Meet the Startup Forum participants
13 March 2023Following the Spring Forward in Elefsina, 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 Catja Loepfe (Tanzhaus Zürich, Switzerland), Markéta Perroud (Tanec Praha, Czech Republic), Pirjetta Mulari (Annantalo, Finland) and Béatrice Horn (Biennale de la danse Lyon, France).
Agnese Bordjukova (Latvia)
Agnese is an independent dance artist from Latvia. Since 2017, she has been part of the international artist collective LAUKKU, which creates performances, residencies, and mini-festivals in rural areas of Latvia and engages with various communities. Since 2020, Agnese has also been working as one of the content creators for the online dance media platform Dance.lv žurnāls.
Egle Nevedomske (Lithuania)
Egle has been working as a producer for contemporary dance and performing arts since 2014. She spent 4 years at AURA Dance Theatre producing contemporary dance, managing international relations and coordinating the dance festival AURA. In 2021, Egle joined the team of Gintare Masteikaite and became a producer of the ConTempo Festival (in Kaunas), one of the largest performing arts festivals in Lithuania.
Ivana Hadžihasanović (Bosnia-Herzegovina)
Ivana is founder and director of the Tanzelarija Organisation, as well as being a project manager, choreographer, dance teacher and former dancer. She also works with deaf young dancers with whom she has developed a silent methodology for teaching dance.
Jarkko Partanen (Finland)
Jarkko is a Helsinki based choreographer and curator. He is a member of the W A U H A U S – arts collective. Partanen is one of the founders of Wonderlust, a festival of conscious and diverse sexuality. Currently, he is also studying in a masters programme in curating and exhibition studies at the University of the Arts / Fine Arts Academy in Helsinki.
Jelena Mićić (Croatia)
Jelena has been working as a performing arts curator and a producer since 2014. She is now an art director of the Hvar Summer Festival on the island of Hvar (Croatia). She co-founded the project Format dedicated to small forms of performing arts taking place at a local theatre from 1612, which they are trying to revive as a place for creation, creativity and the local community.
Luke Murphy (Ireland)
Luke founded Attic Projects in 2014 as an umbrella for his independent projects in dance, film and theatre. His work has been supported by various commissions, awards and residencies internationally. He is currently Artist in Residence at Dublin Dance Festival 2023-2025. Luke is the producer and programming director of The Catch8 Workshop Series in Cork City and dance curator at Uillinn West Cork Arts Centre since 2020.
Sheree Lenting (Netherlands)
Sheree Lenting is a Rotterdam based dance artist and curator of Surinamese heritage. Using movement and film she brings together multiple art forms in her work. Recognised for her innovative community work, Sheree has been invited as a Programmer by both Theatre Rotterdam and Korzo Theatre where she has co-created the programmes FluX and TR Citizens to engage local communities with the theatres.
Simone Mousset (UK / Luxembourg)
Simone is a choreographer and artist who makes work internationally. Recipient of the Luxembourgish Dance Award, and formerly associated with various networks/theatres, Simone is currently a Work Place artist at The Place, London, and supported by the Ministry of Culture in Luxembourg and the Fondation Cleo Thiberge-Edrom in France. Simone is interested in accompanying artists and artistic processes, and sets up spaces for this in collaboration with artists and institutions.
Soňa Jakubove (Slovakia)
Sona is the deputy director of the independent cultural centre Maly Berlin in Trnava (Slovakia). She is an art director, production manager, and dramaturg in theatre and dance performances, concerts, art education, and is a coordinator of international art residencies. She is one of the founders of the project Dance Plan for Trnava.
Tina Hollard (France)
Production manager for Festival Sens Interdits, international theatre festival in Lyon (France) for 5 years, Tina has always worked for international venues and projects. From 2014 till 2021, she co-developed a space for creation and transmission in Congo Brazzaville, in collaboration with choreographer Delavallet Bidiefono.