Springback Academy 2019
People
Writers
Charles A. Catherine
Charles Catherine was raised in Normandy and focused at an early age on three hobbies: movement, words, stories. He came to dance through ballet and modern jazz, before opting for contemporary and practising it at university level in Paris alongside studies in history, sociology and cultural policies. Writing was never far away – from academic papers to projects for plays, through to blogging about music, shows, artists, dancers… He began to choreograph in 2004 for university groups, write about stage productions in 2009 and graduated to writing for theatre in 2012. His last production, Gis_elle, was performed at the Théâtre Marigny (Paris) in February 2019. Dance journalism was a nautral development: he wanted to talk about shared emotions, the beauty of movement, technique, and to prove that dance is everywhere, and, above all necessary for thinking about the world.
Teresa Fazan
Suzanne Frost
Suzanne Frost studied classical ballet in her hometown Berlin before embarking on a professional dance career as a showgirl at the famous Lido de Paris. A performer at night and student by day, she obtained a BA in Journalism and PR with the intention of becoming a dance critic. After a season interning at Barrie Kosky’s Komische Oper Berlin exploring dramaturgy and communication, she moved to London to study for an MA in Dramaturgy and Theatre Criticism at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama. After graduating, Suzanne worked as an editor for London Calling reviewing theatre, opera and art before returning to her first love of dance, taking up the position of Press and PR Manager at The Place, London in September 2018.
Beatrix Joyce
Beatrix Joyce (UK/NL) is a performance artist and dance writer currently based in Berlin. She trained in Contemporary Dance at Laban, London, and graduated with an MA in Sociology from Goldsmiths University in 2016. She works across the domains of dance, writing and installation and creates site-specific, intermedia and interactive performances. Her works have been presented across Europe in London (Swallowsfeet Festival), Berlin (Montag Modus, Let Me In Festival), Leipzig (P-Bodies Festival), Sevilla (Encuentros Concentrados Festival) and Gent (Gouvernement). She was selected for the position of Tanzschreiber at Tanzbüro in 2019 and is engaged in various experimental writing projects, most recently the dance blog Viereinhalbsaetze, the Tanz Im August 2019 media partnership and ‘live writing’ for multimedia artists Moritz Macje & Sandra Man.
Anna Kozonina
Anna Kozonina is a dance critic, researcher and curator based in Helsinki. Originally from Russia, since 2015 she has been observing the local contemporary dance scene and in 2021 published a book on experimental Russian dance with a focus on emerging choreographers and multidisciplinary projects that bring together dance, performance and visual arts. Since 2017 she has been reviewing pieces by various European choreographers. As well as obtaining an MA in Political Science and Linguistics, she studied dance history, performance theory, visual culture, curating and contemporary art. She is currently giving lectures on dance and performance theory, curating educational programmes, conducting research projects and writing about dance for several art magazines.
John Lyndon
Fox Marttinen
Emily May
Emily May is a British-born, Berlin-based arts writer and editor specialising in dance and performance. An alumna of Trinity Laban Conservatoire for Music and Dance and a member of the Dance Section of the UK Critics' Circle, she regularly contributes to publications including The Times Literary Supplement, Frieze, ArtReview, Kinfolk, Dance Magazine, Pointe, The Stage, and Springback Magazine, as well as organisations such as The Royal Opera House and The Royal Academy of Dance. Emily also produces and hosts the Terpsichore podcast, interviewing leading women from the dance industry about their lives, careers, and the female dance pioneers that inspire them. Guests have included Siobhan Davies, Andrea Miller, Oona Doherty, Aditi Mangaldas, and Shobana Jeyasingh. Since 2021, Emily has led editorial projects at the music and culture platform COLORSxSTUDIOS.
www.emilymay.uk
Léa Poiré
Léa Poiré is an independent journalist based in Paris and Lyon. After studying choreography and working in a dance venue, from 2015 to 2022 she was co-editor in chief of the dance section for the French publication Mouvement. She continues working in cultural journalism and media education, and collaborates regularly with choreographer Mette Edvardsen as an editor and researcher. Since September 2023, she is also the editor in chief of CN D magazine. She participated in Springback Academy in 2019.
Jordi Ribot Thunnissen
As a multi-faceted dance-professional, Jordi feels hooked to this artform in many ways. Born in the Netherlands but raised in Catalonia, he studied journalism (BA), choreography (BA) and theatre studies (MA) in Barcelona before moving to Amsterdam in 2014. Still active as a performer and as a dramaturgical advisor for choreographers, he currently focuses on thinking, writing and talking about dance. He teaches dance history at ArteZ School for the Arts in Arnhem, is currently engaged in a PhD research on the poetics of Dutch choreographer Hans van Manen, and contributes to Springback Magazine and Movement Exposed Critical Space as a freelance critic. As a lecturer, he has provided introductions to dance performances and conferences on dance theory for, among others, El Mercat de les Flors de Barcelona, Internationaal Theater Amsterdam, and Choreolab Europe.
Photo: Kim Doeleman
Mentors
Laura Cappelle
Laura Cappelle is an arts writer and sociologist who lives in France. She has been the Financial Times’ Paris-based dance critic since 2010 and covers French theatre for the New York Times. Additionally, she writes ‘France/Dance’, a monthly column for Dancing Times, and has contributed to the Guardian, Pointe, Dance Magazine and the Globe and Mail, among other publications. She earned a PhD in sociology at the Université Sorbonne Nouvelle - Paris 3 in 2018, with a doctoral thesis about the creation process in ballet companies. She is currently an associate researcher with the CERLIS (Centre de recherche sur les liens sociaux). In 2015, she was the dance consultant for the BAFTA-nominated docudrama Rudolf Nureyev – Dance to Freedom, directed by Richard Curson Smith. In 2020, she edited a new French-language introduction to western dance history, Nouvelle Histoire de la danse en Occident (Seuil).
Kelly Apter
Kelly is based in Edinburgh, Scotland and has been writing about dance, and the arts in general, for over 20 years. She has been Dance Editor and Kids Editor for The List Magazine since 1999 and Dance Critic and feature writer for The Scotsman newspaper since 2000. In this capacity she has interviewed choreographers and dancers across the world, and reviewed thousands of shows (including around 100 over three weeks each year at the Edinburgh Festival).
Kelly has also written for Dance Europe, The Sunday Times, The Telegraph, The Sunday Herald, The Daily Record, Edinburgh Festivals Magazine, and contributed articles to many theatre and dance programmes, including several for the Dance Consortium and Edinburgh International Festival.
She is a regular guest on BBC Radio Scotland’s Janice Forsyth Show, on the review panel. Kelly has also been part of the curation panel for ‘Made in Scotland’, an annual showcase of theatre and dance at the Edinburgh Fringe, and sat on Scottish Government funding panels awarding grants to youth dance projects.
Oonagh Duckworth
British born, brought up in London, Oonagh has spent her adult life living in Paris and Brussels where she is still based. She has been a freelance dancer, cultural journalist and producer/programmer since the eighties. As a producer/programmer she has worked with many independent dance companies as well as established institutions such as The Pompidou Centre in Paris, The Place Theatre in London and Les Brigittines in Brussels. She currently manages different arts projects from her own organisation, The Tinderbox, including the precursor of collective dance initiatives, the Bal Moderne.
As a journalist, she has contributed to The Guardian, Elle Magazine, The Evening Standard, City Limits and Time Out as well as the Belgian, English language publications Agenda, The Bulletin and Flanders Today.
She is also responsible for the Springback Academy yearly programme.
Donald Hutera
Donald Hutera has been writing and speaking about dance, theatre, live performance and the arts both in the US and the UK since 1977. Publications and websites to which he's contributed include The Times of London, The New York Times, Animated (Foundation for Community Dance, now known as People Dancing), Dance Umbrella, londondance.com and many others.
He co-authored The Dance Handbook with former Time Out dance editor Allen Robertson, edited The Rough Guide to Choreography and is featured in Fifty Contemporary Choreographers. An experienced post-show host, Hutera has been a jury member for, among others, the Total Theatre Awards, BE Festival and Casa Festival.
In 2013 he began curating, producing, creating and providing dramaturgy for GOlive Dance and Performance Festival and, the following year, co-founded Chelsea Arts Collective aka CAC with visual artist/philosopher Lilia Pegado.
Sanjoy Roy
Sanjoy Roy has written on dance for the Guardian since 2002, and contributed to many other publications including the New Statesman, Dance Gazette, Dancing Times, and he is London correspondent for Dance International magazine. He was formerly production editor and book designer for Dance Books Ltd. He wrote the Guardian's popular Step by step guides to dance, and conceived and scripted the much-loved animation series Planet Dance: a visitor's guide to contemporary dance. He has been a writing mentor at Springback Academy since 2014.
He keeps an archive of his writing at sanjoyroy.net.