Springback Academy 2022

Bas Blaasse (BE) is a freelance writer based between Brussels, Belgium and the Netherlands. He writes about contemporary visual and performance art, is an editor at HART magazine, and publishes fiction. He studied philosophy in Leuven, Berlin, Brussels and Copenhagen, and photography and visual arts in Breda.

Karina Buckley (IE) studied ballet and biochemistry before moving into broadcasting in 2000. She completed a certificate in Dance Studies at Inchicore College of Further Education, Dublin and her dance teacher training is ongoing. She’s currently exploring the interplay between cameras and choreography in the realm of screendance and is excited by the possibilities technology offers to dancers and dance-makers. Karina is co-founder of Climate Without Borders, a global network of weather communicators working to raise climate awareness and promote climate action with fact-based storytelling. Where facts fail to convince, stories are key and Karina firmly believes that dance – and other artistic endeavours – can be effective agents of social inclusion and change. She has previously written about dance for Ireland’s national public service media organisation and for the Irish edition of The Sunday Times.

Inês Carvalho (PT) is a dance artist and communications specialist in the performing arts sector. She graduated at the University of Porto with a BA in Journalism and a Postgraduate in Contemporary Dance. She also holds a Master’s in Arts Management from Middlesex University London. She started her professional career in dance in her hometown Porto as a performer, choreographer and teacher. At the same time, she developed her work in media collaborating with press and TV. Currently, she explores dance writing at the magazines Dance Art Journal (UK) and Gerador (PT) while working as a freelance communications coordinator in Portugal, UK and Finland. In 2020, she founded diagonal dance – a creative agency providing marketing and communications services to dance artists and organisations.

Berit Einemo Frøysland (NO) grew up in Lærdal in Norway. She studied writing at Westerdals School of Communication and graduated as a contemporary dancer at Balettakademien in Stockholm in 2016. She was based in Berlin for the next five years, where she worked as a dancer and a choreographer, staging several works at dock 11. In 2019, she went to Tokyo on the cultural exchange scholarship from the Berlin Senate. During this trip she started writing for Norsk Shakespearetidsskrift, the leading journal for theatre and dance in Scandinavia, where her writing is now regularly featured. In 2020/2021, she was amongst three nominated for ‘Årets kritikk’ (Review of the year) from Kritikerlaget for her text on Oslo Internasjonale Teaterfestival. Recently, she moved back to Norway and is currently based in Oslo.

Plamen Harmandjiev (BG/AT) is a theatre and dance writer from Sofia, currently based in Vienna. He holds a BA in Theatre Studies and Theatre Management from The National Academy for Theatre and Film Arts in Sofia. During his bachelor’s he spent a year at the Institute for Applied Theatre Studies in Gießen, Germany, and is currently part of the Theatre, Film and Media Studies master programme of the University of Vienna. He has written critical reviews, articles and interviews for various professional Bulgarian theatre, puppetry, and dance print/online outlets. He was involved in writing for multiple international performing arts festivals, both in and outside Bulgaria. His interest in dramaturgy led to an internship at Landestheater Linz. Along with his writing practice he has collaborated in performances of artists like She She Pop and most recently Robert Wilson as Assistant Director in The Tempest, at the National Theatre Ivan Vazov, Sofia.

Georgia Howlett graduated from Central School of Ballet in London, before moving to Rome to deepen her contemporary dance studies at Dance Arts Faculty. She has performed works for both stage and television and has choreographed in collaboration with the Royal College of Music and Central St Martins University for Arts. Georgia was proud to also perform in her local community, in a series of contemporary works focused on instigating climate action. Outside of performance, Georgia has facilitated creative workshops for children in both movement and writing, and has extensive experience working in access support work with adults with learning disabilities. Georgia currently works in Communications and Project Co-ordination for a London-based charity, while writing freelance on dance, performance and literature.

Hang Huang (FR) began his passion for dance with Wim Wenders’s film Pina. Ever since, he has watched numerous dance performances, from established names to emerging ones, in France as well as in other European countries. He started his blog dancevisa.com in 2018 and actively follows dance news online. In addition, with his marketing know-how, he volunteers for the French non-profit association Mécènes DanseAujourdhui and gives advice to certain dance-related artists. His dream is to become a true dance marketer engaging more people around the world to love and support dance.

With a background as a performer and an architect, Ariadne Mikou (PhD, University of Roehampton London) is a Greek-born dance artist-researcher and independent dance and screendance curator based in Italy. In parallel to her creative practice, she collaborates with artists and festivals for documentation and educational processes and with academic institutions for research projects such as Dancing Museums-The Democracy of Beings and Memory in Motion: Re-Membering Dance History. She publishes interviews and dance reviews, contributes to academic journals and book anthologies that explore dance, digital performance, expanded choreographic practices and site interventions and she is also an Editor for the international portal The Theatre Times. Currently, she conducts research on dance archives as a Postdoctoral Researcher at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice for the project CHANGES - Cultural Heritage Active Innovation for Sustainable Society.

Lea Pischke (DE) is a choreographer, dancer and writer based in Berlin. Lea graduated from École Supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Marseille with a degree in Fine Art, and with an MA in Creative Music Technology from Bath Spa University, UK. After participating in the DanceIntensive programme at Tanzfabrik Berlin, she completed her training in choreography at SEAD in Salzburg and P.A.R.T.S. in Brussels. Her latest works Spectral Schematics (BE) and Darija Divan (DE), with residencies at CND, Paris, RAMDAM – un centre d’art, Lyon, Espace Darja, Casablanca, and the European Centre for the Arts, HELLERAU/Dresden, have been presented in Belgium, France, Bulgaria and Germany. JUA KALI, her collaboration with Kenyan choreographer Jared Onyango, premiered in Berlin in 2021. Lea is a contributor to STREAM, a platform for live art writing associated with Tanzfabrik Berlin.

Sedera Ranaivoarinosy (FR) is a freelance writer, journalist and translator based in Paris. She studied journalism and dramatic literature in New York and came back home to work in the philanthropy and social economy sectors for 5 years before going freelance to go back to her great love: writing, in French and in English. Her work centres around amplifying initiatives that foster change in the world. When writing about art, she seeks to capture the transformative power of performance on its viewers. She is currently working on a book project rooted in the history of women in the hip-hop movement, with dance as a central focus.

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.

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 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.

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.