She had her first encounter with physical training in the martial art Tae-Kwon-Do for three years and mastered an instructors’ course in the Wingate Institute – Israel’s National Centre for Physical Education and Sport in 2005. However she did have her Jazz-dance era long before, as an eight year old. In 2007, she started taking Modern and Ballet classes. From 2009, she studied Contemporary dance at Haifa Ramot professional dance program in Israel for two years. In 2011, she moved to Austria to study at SEAD – Salzburg Experimental Academy of Dance and graduated in 2014.
Since then she is dancing in different projects as a freelance dancer and teaching Contact Improvisation workshops. She has danced in works by Simone Forti(USA), Willi Dorner(AUT), Giannalberto de Filippis(ITA), Martin Harriague(FRA), Birgit Mühlmann- Wieser(AUT), MuYi Kuo(DEU), Hubert Lepka(AUT) and others.
Anna Bárbara Bonatto began her dance training in ballet as child in Belo Horizonte, Brasil. When she moved with her family to the United States, she joined a youth performing company where she expanded her training to include modern dance styles, tap, and theatre. At the age of 17 she moved to Los Angeles, California, and spent 3 years studying acting for film and television and working on short film projects. In 2012 she relocated to Europe and began studies at SEAD, Salzburg Experimental Academy of Dance – she graduated in 2016. In Salzburg she has had the opportunity to perform in various international festivals, such as The Summer Festspiele, Sommer Szene, Because the Night and New Faces New Dances. Anna Barbara is one of the founding members of 4.15 Performance Platform and is currently engaged in two separate projects with the group, one led by Edivaldo Ernesto and the other by Milla Koistinen.
He graduated from the High School Maale Shaharut in the majors Theatre and Visual Art. Additionally, he got introduced to the art of puppetry, a passion that follows him to this very day. He started his dance education in 2010 at Hasadna Be Haifa where he was studying modern dance, ballet and composition. Wishing to explore his creative and performing skills he chose to carry on with his studies at SEAD – Salzburg Experimental Academy of Dance in Austria where he had the chance to combine puppetry and dance. He has created a piece that collaborates the two art forms called “Marta” and used his puppets in a piece by Roberto Olivan.
In the last year of his studies in SEAD he joined the dance collective YUGSAMAS with which he is still working.
In 2015 he was part of the Salzburg Festival dance crew in “Mackie Messer” under Julian Crouch and Sven-Eric Bechtolf, choreographed by Ann Yee. He joined Ceren Oran for the creation and performance of “Sag mal” in 2016. In the last years he also worked for Doris Uhlich, Hubert Lepka, Simone Forti, Julia Schwarzbach and Jerome Bel.
Music and dance have been her passion from very early age. She started dancing at the age of four and classical piano classes at the age of 6.
A 2-year intense dance program at SEAD, let her discover that she wanted to become a professional dancer. In 2009 she got accepted to the professional program of SEAD. At the same time her passion for singing became stronger and she started composing songs on the guitar and the piano.
In 2010 she formed her own band „Nigrita & The Mellowbeats“ with which she released her debut album in 2012. She graduated from SEAD in 2013 and has now signed a contract with the Austrian music label „Union World Music“.
After completing her BA in physical education at Universidad de Barcelona María decided to expand her dancing skills by entering Institut del Theatre in Barcelona to study choreography and movement interpretation. She continued with her professional training at SEAD, Salzburg Experimental Academy of Dance, where she completed her studies in performance major. She is currently working as a freelance artist.
I have been working as a freelance stage designer for operas and dance. I have also learned about create sculpture out of the wood, how fascism works, how large is half a millimetre, stage and costume design. I am interested in space and the possibility of movements in it, distance and proximity, the dynamics within human relationships, seeking creativity outside of artistic standards. I want to work with the creative potential in Salzburg and initiate projects with people, support them to bring out their individual experiences into artistic contexts.
Tomaž Simatović is a Slovenian-born multifaceted performance artist, choreographer, and dancer based in Austria. He is developing his work interdisciplinary through performance, dance, improvisation, choreography, research, teaching and writing. Tomaž graduated in dance at SEAD Salzburg, and gained his MA degree in choreography at the ArtEZ institute of the arts (NL). From 2011-2018 he has taught contemporary dance technique at the Mozarteum/Carl-Orff-Institute. As a guest artist and teacher Tomaž taught dance and performance practice at the Falmouth University in UK, Tanzlabor_21 Frankfurt am Main, Dance academy Ljubljana, China Normal University Guangdong, and University of New Mexico Albuquerque, amongst others. He was awarded with a wild card scholarship (Life Long Burning Program) for his research and participation at the EXERCE MA program for choreography at the I.CI – Centre Choreographique National de Montpellier twice. In 2018 he has been awarded with the prestigious scholarship for artist support from Land Salzburg, “Jahresstipendium für Darstellende Kunst”. Tomaž has worked and collaborated artistically with editta braun company, Mirjam Klebel, Hubert Lepka, Dani Lima, Jens Biedermann, Uwe Bertram, Shlomi Bitton, Susan Quinn, Thomas Wilhelm, amongst others. Since 2016 he has been collaborating and has performed in works of Georg Blaschke. The work with Blaschke inspires him to continue developing the performance practice inspired by the idea of performative figuration and butoh. which he has been developing since 2012. Since 2019 Tomaž has been developing “ The Performing Solidarity Project” – a participatory artistic practice, exploring the intersection between forms of solidarity, activism and performance art, in collaboration and co-production with INFLUX Salzburg. Tomaž is a member of tanz_house Salzburg. His work has been since 2008 regularly supported and funded by Stadt and Land Salzburg, and BKA. His works has been mainly produced in Salzburg since 2008 and in co-productions with ARGEkultur Salzburg, tanz_house, SZENE, SEAD, and Toihaus Theater. His most important works and artistic collaborations are The Whirlwind Chaser (2008), Episodes (2011), The Night Keeps Us Calm (2011), The Entertainer (2012), Pulse (2014), Paradise on Stage (2014), “The Way You Touched Me Tonight” (2017), Back to the Beautiful (2017), “Suddenly the floor was not there” (2018).
I completed my Masters honors in Mozarteum University, Salzburg in 2017 in Opera and Music Theatre. During this time, I also took singing lessons from Bernd Valentin as well as the song and oratorio class of Thérèse Lindquist.
Through my roles in Mozarteum’s opera productions „Dialogues des Carmélites“ (2016) and in the role of Marcellina in „Le nozze di Figaro“ (2017), I have had important insights into the classical singer’s world.
Since 2011, I am a member of the Salzburg Bach Choir, through which learned being a part of a big group.
Furthermore I am a part of the acting group Theater der Freien Elemente since 2014, and thus learned being a part of a smaller group.
With the accordionist Jovica Ivanovic I am in a constant collaboration and learned being a part of only two parts…
Besides the singing performances in various genres (classic, jazz, modern, pop), I had the possibilities to get in touch again with my former studies in violin at several improvisation performances with Andrea Beringer & companions and also with the theatre groups achetypen and Marktbühne Berchtesgaden.
I have sung cabaret pieces (KulturNacht 2012/2017) and performed as a speaker and actor in Prokofjew’s symphonic fairy tale for children „Peter und der Wolf“ with Solitär Quintett for several concerts. Every concert is different and fascinating especially because of the presence of the children. From this I learnt: YOU NEVER LEARN ENOUGH!
In 2018, I had the chance to work with the Ensemble Desiderio for the theme „Folksongs“ in South-Tyrol and being part of two amazing concerts in Bruneck and Bozen.
Since 2019 I am supporting INFLUX as an Assistant in questions of organisation and creative work and learned, how to learn things.
Besides my work as an artist and an INFLUX-member, I am working on my degree as a Lebens-und Sozialberaterin, and I work as a personal assistant for disabled people since several years.
Especially learned until now:
„Sometimes you win. Sometimes you learn. You never lose.“
