Anne Collod & Guests, Moving alter-natives

Anne Collod is a French contemporary dancer and choreographer. She has danced for various choreographers and started her own work focused on the topics of reinterpretation of major dance works from the past, and on the utopias of the collective. In her projects, she links performance, research, and teaching. She received a Bessie Award in 2009 for parades & changes, replays, the reinterpretation of Anna Halprin’s major work Parades & Changes (1965). She is the recipient of the French Villa Médicis Hors les Murs program for her artistic research on the Dances of the Dead, which led her to create The Parliament of the Invisibles in 2014, a dance piece haunted by the German danse macabre from the 1930s. She teaches in various contexts and is certified in the Feldenkrais Method.
Like Isadora Duncan, Loïe Fuller, and Mary Wigman, Ruth St. Denis (1879–1968) is considered one of the matriarchs of modern dance. Moving seamlessly between popular entertainment and theatrical dance, Eastern and Western influences, and the spiritual and sensual, St. Denis not only made great strides in elevating American dance to an art form, but also presented women as complex and autonomous. Similarly, Ted Shawn (1891–1972), St. Denis’s husband and partner, was one of the first American male dance artists to earn national recognition and champion dance as a valid form of expression for men. Together, they created Denishawn, an ambitious performing company that toured extensively throughout the US and abroad from 1915 to 1931, as well as a school with an impressive roster of students, including Martha Graham, Doris Humphrey, and Charles Weidman. In addition, Shawn founded Jacob’s Pillow, which has become a critical venue for dance in North America.
Sherwood Chen (performer) has worked internationally as a performer for artists including Grisha Coleman, Anna Halprin, Min Tanaka, Amara Tabor Smith, Xavier Le Roy, Wanjiru Kamuyu, Su Feh Lee, inkBoat / Ko Murobushi, Sara Shelton Mann, Antonija Livingstone, Larry Arrington, Oguri, Anne Collod, Taos Bertrand, Marina Abramovic, Jerome Bel, Jess Curtis / Gravity, and more. He develops and leads trainings, in-studio and site-specific workshops, and movement research worldwide. With more than 20 years of experience as a cultural worker, he has served a broad range of national, regional, and grassroots organizations and agencies predominantly in the United States. His work as a dramaturg includes Mouvements Migrateurs’ NEVERLAND (2024) and a forthcoming performance with Chibueze Crouch. He is an audio describer for Gravity Access Services.
Alto Clark’s (technical director) music is a journey through the intricacies of sound. His compositions are not just melodies but carefully sculpted sonic experiences. Each piece is a tapestry of synthesized tones and textures, where every element is meticulously placed to evoke emotion and introspection. Beyond creating music, Clark is passionate about the process of creation itself, collaborating on different projects to push the boundaries of what is possible on live performances.
Damini Gairola (performer), a 30-year-old dancer and creator from India, has trained in dance in India and Germany. She was an ensemble member at Norrdans (2022–24), collaborating with leading choreographers including Jeanine Durning, Rena Butler, Ingrid Berger Myhre, and more. Based in Hamburg (2018–22), she worked with artists including Anne Collod, Yolanda Morales, and Ursina Tossi. Her debut-collaborative work, Thank you for Your Visit, premiered in Hamburg (Germany), 2022, and has been presented internationally. Gairola is passionate about accessible art, focusing on audio description and multi-sensory dance. She shares her practice through workshops and interactive performances, while continuously evolving her work to address the current needs and challenges of the field.
Ghyslaine Gau’s (performer) background and experiences reflect a blend of cultural and personal influences as a Black woman of Afro-Caribbean descent, born to Martiniquais parents. Her research processes clearly navigate between different practices/skills and are always situated in several places at the same time. Her work focuses on exploring her experiences through Afro-feminism and decolonial perspectives. At the same time, since 25 years she danced in various choreographic projects in Europe. She worked with Anne Collod on a version Anna Halprin’s masterpiece Parades and changes – replay in expansions (2011) and on the piece Moving alternatives (2018).
After studying performing arts in Paris, Leslie Horowitz (lighting supervisor) worked in photography and documentary for several years, exploring the construction of light in live performance. From 2013, she began to collaborate with different teams for many concerts and plays, as a stage manager and then light designer. In 2018, fascinated by her discovery of contemporary dance, she joined the companies of choreographers Anne Collod, Aïna Allegre, and Mélanie Perrier.
Nitsan Margaliot (performer) is a choreographer, performer, and curator based in Berlin, entangled with queer archives, alter-enactments, and vulnerable encounters. He holds an MFA in dance from The University of the Arts in Philadelphia and his work has been presented at The 5th Floor Tokyo, 14StreetY NYC, Archiv der Avantgarden — Egidio Marzona, Sammlung Hoffmann, Radialsystem, DOCK 11, and Frankfurt LAB.

In 2020 he initiated TouchingMargins.com, an alter-archive, with Sasha Portyannikova and Anna Chwialkowska; last year he founded The Choreographic Institute together with Tamar Sonn and Sarah Holcman. Since 2022 he co-curates ACROSS Festival at Galerie Wedding. In 2025 he will be creating a full length piece for Pfalztheater Kaiserslautern Dance Company.

He has worked with the Batsheva Ensemble and Vertigo Dance Company, as well as Maud Le Pladec, Kat Valastur, Aoife McAtamney, Taos Bertrand, Anne Collod, Alexandra Pirici, Milla Koistinen, and Solistenensemble Kaleidoskop.
Originally from Recife, Brazil, and based in France since 2013, Calixto Neto (performer) is a performer and a choreographer with a background in theater and dance. He studied at the Federal University of Pernambuco and the CCN of Montpellier (ex.e.r.ce). A former member of Lia Rodrigues’s company, he has also performed with Anne Collod and Luiz de Abreu (whose solo O Samba do Crioulo Doido he reenacted in 2020). His works include the performances Feijoada, IL FAUX, among others. Calixto is currently preparing a group piece (Bruits Marrons) and is an associate artist at Scène Nationale de Cergy-Pontoise for 2024–26.
Pol Pi (performer) is a white Latin American (Brazil), trans*, middle class, and non-disabled dance artist and musician based in France. He graduated in Classical Music from the Universidade de Campinas (Brazil) and attended the masters in choreography exerce in Montpellier, having a background in physical theater, butoh, and Brazilian traditional dances. With his company NO DRAMA he has toured his work in France, Brazil, Spain, Belgium, the USA, Croatia, and Germany. He is trained in self-induced cognitive trance (TranceScience Institute) and teaches in the queer and sexpositve scene as well as in amateur and professional dance contexts. Pol Pi has also performed for other choreographers such as Eszter Salamon, Clarissa Sacchelli, Latifa Laabissi, Anna Anderegg, Pau Simon, and Anne Collod.