International guest artists at Spring Forward 2025

The training programmes

PEPA – Place of European Performing Arts is a course aimed at young artists who have already completed training as dancers, actors, or performers, and who are interested in making transdisciplinary work. Coordinated by Roberto Castello, this project offers the opportunity to study with internationally well known artists.

Agorà Coaching Project is a biennial training project for young dancers aged 16-22 years to bridge their dance education with professional experience. The course, organised by MM Contemporary Dance Company, prepares them to perform a rich and varied international choreographic repertoire.

Kenta Kojiri & PEPA – AHAI, Imaginary Landscapes

Born in Japan in 1981, Kenta Kojiri started classical ballet at the age of three. He made his debut at Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo and later became the first Japanese male artist to join the Nederlands Dans Theater (NDT I), a move inspired by his admiration for the works of Jiří Kylián. Kojiri has performed works by choreographers like Jiří Kylián, William Forsythe, Mats Ek, Ohad Naharin, Crystal Pite and Wayne McGregor amongst others. In 2010, he became a freelance dancer and choreographer and took part in the world tour of Sylvie Guillem’s 6000 Miles Away (Sadler’s Wells Theatre). He is currently an associate choreographer at Yokohama Red Brick Warehouse No 1.

Kenta is working with a group on the remake/adaptation of AHAI, Imaginary Landscapes, a piece he created and premiered with 12 female students from Saitama Dance Laboratory in 2021. For this new version, Kenta is combining the concept of AHAI with elements from his 2024 work Engawa, Imaginary Landscapes, creating a fresh approach that merges the themes and ideas from both pieces. As part of the creation process, participants will combine the choreographic material with improvisational tasks. Both the improvisation, warm-up and creation process will be adapted to the dancers’ experience and training.

Kenta will share tools based on classical dance and other techniques, drawing from his experience as a dancer at NDT and as a freelance artist. His approach reflects the influences he received from choreographers like Kylián, Forsythe, and Ohad Naharin, but, ultimately, Kenta aims to go beyond the confines of technique and method. Rather than focusing on specific techniques, he is particularly influenced by Jiří Kylián’s logic and philosophy, seeking to create a unified form of expression that transcends choreography itself.

‘AHAI’ means the harmony between time, space, the body, and the relationship between them. It also carries the meaning of ma (間), the space or interval, and the resonance that emerges from it. Through this work, the dancers will try to capture perceptions of the self from within as well as without, and they will also dive into the theme of coexistence through physical expression. AHAI is based on tatsukiamano’s new music.

The project is supported by the EU-Japan Fest.

Elie-Anne Ross – FLUX

As a woman evolving in street dance, Elie-Anne Ross has been practicing popping for over 15 years. She was introduced to this funk style—rooted in African-American culture and characterised by muscle contractions, isolations, and illusory movements—in 2006.

She trained with Montreal’s popping pioneers before forging her own artistic path and is one of the few women in Canada specialising in this dance form. In 2017, she became a member of Symbiotic Monsters.

Elie-Anne has collaborated with renowned companies such as Cirque du Soleil and Cirque Éloize and has performed at various Montreal festivals, including the JOAT Festival, which she now co-directs alongside Handy Yacinthe. She has also performed with multiple dance companies, including Ebnflōh, with whom she continues to dance today. Her performances and participation in street dance battles have taken her around the world.

Currently, Elie-Anne is working with Agorà – MM Contemporary Dance Company to transpose her solo piece onto a group of contemporary dancers.

FLUX is an immersion into the stream of consciousness, a space where body and speech intersect to challenge internal patterns. In just 10 days, this project will take on a new dimension, opening a dialogue between individuality and the polyphony of the group. 

Elie-Anne Ross explores both the form and content of the stream of consciousness and its interaction with the body. She is particularly interested in themes of mental health and body reclamation.

In this reinterpretation of FLUX, she seeks to translate key elements of popping—its relationship to time, isolation, and the dynamic between control and surrender—into a broader choreographic language. Rather than becoming poppers, the dancers integrate principles of the style to enrich their own physicality and movement expression.

This project is supported by the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec.