DEARS
DEARS is a platform for writing practices at the crossroads of art, poetry and experimental writing. Co-founded in 2020 by Delphine Chapuis Schmitz, Nicole Bachmann, and Robert Steinberger, DEARS takes the form of a print magazine and extends to readings, performances and participatory events with the DEARS READS and DEARS, WRITE series. DEARS navigates in-betweenness to explore a variety of situatedness, voices, and perspectives, allowing textualities that rely on fluidity and hybridity to meet and resonate with each other.
Cosima Grand
Cosima Grand is a choreographer and dancer. In her artistic work, Cosima is primarily interested in the empathic potential of dance. In her practice, she explores how body movements and bodily sensations can connect people and create resonance. In her latest choreographic works, she has developed a physical practice based on rocking and trembling movements that incorporates work with the voice. Cosima completed her dance training at the CNDC d'Angers and was a member of the Cie Marchepied in Lausanne. She completed a bachelor's degree in multilingual communication at the University of Geneva. She studied theater studies and sociolinguistics at the University of Bern. Cosima collaborates and performs with Ruth Childs, Aina Alegre, Simone Truong, Chris Leuenberger, Jessica Huber, and others. Her own choreographic work includes the pieces CTRL-V(EP) (2nd prize PREMIO 2015), CTRL-V (LP) (2016), Hitchhiking through Winterland (2018), Restless Beings (2020), and things veer (2023). In 2015, she received the Culture Promotion Award from the Canton of Valais and in 2020 a Cultural Award from the City of Zurich. Cosima is an accomplice at Tanzhaus Zurich.
Jessica Huber
Jessica's artistic work glides back and forth between different performance worlds: while her early projects were primarily choreographic in nature, her more recent productions vary in terms of form and expression. What the choreographer's works have in common, however, is the search for a practice and aesthetic of sharing and exchange and the lived desire for collaboration. Accordingly, Jessica has made collaborations with other artists her primary working method. Formats such as walks, residencies and workshops are an essential part of her creative process.
Jessica trained in contemporary dance, choreography and dance & theatre studies at the Laban Centre/City University London. Together with Karin Arnold, she is a founding member of the performance collective mercimax.
She has been part of the Tanzhaus dramaturgy pool on a mandate basis since 2020. In 2025 she would like to merge her dramaturgical and artistic activities within the house more closely and also share insights and practices from her research series rituals of tenderness.
Kollektiv dance me to the end
Kollektiv dance me to the end is a collective of eight long-standing professionals in the dance field, including dancers, choreographers, dance educators, dance scholars, body therapists, and cultural policy engaged dance creators from various dance aesthetic practices and backgrounds. What unites them is a great curiosity, an open research attitude, and a willingness to take risks thanks to their many years of experiential knowledge. The collective came together in 2023 for an initial joint research phase on the topic of "Dance and Aging." Through their artistic work, they question concepts of the body and dance, advocate for age diversity in dance, seek to transfer knowledge to other societal areas, and create an intergenerational exchange of experiences. Together with experts from the fields of architecture, research and business, formats are being developed that combine performative, dialogue and mediating aspects in new ways.
The collective dance me to the end pioneers important work in Switzerland to increase the visibility of professional dance creators aged 60 and above, to strengthen the awareness and acceptance of aging dancing bodies on stage and in public spaces, and fundamentally to empower a curious, joyful aging process.
Kollektiv dance me to the end consists of: Angelika Ächter, Jeanette Engler, Gisa Frank, Anna Huber, Tina Mantel, Angela Stöcklin, Katharina Vogel, and Ivan Wolfe.
Charlotte Mathiessen
Charlotte is a performer, choreographer and dramaturge. She studied contemporary dance at the Amsterdam University of the Arts and worked as a performer and choreographer for several years after graduating. In 2020, Charlotte moved back to Zürich and completed her master's degree in dramaturgy at the Zürich University of the Arts. Since then she has started working as a dramaturge in the independent scene.
As a dramaturg, choreographer and performer, Charlotte is concerned with interweaving feminist practice, dramaturgical thinking and artistic work. Curiosity, desire and anger are driving forces in her artistic processes.
Charlotte was selected for the newcomer platform Show-Off at Tanzhaus Zürich in 2022, took part in the choreography program ATLAS during Impulstanz in 2023 with a scholarship from Pro Helvetia and was part of PREMIO in 2024. As an accomplice of Tanzhaus, Charlotte is developing her first full-length stage work night body night voice in collaboration with Marquis' Mc Gee, Lilli Unger, Jo/Joseph/Josephine Baan and other collaborators. Since 2024, she has also been co-director of the Zirkusquartier Zürich, a theater dedicated to contemporary circus.
Martin Schick
Martin Schick (aka TINA) is an independent cultural practitioner who has made it a principle of his artistic work to continually explore new contexts and to build them up, either individually or collectively. Having originally come from the worlds of dance and performance, since 2018 his work has focused on cultural management, cultural policy, activism and critical engagement. Their commitment is primarily directed towards community movements, cooperative or communal structures, and institutional transformation projects – in other words, where art is not confined within a frame, but rather expands or even bursts the bubble and the framework. At Tanzhaus, Martin Schick has been running the Wild Card training programme for many years within a professional training context, open to everyone.
Tejus Menon
Tejus Menon comes from a background of theatre, dance and writing. They began their journey at the Delhi University where they majored in Political Science. They have since worked within the free scene in New Delhi, including work with the Tadpole Repertory (New Delhi) and the Guild of the Goat, and have performed at festivals across the country including the Serendipity Arts Festival Goa and the India Art Fair. He worked as an in-house member of Crow for three years - India’s first participatory theatre company as an actor, writer and assistant director creating site-specific theatre in New Delhi. She began her training as a Butoh dancer in India & Europe from 2019 under the Subbody School, Shinichi Iova-Koga, Imre Thormann, and Julie Becton Gillum.
Their works have been shown at Tanzhaus Zürich, far° festival Nyon, Zürcher Theaterspektakel and Spazio 500, amongst others. Tejus is part of the Danse et Dramaturgie Programme for 2024-26, co-elected by the Tanzhaus Zürich and is a recipient of the DanceWeb Scholarship at Impulstanz Vienna 2025 supported by Prohelvetia Switzerland. They were also awarded an artist scholarship by the Fondation Caris and Stiftung Melinda Esterházy de Galantha in 2025 while finishing their Masters at the Expanded Theatre programme at the Hochschule der Kunst Bern. Her work is supported by the Culture Commission of the City and Canton of Bern.
