It is with great joy and enthusiasm to have the chance to participate in the opportunity of your application.
After several years of working as an independent artist, it is to my experience, a big challenge to be able to do what I love and live from it. I am a big dreamer and also a believer that our world deserves a better care. And for a world to become better, I believe we need to come with a vision that considerates the whole world.
The intention to apply for your grant is to really be in utmost service to the world through art. Art can bring transformation like no other method. Even amidst wars and societal chaos, art has always been one of the regulating pillars in the times of conflict. And today, we surely live in a very tumultuous era and global crisis through many scales. We need to bring and share art in more places than we can imagine. The industrialisation, the mono-culture, and mass consumption ethics of Capitalism has proven to drive us further from our roots, sustainable values, and common sense. There is clearly a deprivation to appreciate and integrate art in our systems. Otherwise, why would governments continuously lower investments in art? The habit to continuously segregate all sectors of a functioning life misses the acknowledgment what fuels it all: the connected breath.
So, please consider to invest in my mission and be part of the change art will bring in the world.
MY BACKGROUND
For context reasons, I will share where I am coming from so you can better relate with where I am heading.
I have had the privilege to be born in a loving, familiar and open community where simple things to help the planet were practiced daily. I have had the privilege of having intelligent parents combining artistry, music, spirituality, philosophy and science in our education to reflect upon. This lead me, not only to become a professional dancer, but also to become a teacher in many forms and a holistic therapist.
I started learning Ballet at the age of 7. Won several competitions through my dance education and landed in a very successful school: the Tanz Akademie Zürich. After finishing my dance education, I danced in several renowned companies such as the Netherlands Dance Theatre, Scapino Ballet Rotterdam, or the State Theatre of Hessen as a soloist dancer, allowing myself to work personally with choreographers such as Akram Khan, Wayne McGregor and Hofesh Schechter. Throughout my dancing career, I have always been keen to think critically and see what and how I would do things better than my mentors. Since my upbringing had been accompanied with much care and delicacy, one of my main concerns had always been health. Be it psychological, physiological or the proper functioning of an organisation.
My journey around health and responsibility had to be learned the hard way. Having started ballet in quite a strong way, I began to have chronic inflammations on both of my Achille’s tendon. During my growing period, I had several muscle tears in my hip, thigh and butt muscles and in the course of the years, numerous inflammations. I broke a toe, got almost into a burn out and finished my dance education with a triple stress fracture on my last two vertebrae’s (L4-L5). Even with a strong health oriented education(my father is a masseur and Ayurvedic consultant), a brother that is also a professional dancer and all the willingness to be careful with my body, the intensity of my approach to go beyond limits still had to learn me more. This is how I got in touch with many therapists and healing modalities that taught me consistently up to today, to be more in tune and more in alignment with my body physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually. Luckily through this, I can now share all this experience. I believe and I am very passionate about the vision that life is a never ending dance.
Even though I am very disciplined and dedicated to do my work properly, I was feeling unfulfilled with the institutionalised working hours habits. Working in three dance companies where I worked 8 hours a day, 6 days a week, I realised that it is inevitable to exhaust and disrespect the natural rhythms of the body by keeping this a norm. The usual attitude authorities have, is to think that we need that much time to accomplish the tasks for the choreographies. But I strongly oppose that opinion because the exhaustion is actually slowing down progress…
If I would manage a company, I would involve the artists in an emotional and mental process in order for them to channel more efficiently the actions. Making the active working hours a maximum of 4 hours(as a standard) a day.
Besides the health of our bodies, I deeply craved for connection with the audience. I love to show myself, to get attention and to impress(especially myself). We train for years to dance for people. Day in, day out for the audience. The collective level keeps on rising as the number of dancers as well. Dance became this top “sport”, that we can’t call sport. Anyhow, the expectation I had as a dancer, was that, I would one day make close contact with the audience and feel, listen and see how I moved them. But this was exceptionally rare and mostly not as deep as I would have liked to be met. What my reality has been mostly, is to dance in front of thousands, in a black box(theatre). Not being able to recognise anyone and finally when standing in the foyer with the audience, they usually fear to meet you. I felt left somehow alone from the people I danced for. I wanted feedback and communication, but I could not find it anymore in the dance world. This is why I decided to leave the company world to the free scene, becoming a freelancer and an independent, taking more responsibility for my art.
Since I felt compelled to organise a more conscious & intimate exchange, I create now my own performances. I already have collaborated with the university of Darmstadt, the Opera of Wiesbaden, Scapino Ballet Rotterdam, Laura Rae Bernasconi’s company and others. Through this creative experience, I had finalised a performance I am proud of: REFLECTION.
REFLECTION is a performance based on a structured improvisation: The dancers and musicians are creating the material every performance from the energy and inspiration of the audience.
The stage becomes a space to explore where does the other and the self start, meet, merge and end. This performance is at the moment being re-performed.
Additionally to my exploration of connection, I worked as a teacher. Between 2018-2024, I taught many dance classes in Rotterdam, Breda, Amsterdam, Basel, Bern and online. From teenagers to professional dancers, I vary and adapt my classes to encourage them to become more themselves. Be it Yoga, Ballet or Free improvisation I believe that movement should be a healthy and sustainable practice.
Not only have I taught dance but I also helped as a rehab trainer for patients in burn out, P.T.S.D., chronic fatigue diseases, fibromyalgia, etc.. in one of the best rehabilitation centres in holland. Since then, I give as well 1:1 trainings to help people become more aware, mobile and strong in their body, to live a life to dance and to be free from pain.
Because of the healing from my injuries and the life situations that has impacted me deeply, I became inspired to give treatments and healing sessions as well. In 2018, I joined my first massage company and have since then not stopped learning new techniques, healing modalities up until today. I had the opportunity to treat hundreds of people from all backgrounds and made this profession my main source of income. I learned the method’s of 11 bodywork healing techniques:
Ilan Lev Method (Certified)
Rolfing (Certified)
Osteopathy
Reiki I,II,III (Certified)
Light Language (Certified)
Seashell shamans (Certified)
Classic massage (Certified)
Heart resonance work
Breathwork
Thai massage(Certified)
Somatic work
Even though I learned all of these techniques, my opinion is that I have learned the most about the body through my dancing experience.
I wanted to share my background so you would understand better from where and how I am motivated to ask your financial help and what I would like to offer the world: To come more in the body, and to realise our inherent and visceral bond with the health of our ecosystem ’’Planet Earth’’. Because the body is our vehicle through which we experience our physical reality. And as our perspectives and states of being shape pretty much our experiences, I would like to bring more awareness, enjoyment and ease in the body to experience the world.
This is my simple answer but I have a much bigger and detailed plan for how I want to do it.
MY VISION & DEDICATION
I have the deep yearning to create a dance company that will inspire harmony with nature. Where we can practice & research the life giving principles that our ecosystems exhibit. Where we can upgrade our communication & exhibition of art from advanced/futuristic cosmological designs in harmony with nature. So that we can immerse our abilities and senses in the wisdom of nature to help spread it into the world. I believe that there is still so much untapped potential in the dance/art world.
To help create this company, I intend to visit several communities that have developed a level of harmony with nature to not only inspire myself in the process but to also see how I can develop agility, growth, and artistry within those communities. My inquiry is to develop and further my methods for how to infect more joy, connection, and aliveness within the hearts of humans through dance and embodiment rituals.
I believe that as long as we don’t viscerally feel what is feeding harmony and supporting the well being of our lives in a sustainable way, will we not truly understand why we need to change. The relationship to our planet, our nature, and all living beings on it is the denominal factor for how we will continue to live.
CREATING THE CHANGE
As much as I am aware of the myriad of possibilities to bring the change wished in the world, my purpose in this and focalisation is to communicate through the medium of art. Because art has and always will be, one of the strongest mediators to touch and wake feelings in people. We are in essence walking stories, so no wonder stories have such a strong impact on us.
I have the vision of making art be a state of being instead of just an objective reality by creating different containers that will uphold daily physical needs, social needs and the needs for sustaining a healthy relationship to our planet. A company where the possibility to reset, renew and birth our potential as human beings comes in harmony with all living forms.
I know that defending the idea of making art be a state of being instead of just an objective reality is of philosophical matter. Nevertheless, I want to give my opinion in a short manner: True art comes from the heart in service to the earth. Art in my opinion is meant to bring inspiration for the good. And it is as well embodied by many people that are not seen as artists… Having that in mind, I wish to bring that to the forefront, as a next level of art, be a way of living that is in service to our planet.
To create these different containers that will uphold my values, I see this happening through a hybrid form between a dance company and an association of healers.
Mixing professional dancers with professional therapists.
As most artists bring art that will touch, inspire and be meaningful to other(outer) lives and most healers or therapists are here to bring a meaningful change within(inner) peoples lives in terms of health, my goal is to bring through both professions, transformation in the context of art, that will heal our inner and outer nature.
And by the embodiment of the change share it with the world.
INTEGRITY
To understand the context in which I am researching and demanding your grant, let me share more about my values in a professional working environment. One of the aims of my dance company would be to demonstrate what any person is capable of doing in integrating emotionality and physicality. The idea would be to demonstrate examples of coherent actions to be taken in front of life’s challenges. Showing how we can navigate and adjust our behaviours for respecting higher values. For example values that would considerate all living forms or values that deepens & broadens our sense of self or values that develops sensitivity in places we would not consider being sensitive.
Having danced in several renowned companies, I have experienced a lack of integrity, in the purpose between dancers and the administrative team. Let me share an example how emotionality and physicality did not match: Many times, the dancers do not resonate with the work of the director or choreographers but are choosing to simply consent because it is the job. Of course I have an understanding about the motives, yet my wish is to make an opportunity to create a company, with selected people, where our purposes would meet in these deep layers as well. Because I believe that if we truly wish to co-create art that unveils authenticity, there needs to be a ground for the inner-spaces to flourish. There needs to be the space to create from the authenticity of the artist. And from those authentic, intimate, personal lived experiences, I am sure we will be at our best ability to share the fruits of our insights(insides) professionally with the world. And this would only succeed if there is a co-creative, collaborative and compassionate attitude at work. From a similar but different point of view, I would love to bring more physical closeness between performer and watcher. When watching dancers in a studio, being within touching range of them is a very different experience than watching them in a 1’000 seated theatre with 30-50 meters distance. Dance is becoming in many ways an abstraction to our sense of self. Allowing dancers to be at touching or accessible range to the public, creates a familiarity and a possibility to see better, flaws and vulnerabilities from the dancers. When that range between excellence and vulnerability is seen and felt, those two outer opposites gain value and appreciation to my understanding.
CULTURAL IMPACT Another aim of my dance company would be to create and develop its purpose by cultural exchanges. This would entice, to be in places where they still exhibit a traditional form of art and/or ancestral customs. Learn from the locals, live by their ways and exchange the wisdom of our cultures. By doing so, I believe that we can develop a deeper relationship between the people, the land but also with our own behaviours. Allowing both parts to give & receive from their ways. An opportunity for education, but also healing of the past. I believe that those interactions, especially between 1st/2nd/3rd world countries, are very meaningful and important for establishing healing in the inequalities of the world. Bringing inspiration, healing and exchanges through art and movement within the social aspect.
A very important part of this aim, is to document & publish these relationships and interactions with the world. Honoring the uniqueness and diversity our planet holds, while cultivating a spirit that interconnects and embraces the awareness that we are all one. I believe that it will be so interesting to record how these interactions between cultures, spark new inspirations and innovations for both meeting worlds. If I would have the possibility to develop something besides my time involved in creating this company, I would love to establish centres for sustaining cultures and eco-centres, with the associated purpose to amplify future communication between those different cultures and eco-centres so that we can establish the reality that we are all one specie.
INNER LANDSCAPES
As I have spoken several times about healing, giving support on different levels and needing space for individualism to find its place in the world, I envision for the creational processes, to make it happen where dancers & healers live in a self-sustaining land/community/farm.
As I strive for creating this harmony with all living forms, I believe that we need to do a minimum of work respective to all levels of living forms. This means that every artist needs to play a part in sustaining their food, accommodation and relationships in order to keep order, clarity and participation as an individual “harmony tone” within the collective group.
Such a dance residency would entice to co-create a deeper creational journey of self-discovery and self-development by exploring art through dance, embodiment, bodywork as well as the work of the soil, the house-work and other activities related to treating with care the matter of our planet. Making transformation accessible, an educational journey on our inner nature and outer nature, not only by knowledge, but also by the direct research & living experience of doing so.
The “inner” work will be related on how we can take better care of our bodies and how art can be used as a tool to transform and bridge the inner with the outer world. As much as I enjoy very much technology and the advancements of it, I fear that a perversion of the human mind is tempted to become lazy enough to forget what its purpose really is to do here on the planet. I hope to re-establish by this vision, our core values to be in harmony with nature by co-operating with a farming land. Eating the food that we grow, cleaning the spaces where we live and connecting to and with the cultures of the area. Reconnecting to the soul value of plant life, social life and the life as a general context of the earth.
The “outer” work will help sustain the ecosystem of that particular farm. And thus creating a different opportunity of “outer” development and ecological help for the individual but also for every location. If the bonds between our company and the farm becomes steady and fulfilling, I hope therefore to co-create in the future a fixed location for people to grow their artistic humanness in the world. Opening up art centres for people to experience permanently artistic-creational processes.
COMMUNITIES
This is why I would like to visit communities with your grant, to precisely ’’try’’ my vision for myself and through that, refine and test my methodology so that I could serve more people and eventually my dancers & artists. Bringing this knowledge to the world.
If my method does work out, I would then travel to different art centres, theatres, museums, permaculture farms, communities and places that would not necessarily have the privilege to invite professional care for providing art, healing, movement, and dance. Giving education, love, and a beautiful taste that life is a never ending dance.
EXCHANGE
I would stay at the community for a 3 month cycle
Now, the intention to visit your community is not only to receive and take their knowledge and skills how to live a more harmonious life, but to enter as well in exchange of what I offer as an artist, project leader, and body therapist. Because this is part of what I would like to achieve in reciprocity of their generosity: Educating how to appreciate art, and with that the transformative power our very ’’beingness’’ impacts the world - the subjective form of Art.
I have, for this, developed over the last 3 years an in-depth course that is artistically keyed to grow our abilities to communicate with all expressions of life, named: OPEN CONTACT
This is a 13-step process that revolutionises Western cultural paradigms by combining recent scientific findings on the interrelatedness of humans and their biome with step-by-step practices to swell our agility of loving the world.
A course designed to regenerate and help us remember our ability to relate to all levels of reality. A series of transformative chapters to guide to the natural self.
It could be done in 13 days or 26 days, giving the double amount of time, depending on the availability and possibility.
The course offers for each theme/step an essay, with added inspiration and practices to be inquired as deeply as one wishes, as secluded or connected with others as one wishes. Opening up archetypal perceptions on life, for example how death plays a crucial role in cycles, the power of facing fear and developing courage, the erotic intelligence that animates all life, etc… Adding on the introduction of the themes, I will offer embodiment practices where I fusion the wisdom from Tantra, Butoh, Dance technique, bodywork, Breathwork and the juicy bits of our everyday life.
Giving depths and dimensions to the course, I will invite the remembrance of our different bodies to awaken the ‘Total Body’ - that which expresses all aspects of who we are.
BUILDING TRUST
In the hope of building trustful relationships, I am intending in the future to create a dance company where we could immerse our creational period in these communities.
to make their knowledge more accessible, more available. To spread the possibility for a rightful and sane relationship with our planet through the mediation of our artistry. So that we first learn and exchange knowledge to be then spread around the world within theatres, museums, festivals, conventions, and others.
I am also direly interested to enrich my dance language, and approach to teach & choreograph for my future dance company. I believe that there is much unexplored knowledge within the intelligence of a cooperating, functioning community. I believe that no matter how advanced a singular soul may be, their intelligence cannot supersede that of a group-dynamic. The in-time dynamic of relational group dynamic unfolds much more diversity and wealth, we as humans, have still to learn and experience.
I hope in the future to create a bond with these places and more, so that we can readjust our place as humans in a true caring and stewarding role for all life and living beings. In the way that I mean it, more people, more artists, more manpower would be informed and connected with those communities, as well as new ones to help them as they help us.
IMPLEMENTATION & RADIATION
Last but not least, sharing our work with the world. Of course the whole point of doing this research in the communities is to implement it in my future work, for not only enriching my work but also to help inspire the dance field with new ways of creating and collaborating. So that the knowledge to take care of your body, the way we feel as well as the way we are seen are all parts of what Art is considered to be within common sense. That we can start to appreciate as much the process of creating a performance, as the end result of the performance. That we can develop a culture where vulnerability is worshipped as an attribute of strength. Where the acknowledgment of honesty, humility, and transparency become new norms of working in the professional field. Where we can experience love, authenticity and community on bigger scales through the power of art.
Within the ideas of my dance company, have I talked extensively on how much I value sharing the work on a relatively small scaled audience. But a big part of our world still live in small and big cities where I believe the work and message that I would bring is still as much needed to be shared. This is why I would love to do this research through your grant to share the work from the inner landscapes, the outer landscapes, the cultures and the traditions to be performed in big sized theatres as well. With the help of my future dancers & healers would I then organise, in the locations where we perform, a seminar of several days to give the opportunity for students, artists, change creators, etc… be they young or old, to deepen their own art and relationship with nature as an initiatory taste of the work we do. Making the work for being the change you wish to see in the world more and more accessible for the future of humanity.
PERIOD AND WHEREABOUTS
As I will have to coordinate my schedule with theirs, the timing for my travels may divert from what this estimation provides:
1st February 2026 – 30st April 2026 in Organizmo - Colombia
FUNDING
I am really in the opinion that what I am offering to the world is something new, refreshing and needed in the world. I believe that there is a lot of competition and harshness in our current systems that doesn’t allow easily for people to transition in a more cooperative one. We all know that we need to shift the way we treat our planet. Yet for many people this shift seems not to be possible due to many reasons. This is why I wish to create work that encompasses, delivers and nourishes our planet in regards to the situation we are living in.
This is why I envision my endeavour to become true and I need your support for that. I truly feel that my work and this company will bring much change in the current paradigms we are living in. I believe in the power of interconnectivity between people and earth to turn around our planetary situation for the best. And this cannot be done without help. I need investors, fundings and supporters in raising my vision to its fulfilment. Become part of my vision by being the change you wish to see in the world.