Biography
“The essence of my work is about the transformation of body and energy – human and animal”
Joy Alpuerto Ritter was born in Los Angeles and grew up in Freiburg in Breisgau (DE). In her youth she trained in ballet, jazz, Philippine and Polynesian folk dance and graduated at the Palucca School in Dresden. She started working as a contemporary freelance dancer with choreographers like Christoph Winkler, Anja Kozik, Heike Hennig and Yui Kawaguchi. For a period of time she focused in urban dance styles like hip hop, breakdance and voguing and was active in the urban dance scene in Europe. In 2011, she joined Cirque du Soleil as a dancer and aerial artist in the Michael Jackson Immortal World Tour.
Since 2013 she has been a dancer and rehearsal director at the Akram Khan Company and she has danced with the Wangramirez company, with which she continues touring around the world. She has been nominated as an “outstanding female dancer” for Khan’s Until the Lions by the National Dance Awards (UK).
Joy has been creating her own work since 2016 and collaborating with Lukas Steltner and the Viviana Durante Company. She has also been collaborating as an associate choreographer with Akram Khan, Chen Shi-Zheng, the Indie rock band Florence and the machine, as well as creating performances for the Salzburg Experimental Academy of Dance (SEAD), Dance Arts Faculty Rome (DAF) and Beijing Dance Academy.