996 he was awarded the Bavarian State Prize for Young Artists. Students prepared by Udo Kersten won top places and prizes at national and international competitions.

  • Lecturer for Horton Technique

    Bostjan Ivanjsic was born in Maribor and began his dance education at the Plesni Center Ljubljana. Further stations of his education are the Association Danse et Art in Guadeloupe and โ€“ made possible by a scholarship โ€“ the Alvin Ailey American Dance School. In 1999 he won the second prize at the National Dance Competition of Slovenia โ€œOpus 1โ€. He has performed with the Alvin Ailey Student Performance Group, Ussar Dance Works in New York and the Bigidi Dance Company in Guadeloupe. Choreographers with whom he has worked include Francesca Harper, Frรฉdรฉric Jahn, Fred Lasserre, Derrick Minter, Earl Mosley, Milton Myers, Igor Sviderski, Michiyo Tanaka and Astrid von Ussar.

  • Kathleen McNurney began her dance education at the age of seven in her hometown Portland/Oregon (US) and graduated from the Harkness School for Ballet Arts in New York at the age of 19 under the direction of David Howard.
    She came to Switzerland 30 years ago as a dancer in Heinz Spoerliโ€™ยญs Basel Ballett. Until the end of her career as a solo dancer in 1988 she belonged to the company. As ballet master, Kathleen McNurney was most recently responsible for the technical standard of the ensemble and the maintenance of the repertoire for five years at the Basel Ballet under Ballet Director Richard Wherlock and four years at the Zurich Ballet under Ballet Director Heinz Spoerli. She previously held the same position in the Ballet Braunschweig, Lucerne Ballet and Ballet of the Staatstheater Wiesbaden.
    Kathleen McNurney was involved as choreographic assistant in creations by Heinz Spoerli, Richard Wherlock, Pierre Wyss and Patrick Delcroix as well as in the production of works by renowned choreographers such as Mauro Bigonzetti, Christopher Bruce, Jorma Elo, Jiล™รญ Kyliรกn, Hans van Manen, Angelin Preljocaj and Ed Wubbe.
    Since the beginning of the 2009/10 season, Kathleen McNurney has headed the company โ€œTanz Luzerner Theaterโ€. As artistic director of the technically experienced and versatile dance ensemble, she brings both renowned choreographers and up-and-coming talents to the Lucerne Theatre.