Meet the 2024 Startup Forum participants
12 February 2024Following the Spring Forward in Elefsina (2022) and Dublin (2023), a group of emerging dance presenters will again be guided again through the festival by Aerowaves Partners, addressing current programming issues by example. Awards will be offered to three of them to plan and present projects involving Aerowaves artists when they return home.
Aerowaves board member and former director of Dance Umbrella Betsy Gregory leads the initiative and the mentors are Pirjetta Mulari (Annantalo, Helsinki), Lisa Reinheimer (Dansateliers, Rotterdam) and Francesca Manica (Romaeuropa, Rome).
Dimitris Chimonas (Cyprus)
Evelyn Raudsepp (Estonia)
Ilias Chatzigeorgiou (Greece)
Masako Matshushita (Italy)
Nina Fajdiga (Slovenia)
Tony Tran (Norway)
Simona Deaconescu (Romania)
Samuel Retortillo (Spain)
Renata Piotrowska-Auffret (Poland)
Dimitris Chimonas‘ work spans performance, film and sculpture; presenting work at theatre festivals, galleries and museums. He conceived and directed the opening ceremony of the International Cyprus Film Days Festival 2023, and curated and co-organised “Sessions: a series of queer happenings”, followed by a six-month takeover of the State Gallery of Contemporary Art – SPEL in Cyprus. Chimonas has attended multiple artist residencies, including a fellowship at Ashkal Alwan in Beirut (2018-2019), and completed his studies at East15 Acting School, London (2012-2015). dimitrischimonas.com
Evelyn Raudsepp (1989) is a Tallinn-based curator and producer for performing and visual arts, interested in cross-disciplinary projects and experimental formats. She received a Bachelor’s Degree in Theatre Studies from the University of Tartu and a Master’s Degree in Art Studies from the Estonian Academy of Arts. She is currently working as a curator and project manager at the Contemporary Art Museum of Estonia (EKKM).
Ilias Chatzigeorgiou is a choreographer, dancer and performer. He has studied psychology, philosophy and pedagogy and is a certified coach. He began as a self-taught hip hop dancer and has been a professional dancer and dance teacher for the last twenty years. He has collaborated with numerous artists from Greece and abroad and curated dance at Athens’ Epidaurus Festival from 2019 to 2022. As a choreographer Ilias has presented three dance works in major Greek festivals and is now making two new dance performances. In 2023 he initiated the “DANCING CHESTNUT” Dance Festival in his hometown, Arna (Taygetos Mountain, in the Peloponnese).
Masako Matsushita is an Italian-Japanese multidisciplinary artist, who deals with movement analysis through choreography, dance, performative installations and community interaction. She explores the presence of the body in space aiming to generate architectures for socialisation through senses, scores and maps, while questioning the connection between culture and aesthetics, identity and tradition, virtual devices and sensorial practices.masakomatsushita.com
Nina Fajdiga is a multifaceted professional in contemporary dance. She graduated from SNDO Amsterdam in 2007 and she later studied Cultural Management at Ljubljana’s Faculty of Management (2010), where she shaped her holistic approach to the arts. She collaborates with prestigious European dance houses as a dance maker and has curated events such as “(Ne)forma,” bridging dance and music. Nina has choreographed for Slovenian national drama theatres, produced art and music videos, TV commercials, and site-specific happenings. Currently, she is collaborating with Clarice Lima on “Bosque/Woods”, supported by the Big Pulse Dance Alliance.
Tony Tran is a Norwegian-Vietnamese choreographer and performer based in Oslo, Norway. He graduated from the Oslo National Academy of Arts and the Danish National School of Performing Arts Copenhagen. His work has toured across Europe, Middle East, Asia and North America. Since 2021, he has been the dance curator for the cross-aesthetic music festival Lyse Netter. He was also part of Dansens Hus Oslo’s Artistic Council in 2023. tonytran.no
Simona Deaconescu creates and presents interdisciplinary works, blending fiction and reality to examine collective values and our interaction with technology. Experienced in both Choreography and Film Directing, she founded Tangaj Collective in 2014 and co-established the Bucharest International Dance Film Festival (BIDFF) in 2015. Recognised by The National Centre for Dance in Bucharest with an award for her contribution to Romanian contemporary dance, Simona annually facilitates encounters between bold artists working across art forms.
Samuel Retortillo is a dancer, choreographer, manager and dance and screendance curator. As a dancer, he has worked with several companies across Europe and he holds a MA in Performing Arts and Visual Culture from Reina Sofía Museum. He is the director of La Rioja’s Choreographic Centre (in a rural area), Madrid’s Fiver Screendance Movement festival, and Futuros Emergentes Project. Since 2012, he has run various dance and live arts festivals and programmes such as the Madrid Dance Biennial. He is a founding member of the Ibero-American network REDIV, which brings together 25 festivals.
Renata Piotrowska-Auffret is a curator and choreographer. In her curatorial work she is particularly interested in the notion of parenthood and care as the content of artistic works, as well as the context in which artists are working. She looks at dance and choreographic works from a feminist and intergenerational perspective. Renata was a priority artist of Aerowaves Twenty17 and Aerowaves Twenty19. She is the mother of two children, 2 and 7 years old. renatapiotrowska.com