Below the Skin, founded in 2019 by Aly Khamees and Jelena Mair, is a dance company dedicated to transcultural exploration. Their productions shed light on the challenges of our time and celebrate the commonalities of humanity. Beyond entertainment, they aim to inspire dialogue, reflect on social issues and promote a deeper understanding of the environment. They transcend cultural and artistic boundaries, encourage co-creation and create performances that connect art and society. As accomplices of Tanzhaus Zürich, the company refines their techniques in open workshops and makes them accessible to a wide audience.

Muhammed Kaltuk founded Company MEK in 2017 to provide a strong framework for his art and creativity. The company develops productions that blend Hip-Hop and contemporary dance, cultural, and dance traditions. MEK stands for diversity and has a clear activist as well as artistic voice. Their movement language is strong, powerful, and unique.

FATHER POLITICS – in collaboration with Kaserne Basel and the COLOURS International Dance Festival Stuttgart – explores the powerlessness of politics and is currently on a national and international tour. Kaltuk makes clear statements on issues that concern him and society, addressing themes such as “Toxic Masculinity” at Theater St. Gallen, “Origin” at Luzerner Theater, and “Territories” at Theater Basel.

Choreographer Muhammed Kaltuk was born and raised in Switzerland in a conservative Turkish family. As an effort to break out of his upbringing, Kaltuk made a name for himself in the Swiss Hip Hop scene. At the age of 22 he had his first production experience at a theater and recognized it as a possibility to find his own voice, as a way to artistically deal with the world. At the age of 25 he started his dance education at the “Höhere Fachschule für Zeitgenössischen und Urbanen Bühnentanz” in Zurich. His goal was to further develop his movement from his background in Hip Hop, but also to get to know and use other dance qualities and styles. That is where he discovered his passion for composing and creating material from the movement repertoire of the dancers he works with, expanding the boundaries of these dancers and intertwining it with his own style and aesthetic ideas of dance. This has become his signature way of working as well as the socially critical, political and personal themes in his creations.

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.

Criptonite is a crip-queer performance project founded in 2020 by Nina Mühlemann and Edwin Ramirez. In their projects they center the work of disabled artists, provide opportunities for disabled people who want to get into the arts and use access as an aesthetic. Their shows tell stories about slow animals, talk about Switzerland’s history with eugenics and use pleasure as a form of resistance. Their most recent piece, Creature Comforts, was shown at Tanzhaus Zürich in October 2023. Criptonite receives four-year funding from the City of Zurich from 2024-2028..

Kwangsuk “Issue” Park is a choreographer and performer from South Korea, based in Zurich. He is the artistic director of the collective eight2one. As an Accomplice at Tanzhaus Zürich, he develops pieces that combine breaking, contemporary dance, humour and play. Most recently, he worked with Kaori Ito at TJP–CDN Strasbourg, with James Thierrée, and with Below the Skin, among others. In his work, he explores how people participate, how cultural identity is formed, and what connects us. He is currently developing the family production Das Schwingfest.

Eman Hussein is an Egyptian dancer, choreographer and dance filmmaker based in Zurich. Eman Hussein studied dance, street art, theatre and martial arts. Her work explores the relationship between labour and contemporary dance, drawing from the physical knowledge embedded in everyday work. Eman Hussein collaborates closely with workers, often spending extended periods in workshops, garages and construction sites to observe their relationship to tools, materials and space. This embodied research forms the foundation of a movement language that transforms gestures of labour into contemporary performance.

Eugénie Rebetez (*1984) grew up in the Swiss Jura. She has been working as a freelance stage artist for over 15 years. She has created four solo pieces to date: Gina (2010), Encore (2013), Bienvenue (2017) and Ha ha ha (2021), a play for young audiences, which was interpreted by Tarek Halaby. For La Fête des Vignerons in Vevey, she created Le défilé droit direct du Jura (2019), a rebellious parade. Other works include Nous trois (2019), an infernal trio, and Rendez-vous (2022), a piece with several guests. Carmen Jaquier made a film version of Rendez-vous for French-speaking Swiss television RTS. Parallel to her stage works, Eugénie Rebetez creates performances at art venues, including One night only (Kunst Halle St. Gallen, 2014), Unfertig (Hauser & Wirth Zurich, 2015) as well as Flesh, Heart and Soul and Geduld (for the exhibitions by Pipilotti Rist at Kunst Halle Krems 2015 and Kunsthaus Zurich 2016). For almost a decade, she has worked annually with students on the Bachelor of Dance programme at La Manufacture (Haute Ecole des Arts de la Scène) in Lausanne. From 2024 to 2027, Eugénie Rebetez will be continuously supported within the framework of concept funding, the new funding model of the City of Zurich Culture, and has also been a Tanzhaus accomplice since then. Her solo piece Comeback is planned for spring 2025.
 

Ivy is a developer of practices and performative roles in dance, music, and visual Arts. They are a natural shapeshifter, re-imagining and re-conceptualizing femininity, gender, social and race expectations through (dis)identification. Furthermore, ancestrality and spirituality are reshaped and envisioned in queer futuristic pieces featuring the artist as the protagonist most of the time. Ivy is also know as Mother Tropikahl Ivy B. Poderosa, producing events focused on an immigrant QTIBPOC public in Switzerland. Their work has been presented in the Museu da Imagem e do Som de São Paulo, Queer Bienial II in Los Angeles, Les Urbaines in Lausanne, Eco Futures Festival in London and at the opening ceremony for the Swiss Pavilion at the Venice Biennale 2019.

Jamuna Mirjam Zweifel worked with the Zurich-based collective The Field from 2019 to 2023, developing short pieces and experimental formats that were performed internationally. She has performed in works by Meg Stuart, Isabel Lewis and Simone Aughterlony, amongst others. In addition to solo pieces, she developed her first full-length production, Holes, in 2024 (premiere at Theater am Gleis, Winterthur). She founded Zookunft.Project (2020–2025) and has received several funding awards, including from the cantons of Solothurn and Zurich. Jamuna lives in Zurich, works internationally and is committed to community initiatives within the dance scene.

Joseph Baan is an artist and educator. Their practice engages in art, education and collaboration as ways to forge creative survival. They’re interested in the complexity of collectivity and in the possibility of establishing a solidarity that does not homogenise, but affirms difference. They make performances, installations, texts, group works, collaborative formats, and scores that aim to unpack the problem of relating, shifting roles and readings of power and control in relation to affect and reciprocity.
 

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.

Lea Moro works as a choreographer, curator and dramaturg. Her focus lies on interdisciplinary and inclusive approaches that connect artistic and social processes, as well as on sustainable practices and cultural accessibility. She has received international recognition for her choreographic work. In 2020, she founded the Work it Out platform, which is dedicated to the redistribution of resources and co-creative formats. Moro works in dramaturgy at Tanzhaus Zürich, was programme dramaturg at Kaserne Basel and programme manager for culture at the SDC. She is a board member of the Thurgau Cantonal Cultural Foundation and artistic director of the wildwuchs festival Basel.

New Kyd (they/she) is a movement artist, DJ and sound artist based in Zürich. Born in the UK to Nigerian parents, Kyd’s practice has developed at the intersection of diasporic identity, ritual and experimental dance performance art. They hold a BA in Dance from the University of Roehampton; they examine / practice dance through a historical (social) lens and somatic movement practices. 

Kyd’s artistic practice blends movement, sound and abstract storytelling through a hauntologist perspective. Their practice is rooted in modern, post-modern and somatically driven forms. Their work draws from tracing Yoruba cosmologies through contemporary muses, ritualised performances and postmodern dance philosophical thinking. Kyd approaches performance as a site of transmission. Through repetition, sonic experimentation and embodied research; ritual, memory and resistance/persistence are explored within contemporary performance contexts.

Their work explores themes of urban isolation, invisibility, opulence, desirability and spectral resistance within contemporary city life. They find stories, voices and muses which are drawn from dance history, supernatural stories, popular culture and ritual practice to create a fragmented yet intimate choreographic and sonic landscape. Their work sits at the intersection of postmodern dance, ritual and diasporic embodiment. Kyd confronts Western narratives of independence and visibility while addressing dance as a structural and political condition.

Schaupielhaus Zurich ensemble (2018 – 2020), Trajal Harrells, Zurich dance ensemble (2019 – present) and a resident accomplice artist at Tanzhaus Zürich from 2020. Their collaborations include artists such as Ligia Lewis, Wu Tsang, Paul Maheke, Jeremy Nedd, Akram Khan, Kandis Williams and Tiran Willemse. Kyd has presented at institutions including: Tanzhaus Zürich, Gessneralle, Berghain Halle (Berlin), Movement Research at the Judson Church (NYC), Cabaret Voltaire (ZH) and Museum Rietberg (ZH).

P. Piton is a choreographer and performer based between Stockholm and Zürich. P. Piton’s training led to the Conservatoire National de Paris, La Manufacture Lausanne, and Stockholm University of the Arts. Since 2019, P. Piton has worked within the collective The Field – a space for non-hierarchical, collaborative choreography that invites guest choreographers such as Simone Aughterlony, Ofelia Jarl Ortega, Isabel Lewis, and Meg Stuart into dialogue. Together with Romane Peytavin, P. Piton also co-founded La PP, developing works built on playful, instantly composed settings, including Dédicace and Farewell Body. In 2022, the joint project Snakes & Stones presented the performance Open/Closed at La Bâtie Geneva, Tanzmesse Düsseldorf, June Events Paris, and the Swiss Dance Days, among others. In their choreographic work, P. Piton explores improvisation as a form of composition and approaches dance through its ecstatic, sensory power.

Soraya Leila Emery is a Swiss-Moroccan choreographer based in Zurich. In 2023/2024, as a TanzPlan Ost Associated Artist, she created her group piece TURN ON. In her current work, Soraya Leila explores themes of desire through an intersectional, decolonial, feminist lens, providing a platform for MENA* dancers. Her current solo Coming Soon, inspired by Ingres’ La Grande Odalisque, questions Orientalist clichés and opens up new spaces for fantasy. In her earlier work, she questioned the preservation and transmission of cultural identity and the representation of the female Arab body. She completed her Master’s in Choreography at ZHdK Zurich in 2024, and graduated as a contemporary dancer from SEAD in 2017 and CFPArts Geneva in 2014.
*MENA = Middle East North Africa

Teresa Vittucci is a Vienna born artist who is based in Zurich since 2015. Her practice is rooted in the field contemporary dance performance and investigates feminist and queer perspectives on pop culture, history, and religion. Subversive jokes are always part of the process, humour being an essential aspect of her work. Besides her extensive solo work, she also collaborates with other artists including Colin Self, Marilú Mapengo Namoda, Annina Machaz, Simone Aughterlony, Nils A. Lange, Michael Turinsky and Claire V. Sobottke, Melanie Jame Wolf and Theater HORA.

Teresa was awarded the recognition prize by the City of Zurich for her work as an outstanding performer 2018 and the Swiss Dance Prize for the first part of her trilogy HATE ME, TENDER in 2019. In 2022 she created RIDE on invitation by Centre Pompidou and Leopoldine Turbat as a response to the important feminist work of avantgarde artist and filmmaker Ulrike Ottinger. SACRE! – a collaboration with Annina Machaz and Theater HORA – premiered the same year. In fall of 2023 Teresa was invited by Deutsches Theater Berlin to revisit her solo, the result HATE ME, TENDER_revisited is part of the repertoire and regularly performed in Berlin. In March 2024 Teresa will premiere the third work of her trilogy at Tanzhaus Zürich.