Counter Balance

Residency Programme

With Counter Balance, the Tanztriennale has launched a new residency format that creates space for Research and Short Creations.

The goal of these residencies is to provide space for experimentation in relation to developing the art form outside of the common dance making bubbles and production pathways. Additionally, they are to provide an opportunity for conventional dance canons to be examined and challenged through collaborative, cross genre and cross cultural inquiry and to trigger exploration in the role dance may play in a larger societal context.

The call for entries attracted a great deal of interest, with over 600 applications submitted from 60 different countries! The jury - Pedro Barreiro (artistic director, O Espaço do Tempo, Montemor-O-Novo), Iván Pérez (artistic director, Dance Theatre Heidelberg), Monique Smith-McDowell (choreographer, performer, and audio describer, Hamburg), Monica Gillette and Gwen Hsin-Yi Chang (co-artistic directors, Tanztriennale Hamburg) - has selected four tandems.

The residencies, lasting several weeks, will take place between March and June 2026 at partner locations throughout Germany: HELLERAU - European Center for the Arts (Dresden), Hessian State Ballet (Darmstadt/Wiesbaden), LOFFT - DAS THEATER (Leipzig), Perform[d]ance (Stralsund), Studio Pro Arte - Dance House and Cultural Center (Freiburg), and tanzhaus nrw (Düsseldorf).

Fabienne „Foxy“ Klüver & Sizwe „Sizwe031“ Mzimela

Research

Sizwe Mzimela is a DJ and cultural organizer born in Durban, South Africa, whose work is rooted in the deep connection between music, dance, and community life. Fabienne “Foxy” Klüver, born in Hamburg, Germany, is both a dancer and an Amapiano DJ, with a practice framed by Western training and institutional systems. Their Counter Balance residency is about lived heritage meeting Westernized frameworks, insider experience meeting outsider responsibility. Together they created Junkpark, an Amapiano event and community in Germany. Their research will delve into not only the joy and vitality of Amapiano, but also the tensions of translation – questions of authenticity, cultural ownership, and the politics of representation.

Aoife McAtamney & Lucy O’Donnell

Research

This collaboration unites Irish choreographer and musician Aoife McAtamney with Dublin's Lexicon Library senior librarian Lucy O’Donnell to explore song, dance and choreography in relationship to literature, libraries and its community of readers. Through their cross-cultural research and performance project ‘Authors', they will extend their explorations to new environments outside of Ireland. The Counter Balance residency will enable them to discover cross-sector commonalities and differences between the social and human fabric of dance, literature and the people who inhabit them – and share a creative proposal for what a future German edition of 'Authors' could be.

Joseph Simon & Reiko Ohta

Short Creation

Reiko Ohta, coming from a disciplined ballet background in Japan, and Joseph Simon, having his roots in hip hop culture as a B-boy, connect through their shared interests and visions to propose an unconventional approach to ballet. With this cross-cultural experimentation, they aim to deconstruct elements of hip hop, house dance and ballet, to challenge and play with the social conducts, attitudes and aesthetics that are particular to these dance styles. Hereby, they will explore how ballet can coexist and blend with street and club styles, celebrating the openness to exchange in the spirit of subcultures that honor the sense of individuality, community, self-empowerment and liberation.

Lau Sin Yi & germain

Short Creation

In their Counter Balance residency, Lau Sin Yi and germain bring together three dance practices – Krump, Waacking, and Flamenco – each born from communities who turned adversity into art. By combining their distinct dance backgrounds, Lau Sin Yi and germain aim to create a space where their shared values – resistance, emotional authenticity, and storytelling – can be explored through a new embodied language. This tandem is not only an
act of artistic curiosity, but also of solidarity: What can our movement reveal about the personal and political forces that shaped us? What new forms of expression can emerge when we meet in a space of vulnerability and power?

“It was an inspiring selection process, as well as an incredibly hard task to select only 4 tandems from over 600 applications. There were numerous innovative proposals, ranging from emerging to well-established artists, and the high number of applicants speaks to the great need for more research and creation opportunities for dance makers. We congratulate these 4 tandems for their vision and approach to be in dialog with different dance backgrounds and communities. Each demonstrated strong artistic voices, innovative experimentation and high quality in their work. We look forward to witnessing the development of their visions during the Tanztriennale week in June!”

The Jury