biographies: Programme four

Artur Gevorgyan

Artur Gevorgyan started his path in the audio visual industry as an animator and has done works for Grammy award winners such as Arto Tuncboyaciyan, Scott Kinsey etc. With the experience gained from the animation world he is applyig that to the narrative one, bringing in different ways to approach the writing and the whole production process. His past works have been aired on TV, Achag Aganca has traveled across the states and screened at different festivals such as Philadelphia Film Festival, Beverly hills film festival etc. Currently his team is working on several dance movies and a narrative short.

Saba Khatami

Saba Khatami is a London-based dance artist and film director born and raised in Iran. Her work blends choreography and visual storytelling to explore themes of identity, memory, and connection to place. Based on her lived experience of growing up in a country where dance is banned, her films often reflect on the complexities of self-expression and cultural displacement. Saba holds a BA in Theatre and an MA in Dance from Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance in London. Her films draw from personal and collective histories, often engaging with urban landscapes and embodied narratives.

**Anna Paola Bacalov, Marco Rinaldi, Jonny Rosch**
Anna Paola Bacalov
She began her career at the age of 18 with the physical theatre company La Gaia Scienza then, for 8 years, she worked with Barberio Corsetti's company also in the collaborations between Corsetti and Studio Azzurro.
She participated in productions by Vera Stasi, Paola Rampone, Adriana Borriello, Enrica Palmieri. She created two solos: Il La and Adagio per Havisam and a trio E le mani? No, solo i guanti ho perso, together with Daniela Incerti and Floriana Taddei.
With Francesco Scavetta and the Wee Company she participated as performer and assistant in several shows. Anna Paola collaborated with Fernanda Pessolano in the creation of performances and paths in nature and in special places (squares, villages, libraries, paper mills).
In 2008, with performers Davide Sportelli, Maria Eujenia Rivas, Ivan Truol and Lucia Bazzucchi, she signed the choreographies of the opera Y Borjes quenta que written and directed by Luis Bacalov. The shows she has participated in have toured in Italy, Portugal, France, Spain, Belgium, Holland, Germany, England, Finland, Norway, Jugoslavia, Iran, Russia, Japan, Africa, North America and South America.
Since 2005 she has dedicated herself to the study of Rolfing®, Structural Integration.
She has spent hours wondering, together with others, the movement and its happening.
For three years she participated in a study group on subtle and profound discoveries and processes that can manifest and occur in people, through exercises and practices of perception, listening, imagination, contact, and observation.
As a teacher, she participated in Adriana Borriello's Da.Re. project.
She recently discovered a predisposition in providing support to those in the midst of exposure. Thus she finds herself working for and with others, sheltered from too much extroversion, in the right measure that she is refining. She invented a practice with a stick.
Intense alliance and collaboration with a friend S. Mai (pastor and performer) for the IntimaME project/vision.
She is currently collaborating with Lorenzo Letizia, Chiara Marolla, Lucia Carrano, Luca Venitucci on the DIPTICO Y VARIACION project.
In 2024 she create DESEO, a miniature video project in collaboration with Marco Rinaldi.
She now rethinks an intimate and possible form of exhibition where one viewer at a time, hosted in his/her home, witnesses the act.

Amy Seiwert

Amy Seiwert enjoyed a nineteen-year performing career dancing with Smuin, Los Angeles Chamber, and Sacramento Ballets. As a dancer with Smuin, she became involved with the “Protégé Program,” with Michael Smuin serving as her mentor. She was a Choreographer in Residence with that company upon her retirement from dancing in 2008 until 2018. A recipient of numerous choreographic awards, she has been an Artist in Residence at ODC Theater and on the Artist Faculty for Jacob’s Pillow’s Contemporary Ballet program. The National Endowment for the Arts, the Joyce Theater, and the Kennedy Center have supported her work. In addition, her ballets are in the repertory of companies nationwide. For the 23/24 Season, she joined the Artistic Team at Smuin as Associate Artistic Director. At the start of the 2024/2025 performance season, she will take over the helm from Celia Fushile as the new Artistic Director at Smuin Contemporary Ballet.

Clara Lie, Caroline Grimprel

Clara Lie and Caroline Grimprel met during their studies at Penninghen, a school of art direction in Paris. After several years in creative agencies, and now working on their own, they enjoy collaborating with others and directing advertising films. It is their shared passion for dance that now leads them to write together their first short film around this theme. The humor that binds them infuses this creation, and their aesthetic demand in artistic direction becomes the hallmark of their collaboration.

John Degois

JOHN DEGOIS began dancing at the age of 15, spending every spare minute so he could train. Later, he became interested by other types of dance: theatre, physical theatre and any other type of art - anything that gave him inspiration.

Now, dance, choreography, performance and the theatre are no longer just his passion, they are his life's work. He still practise them with as much passion and appreciation as ever. This showcase by me, John Degois, is a dedication to my work as a choreographer, project leader, dancer, performer, pedagogue, explorer and initiator.