Rita Barão Soares
Ballet Academy, HMTM / Ballett des Staatstheaters am Gärtnerplatz
Rita Barão Soares trained at the Dance Academy in Setubal (Portugal) and joined the contemporary dance company there in 1997. This was followed by engagements with the Portuguese Contemporary Dance Company, the Karlsruhe Ballet and from 2003-2019 with the ballet company of the Staatstheater am Gärtnerplatz. As a dancer, she has worked with choreographers such as Gustavo Ramirez Sansano, Christian Spuck, Jiří Kylián, Itzik Galili, Jo Strømgren, Marco Goecke and Christopher Roman. After various freelance engagements as a choreographic assistant, she has been working as a choreographic assistant and rehearsal director at the Gärtnerplatztheater since 2019 and has been a teacher for modern dance at the HMTM Ballet Academy since 2021.
Classical Training for Contemporary Dancers
I developed this ballet class expressly to address the needs of the everyday routine of professional contemporary dancers. It centers on musicality, coordination, and the simple pleasure of movement found in ballet. The class is informed by the various experiences, methods, and teachers I have encountered during many years active in the dance field, integrating elements of modern dance and release techniques. Participants are encouraged to cultivate confidence while emphasizing suspensions and focusing on gaining momentum through conscious breath and musical phrasing.
Natalia Hoffmann Sitnikova
Ballet Academy, HMTM
Born in Russia, Natalia Hoffmann-Sitnikova studied at Perm Ballet Academy. She graduated in 1985 and joined Perm Ballet Theater (Russia). There she was promoted to soloist in 1987. In 1992 she moved to Germany and joined Bonn Opera and Ballet Theater. Between 1997 and 2012 she was a soloist with Dutch National Ballet. She performed leading roles in several productions and collaborated with renowned choreographers. While still working as a dancer Natalia Hoffmann-Sitnikova was also teaching, coaching and assisting in diverse new choreographic works at Het National Ballet and abroad. Since 2012 Hoffmann is teacher at Ballet Academy at University of Music and Performing Art Munich.
Classical Training
This training begins by introducing a vocabulary of steps and sequences during the barre work, which is subsequently integrated into center exercises. There is a strong emphasis on creating step combinations and musical phrasing to train dancers in fast coordination and flawless technique, all while providing space for their artistic development.
Keith Morino
Canada’s National Ballet School
A graduate of Canada‘s National Ballet School (NBS), Keith’s professional dance career was principally based in Europe, dancing with NDT II, Ramon Oller in Spain, and in a variety of other dance projects. He also explored choreography for dance, theatre and opera, as well as teaching in different European companies and conservatories. This included the Professional Dance Conservatory of Barcelona (EESA/CPD), where he ultimately served as Artistic Director from 2009 – 2017. Keith became a certified Gaga teacher in 2020, and is currently a full time member of the artistic staff at NBS in Toronto.
Gaga / dancers
Gaga is the movement language developed by Ohad Naharin throughout many years, parallel to his work as a world-renowned choreographer. Gaga classes are predicated on a deep activation of the body and physical sensations. We provide a framework for discovering and strengthening the body and adding flexibility, stamina, agility, and skills including coordination and efficiency while stimulating the senses and the imagination. Participants awaken numb areas, increase their awareness of habits, and improve their efficiency of movement inside multilayered tasks, and they are encouraged to connect to pleasure inside moments of effort. The research of Gaga is in a continual process of evolution, and the classes vary and develop accordingly.
Contemporary Training
Keith Morino offers an opportunity to explore movement quality and interpretation through clear form and musicality. Agency and choice are priorities while developing a clear perception of our physicality and interpretational talents. Influenced by his ballet training, professional dance experience and his training as a Gaga instructor, his classes follow modern dance principles such as use of space, gravity, and oppositional forces. The class is structured by a short warm up, followed by one or two technique exercises and a short performative variation.
Alexander Hille
Ballett des Staatstheaters am Gärtnerplatz
The US-American, graduated from the Saint Paul Conservatory for Performing artists in his home state of Minnesota, and continued his education receiving his BFA from the Juilliard School in New York City. He has performed off Broadway with Austin McCormick’s Company XIV, was a Principal artist with Les Ballets Jazz de Montréal, Benjamin Millepied’s Los Angeles Dance Project, Les Grands Ballets Canadiens, Les 7 Doigts de la main, and Cirque du Soleil (“Vitori”). He has worked with choreographers Anabelle Lopez Ochoa, Itzik Galili, Cayetano Soto, Mauro Bigonzetti, Alexander Ekman, Marco Goecke, Ina Christel Johannesen, Aszure Barton, Ioannis Mandafounis, Roy Assaf, Rui Horta, Thomas Hauert, Roy Assaf, and Benjamin Millepied. During his career he has had the desire and privilege to develop his own choreographic work, most notably with a commission from Minnesota Dance Theater with the cooperation of the Leonard Bernstein trust, fashion week in Montreal for Charlie Le Mindu, and most recently touring his work in Spain, as a result of his success in the prestigious competition “El Certamen Burgos & Nueva York”. He is also assistant, and rehearsal director for his friend and mentor Andonis Foniadakis, having set works and assisted creations for him around the world. He has been a member of the Staatstheater am Gärtnerplatz since September 2020.
Contemporary Training
Physical freedom: a study on anatomical principles and serious fun. This class will aim to liberate the artist psychologically through understanding physical limitations we place on ourselves. Through this contemporary workshop, with an anatomical approach, we will focus on our bodies in relation to gravity, and identifying the most effective ways to move with efficiency. This training aims to aid each dancer in injury prevention, resulting in greater freedom and confidence to perform their best. Additionally, we aim to identify which barriers we place on our personal growth, how we might start to identify them, and make a plan to move forward with a new sense of self awareness, and confidence.
Marc Geifes
Ballet Academy, HMTM
Marc Geifeswas trained at the Munich Ballet-Academy from 1988 to 1992. After graduating, he danced for six years under Konstanze Vernon and then for six years under Ivan Liška at the Bavarian State Ballet. During this time, he danced solo and character roles in both the classical and modern repertoire in ballets by, among others, Frederic Ashton, Ray Barra, John Cranko, Mats EK, William Forsythe, Jacopo Godani, Jiří Kylian, John Neumeier, Saburo Teshigawara and Hans van Manen. After his dance career, he studied physiotherapy in Amsterdam and graduated with a Bachelor of Health in 2007. From 2007 to 2010 he worked as a physiotherapist in Arnhem, where he cared for the dance company Introdans and the students of the Artez School of Dance, among others. From 2010 to 2020 he looked after the dancers of the Bavarian State Ballet and the Bavarian State Orchestra.
Since 2020, Marc Geifes has been teaching dance medicine at the HMTM Ballet Academy.
Warm-up and Check-in
We explore the body at the beginning of a dance day to prepare it for what lies ahead. We listen, feel, and investigate our musculoskeletal system. How am I feeling today, and how do I transition into the movement mode required for today? A fundamental warm-up where we gently mobilize and activate ourselves.
Cool-down and Check-out
Ideally concluding our dance day with a cool-down to initiate optimal recovery for the next day. We learn breathing, massage, and stretching techniques. Through individual and teamwork, we explore how to guide both body and mind into relaxation, concluding this day and being ready for the next.
Chantal Fink
Ballet Academy, HMTM
Chantal J. Fink started her dance training at the University of Music and Theatre Munich and graduated from the John Cranko School Stuttgart. She then danced as a member of the Stuttgart Ballet, Semperoper Ballet Dresden, the Bayerisches Staatsballett and as a soloist with Ballet Dortmund. In 2021, Chantal J. Fink received the Master Dance Teacher degree from the Palucca University of Dance Dresden and started teaching at the Ballet Academy of the University of Music and Theatre Munich the same year.
Classical Training
With the base of the Vaganova method the focus of the class is the understanding of the body as a whole, working on movement quality, dynamics as well as physical presence in classical motion.
Tamás Bakó
Tamás Bakó received his dance-education at the Budapest Ballet School in 1995. He has been a member of various foreign and Hungarian ensembles led by Ismael Ivo, Marco Santi, Adrienn Hód, Gábor Goda, and others. He has participated in numerous independent productions and projects as a dancer or co-creator. Since 2009, he has been teaching contemporary dance and Contact Improvisation at the Budapest Contemporary Dance Academy. From 2022, he’s coordinating the BA course at Budapest Circus Arts and Contemporary Dance College. Tamás Bakó has also worked as a guest teacher at other professional contemporary dance schools such as SEAD (Salzburg) and La Manufacture HES-SO (Lausanne).
Contemporary Training
Every movement counts’. The material of the class comes from different fields of dance and movement like contemporary dance, release, or contact improvisation. The class is designed to emphasize functionality and accessibility of the body’s architecture by investigating and utilising organic pathways of the body. By practicing set movement phrases and tasks, we will explore alignment, gravity, and momentum in both challenging and embracing ways. The rolling, walking, and skipping-hopping sequences will be used as vehicles to express these ideas through space, acting them in all possible directions.
Paolo Amerio
Paolo Amerio is a Professor of Contemporary Dance and Improvisation at the Akademie des Tanzes, Staatliche Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst Mannheim. Graduated at the MTD – AHK in Amsterdam, he later joined the Dance Company Nanine Linning / Theater und Orchester Heidelberg as dancer and choreographic assistant and took part as dancer at two productions of Costa Compagnie touring in Germany and USA. To this day, he has choreographed several pieces for the ADT which have been featured at the 7. BIENNALE TANZAUSBILDUNG 2020 HAMBURG and at the DUBAI WORLD EXPO 2020.
Contemporary Training
The aim of the class is to reach a sensitive, honest, organic and free way of moving while triggering a new sense of awareness and listening towards the individual, the others and the space within and around. Through various technical exercises based on floor work, release, flying low and soft acrobatic technique, the participants will be asked to channel their concentration into the movement’s path, from its origin to its extreme end, exploring and mobilising the pelvic area while acquiring a renewed physical & mental availability and generosity.
Emmanuelle Rizzo
Emmanuelle Rizzo, an Italian dancer, achieved semi-finalist status at the Gdanski Festival Tanca ‘Solo Dance Contest’ in 2020. She has collaborated with Sebastan Eilers’ SEtanztheater and currently works with DieTanzKompanie and Susanna Curtis & Co, with whom she was selected for the Kaija Festival in Korea in August 2024. Emmanuelle portrayed the role of Gazelle in the opera “Die Frau ohne Schatten” at the Festspielhaus Baden-Baden. She also continues her collaboration with Dustin Klein at the Munich State Opera and the Nuremberg State Theatre. Additionally, Emmanuelle has been engaged for a new production of ‘Elektra’ at the Festspielhaus Baden-Baden.
Matteo Carvone
Matteo Carvone is a choreographer and dancer based in Munich since 2012. His work blends physical, stenographic, and technological elements and they have been showcased at the Venice Biennale twice among Munich’s renowned venues like Gasteig, Bavarian State Opera, Schwere Reiter and more.
Matteo danced at the Gärtnerplatz Theatre, but also at the Jo Strømgren Company in Oslo, and in Alexander Ekman production “KUCKEL” in Stockholm.
He crafted five full-length performances and various shorter pieces. Notable collaborations include with Karl Alfred Schreiner in two R.Wagner operas, directed by Keith Warner: “Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg” at Vienna State Opera and “Tannhäuser” at Nikkai Opera in Tokyo.
