Annie Hanauer und Marie Alexis
Foto: Camilla Greenwell
Annie Hanauer is an independent dance artist based between London and France, originally from the USA. She has performed, choreographed, toured, and taught extensively for over a decade. Annie sees movement as a medium for people to meet and is fascinated by how our bodies are read socially, what they carry, their concreteness, and infinite potential through movement. She believes in our bodies’ capacity to connect empathetically, and their power to express that which is implied, felt, or beyond language. She is interested in the wisdom & creativity of people who have been 'othered', stemming from her own lived experience as a disabled woman, and wants to dismantle ideas of a normative dancing body. Choreographically, she has developed her own methodology for group improvisation performance, and is currently researching on utopia, collective imagination, & disability.
Foto: Ivalina Yapova
Marie Alexis was born in 1981 in France and is now based in Zurich. After studying contemporary dance in Zurich and London and being taught Life/Art Process by Anna Halprin, Marie now works as a Freelance Dancer both in Switzerland and abroad. Since 2017, Marie has focussed on her own artistic and academic work within the arts. In 2020, she received her Master’s Degree in Choreography from Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK) and since then, she has remained at the University working as an Associated Junior Researcher at the Institute for the Performing Arts and Film (IPF). Her interests lie in the investigation of social dynamics and the outlining of utopia as well as in the questioning of structures of cooperation within dance. In 2020, she was awarded a junior research grant at the ZHdK’s IPF. Marie Alexis is the Founder and Artistic Director of compagnie O and sits on the Board of TanzLOBBY IG Tanz Zurich, where she plays an active role in cultural politics.
Projekt
This project will be an exchange of experience and research between two practicing neurodivergent/disabled dance artists, and will focus on choreographic process as well as inclusive work. We will look at developing structures of collaboration & communication that welcome neurodiversity, creating work spaces that welcome neurodivergent & disabled artists, and how to deepen artistic language and methods to support this accessible approach. This exchange will also support artistic research, and Marie’s current focus of developing her own artistic language as well as working structures that fit the demands of a life with autism, while sharing the beauty of it. We expect the project to include in-person meetings and online conversations, and choreographic feedback.This project sits within the nexus of choreographic research, inclusive dance practice, and advocacy.