Jayachandran Palazhy, founder and artistic director of Attakkalari Centre for Movement Arts, is a dancer and choreographer at the forefront of the contemporary Indian movement arts scene. His path breaking work makes Indian movement expressions of contemporary reality more visible both nationally and internationally. A Physics graduate, he trained in India in Bharatanatyam, Kathakali and Indian folk dances. Moving to London, where he lived for 15 years, he trained at the London Contemporary Dance School. An innovative choreographer, his collaborations with international artists, whose works involve digital arts and interactive technology, have resulted in some multimedia dance productions among which City Maps, TransAvatar, Purushartha, Chronotopia, For Pina…, MeiDhwani, AadhaaraChakra and Bhinna Vinyasa. He also works internationally as an artistic consultant and leads artistic residencies and given lectures on subjects related to movement arts.

Heine Avdal has been active in the fields of contemporary dance, performance, video and visual arts. After studying at the Oslo National College of the Arts and PARTS, he worked as a performer for various companies. He also collaborated with Mette Edvardsen, Liv Hanne Haugen, and Lawrence Malstaf on the performance installation Sauna in Exiland choreographed horizontal plane for the Norwegian National Contemporary Dance Company Carte Blanche. Since 2000, he created and produced more than 20 different performing arts projects, most often in collaboration with Yukiko Shinozaki. In recent projects, Heine Avdal’s focus has been on the distribution of space. He questions how spatial conventions affect the way we experience and move through private/public spaces. Considering people’s preconceptions of spatial conventions and through slight shifts, or manipulations he searches for unexpected intersections between different components of a space.

Yukiko Shinozaki (Japan) studied classical ballet in Tokyo. After high school, she moved to the US to study contemporary dance and psychology. From 1993 to 1997 she lived in NYC, where she presented her own work at different. She also danced in productions by Yasemeen Godder, Raimund Hoghe, Meg stuart and many others. Since moving to Brussels in 1997, she created Breaking through the roof of its house and Inner Horizon together with French visual artist Christelle Fillod, and hibi with Japanese choreographer Un Yamada. For over 20 years Shinozaki has been collaborating with Heine Avdal on several productions. Shinozaki’s work focuses on internal complexities and contradictions of the body. The process of transformation takes an important role in her movement vocabulary: through subtle shifts and manipulations, familiar actions slowly transform into an unfamiliar realm/landscape.

Daniel Kok has studied Fine Art & Critical Theory (Goldsmiths College, London), Solo/Dance/Authorship (HZT, Berlin) and Advanced Performance and Scenography Studies (APASS, Brussels). In 2008, he received the Young Artist Award from the National Arts Council (Singapore). Exploring the relational politics in spectatorship and audienceship, he has worked with pole dance, cheerleading, bondage and other ‘figures of performance’. His works have been presented across Asia, Europe, Australia and North America; notably in the Venice Biennale, Maxim Gorki Theater (Berlin), Rising (Melbourne) and Festival/Tokyo. As artistic director of Dance Nucleus (Singapore), he focuses on building capacities for artist development and trans-local partnerships in the Asia-Pacific region. Annually, he curates da:ns LAB (Singapore).

Roberto Olivan, an international creator, began his training at the Institut del Teatre in Barcelona and at the P.A.R.T.S. school (Brussels). His professional career began with the prestigious company Rosas, directed by Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker. He has also danced under the direction of Robert Wilson, Tom Jansen and Josse de Pauw. Additionally, he founded and directs the Festival Deltebre Dansa, the Festival ARTÈRIA TORTOSA and L’Obrador Espacio de Creación. He also creates commissions for dance companies, universities, conservatories and dance centres all over the world as well as in the film sector. His intense career has been recognized worldwide, receiving awards such as the Premi Nacional de Cultura 2014 (Spain), the Premi Ciutat de Barcelona 2013 (Spain), the Premio FAD Sebastià Gasch d’Arts Parateatrals 2012 (Spain), and the EFFE 2019 Award to the Festival Deltebre Dansa (Belgium), among many others.

Raffaella Giordano trained and worked as a performer from 1980 to 1984 with choreographer Carolyn Carlson at the Teatro La Fenice in Venice. In 1981 she met the Wuppertal Tanztheater directed by Pina Bausch and in 1984 she joined the company l’Esquisse of J. Bouvier and R. Obadia in Paris. In 1985 she co-founded the collective Sosta Palmizi and created the shows  Il Cortile, Tufo e Perduti una notte. She debuted in 1987 with her first choreography for seven dancers, Ssst…, and began to collaborate as a choreographer for the Folkwang Hochschule in Essen, Germany. Since 1986 she has followed a personal path of research, creating numerous group and solo works, including per un lavoro in divenire ( UBU Special Prize, 2000). She has also collaborated with numerous authors and directors including Pippo del Bono, Danio Manfredini, Alessandro Baricco, Cesare Ronconi, Mario Martone, Federico Tiezzi. She carries out an intense training activity in Italy and abroad and has participated in numerous educational projects also in the field of theatre.

A leading figure in Canadian dance, Danièle Desnoyers is artistic director of Le Carré des Lombes, a company founded in Montreal in 1989. Her repertoire, comprising some twenty works including Discordantia, Concerto grosso pour corps et surface métallique, Duos pour corps et instruments, Là où je vis, Paradoxe Mélodie and Unfold | 7 perspectives, bears witness to a practice deeply rooted in movement and an ongoing dialogue between body language, music, sound and space. Recently, she has decompartmentalized her own discipline, creating numerous atypical projects such as the cycle Les Scénographies-Paysages, performed in natural environments. Alongside her creative activities, she teaches at the Dance department of the Université du Québec à Montréal.

Lian Guodong is a dancer, choreographer, co-founder of L-Square Performance. After graduating in literature from Capita Normal University, he joined the Jinx Dance Theater in 2005 and he joined Beijing Dance / LDTX in 2005. An independent artist since 2006, he has collaborated with numerous companies such as Living Dance Studio, Paper Tiger and Wang Jianwei. His works have been invited to many festivals in Beijing, Guangzhou, Shanghai, Kunming and Hong Kong. Since 2023, Guodong is an associate artist at Mid-Mountain Dancers.

Lei Yan is a Beijing-based dancer, choreographer, co-founder of L-Square Performance. She graduated from the Beijing Dance Academy in 2006. Between 2009-2011 she was part of the Beijing Modern Dance Company and between 2011-2014 she was part of Tao Dance Theater. She often collaborates with Paper Tiger company and Wen Hui’s Living Dance Studio. She has cooperated with Lian Guodong since 2015; their works touch upon social issues, thought experiments and the physical boundaries of dance. Since 2023, Yan is an associate artist at Mid-Mountain Dancers.

Takahiro Fujita is one of Japan’s most important playwrights and directors. In 2011, he was the youngest winner of the prestigious Kishida Kunio Drama Award. With mum & gypsy, the company he founded in 2017, he directed more than 50 productions, involving an audience of over 25,000 spectators. He has collaborated with public theaters such as the Tokyo Metropolitan Theatre and the Saitama Arts Theatre. One of his best-known works, awarded with the Yomiuri Theater Awards, is the stage adaptation of “Cocoon” by manga artist Machiko Kyo. In 2013 he collaborated with internationally renowned writer Mieko Kawakami, with a work performed in 18 cities in Japan. As a playwright he adapted Haruki Murakami’s famous novel The Wind Up Bird Chronicle for a work by Israeli choreographer and director Inbal Pinto.