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The activities that occur at Ponderosa are organised and curated by several different people and groups.
For many years, the artistic director of Ponderosa has been Stephanie Maher. At present, however, a transition is taking place, under which several people and groups will be involved in the artistic directorship of events and artistic projects that occur at Ponderosa. At the same time, Stephanie Maher’s work will from now on be presented under the name Tipping Utopia. The artistic directorship are introduced below.
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Artistic and curatorial directorship
Stephanie Maher/Tipping Utopia
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Stephanie Maher was based in San Francisco for 15 years, dancing in several collectives, particularly with Jess Curtis, Keith Hennessey and Kathleen Hermesdorf. She is known for her breathtaking physicality and for creating works that express a unique blend of intimacy, sensitivity, and wild humor. Her work now stretches into the realm of task-oriented process and relational aesthetics. In 1998, Maher relocated to Berlin, Germany, where she continued to perform, organize, develop and teach in the community-based settings of K77 Studios in Berlin, and founded the Ponderosa Tanzland Festival and P.O.R.C.H. in Stolzenhagen, Germany.
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Kathleen Hermesdorf/La Alternativa
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Kathleen Hermesdorf is an international dance artist, educator and producer based in San Francisco. She directs ALTERNATIVA, with musician Albert Mathias. Active in San Francisco since 1998, the organisation supports the creative work of the directors, the creative work of the directors, known for radical dance classes, performance projects and musical endeavours delving into the corporeality and ineffability of human conditions, behaviours and other curiosities.
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Joy Mariama Smith
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A native Philadelphian currently based in Den Haag, Netherlands, Joy Mariama Smith's work primarily addresses the conundrum of projected identities in various contexts. A sub-theme, or ongoing question in their work is: What is the interplay between the body and its physical environment? Rooted in socially engaged art practice, they are a performance/installation/movement artist, activist, facilitator, curator, and architectural designer. They have a strong improvisational practice spanning 20 years. Smith is the co-founder of the COLLAGE Festival, they co-facilitate Couples Therapy, a lab focusing on collaboration between artists. Smith has been actively involved with the Ponderosa community for several years, and was part of the inaugural Poppy group. When they choose to teach, they actively try to uphold inclusive spaces.
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Peter Pleyer
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Peter Pleyer studied dance and choreography at the European Dance Development Center, ArtEZ, in Arnhem, the Netherlands. Since then he has worked internationally in the independent field as performer, choreographer, teacher, dramaturg and curator. Between 2007 and 2014 he was the artistic director of Tanztage Berlin. With The Ponderosa Trilogy and Visible Undercurrent, he successfully returned to his own choreographic work in 2014. He is a guest professor at the UdK/HZT Berlin.
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Maria F. Scaroni
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From Italian TV dance productions to release-based and post-modern dance techniques, from contact improvisation to literature studies and theoretical engagement, Maria Francesca Scaroni is moving through the complex network of learning and making dances since 1996. Scaroni’s works focus on the process of collaboration, play with durational experiences, and are featured by a crossbreeding between performance, choreography and installation. Recently Maria is involved in researching dance as a possible divination form or Oracle. She has created theatrical/installative/durational events with Jess Curtis, Vania Rovisco, and with Frank Willens. Since 2011, Maria is creating and touring works with Meg Stuart/Damaged Goods, (Until Our Hearts Stop, Sketches/Notebook, Built To Last). She has also collaborated as dancer/creator with Tino Sehgal, Jeremy Wade, Wilhelm Groener, Peter Pleyer and Hanna Hegenscheidt. She teaches in Berlin’s University HZT and is actively involved in forging other independent training programs (including P.O.R.C.H.), where she is developing methodologies focusing on the body as material. She holds a Masters degree in Italian Modern Literature, with a focus on Media and Communication and a thesis on education and dance.
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Yoav Admoni
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Yoav Admoni is a multi-disciplinary artist working with sculpture, dance and performance with an emphasis on the public space. His works travels between site-responsive, socio-political conceptual performance and between sculptures and installations that often involve an image of nature, in its imitation or in its fusion with domestic images.
Admoni is an artistic advisor and mentor and currently is undertaking the creation and curation of betOnest, an artist residency space in Stolpe, Germany. |
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Poppy
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Poppy is a curatorial and artistic collective at Ponderosa. Formed in November 2016, Poppy is an ongoing experiment in pushing the artistic possibilities of what can happen at Ponderosa. There’s a rumour that Poppy is an acronym for ‘Ponderosa Organisation for Practical and Poetic Yearnings’ but also, importantly, not an acronym at all. Poppies stand for the presence of art at Ponderosa.
Poppies utilize the infrastructure, buildings and surrounding landscape at Ponderosa as a research facility for artistic exploration, immersion and experimentation. |
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