BIOS

Elisabeth Bakambamba Tambwe was born in Kinshasa (Democratic Republic of Congo) and grew up in France, where she studied art. In 1998, she received the « Diplôme National d’Expression Plastique » for her sculptural work at the College of Fine Arts in Tourcoing, France. Since then she has developed a reflection on the transformation of spaces, time and bodies on stage and in exhibition spaces in the form of performance / installation / sculpture. Her latest performance installations show a variety of perspectives that imply different perceptions of one and the same reality. For consciousness is like the field of vision. It is not a framed image seen by a third, external eye, it is captured without distance and, although limited (we cannot see what is happening behind us), it has no edges: limited and yet without « border ». The various scenographic means employed make it possible to reshuffle the cards to unmask (especially repressed) conventions, to flatter ambiguities and thus to stage the many incoherent attitudes that assail us.

In 2018, she developed the concept of « Salon Souterrain », a platform for discussion that combines different forms and artistic gestures. Alongside this artistic direction, Tambwe continues her own choreographic creations, collaborating with other choreographers, visual artists or directors such as Esther Stocker, Markus Schinwald, Robyn Orlin, God’s Entertainment, Companie La Fleur, Theater die Combinate…among others, she has been represented at the Herbstfestival, LUXEMBURG Theater, Donaufestival, Steirischer Herbst, Wiener Festwochen, ImPulsTanz Festival Wien, brut Wien, WUK performing arts Wien and Kunstraum NÖ. In 2022 “Speech of Love: Absence” was premiered at WUK Vienna, and shown at Afrovibes Festival (NL) and FFT Düsseldorf (D). In the same year Tambwe presented the pilot of her telenovela “The Mask of The Schwarzen-Löwenbergs” (2022) at Filmcasino, and the solo exhibition “LeBoudoir” (2022) at Kunstraum NÖ, Vienna. More information: www.elitambwe.com

Performer

Raphaël Michon born in Nantes 1979, is a french artist living and working in Vienna since 2011. After some music studies in the « Conservatoire National de Rennes » where he practiced oboe (1990- 1996), and also pantomime theater with Michel Decherf (1992-1996), he worked as a percussionist (darbouka) in a street theater Company, called « Hydragon » besides working as a dancer and percussionist (Timbao/Atabak) for an afro-brasilian Company called « Ochossi »: Maracatu, Samba- reagge, Condomble, Samba… In 2003, he went in the « Ecole de Création Musicale » in Dinan, directed by Eric Lelann and Cesarius Alvim, to improve is ability to improvise. He then entered (2005) the « Centre Chorégraphique National de Montpellier », directed by Mathilde Monnier, and followed by getting into the « Centre National de Danse Contemporaine » directed by Emmauelle Huyne, in order to enrich his own universe. Today he is working as a performer/dancer, as a musician (mostly piano, voice and guitar) and also as a composer for dance or theater pieces. Since 12 years, he has been collaborating with people such as Paul Wenninger and Peter Jakober, Oleg Soulimenko, Adriana Cubides, Giovanni Jussi, Raùl Maia, Fanni Futtercknecht, Daniel Aschwanden, Lucie Strecker and Klaus Spiess, Rebecca Akoun, Manfred Schu, Loulou Omer, Amanda Pina and Daniel Zimmerman, Tino Sehgal.

Steven Ralph hails from Richmond, Virginia. He attended Virginia Commonwealth University majoring in Vocal Performance; playing in local theaters like Virginia Repertory Theater, Barksdale, and Dogwood Dell he performed in productions such as “Grease”, “Little Shop of Horrors”, “A Funny Thing” and “Godspell”. As a choir singer he performed concerts at Carnegie Hall, Beijing, and Shanghai. He has written his own cabarets and performed in productions such as “420 – The Musical”, “Muscle Bears- The Musical” and the off-broadway show, “The Imbible”. Moreover he studied acting and singing under Brad Fleischer and Deric Rosenblatt in New York City. Currently, he continues his singing in Vienna with Previn Moore and in the Arnold Schoenberg Chor performing at Theater and der Wien.

Nora Aaron Scherer (they/them) are many. multidisciplinary artist, activist, social worker, body worker with a background in drama education. born in germany, currently based in vienna. their interactive, immersive and durational performance works create situations that allow them to explore social dynamic and conventions, contemporary forms of communication, intimacy and sexuality. often, they collaborate with or perform for international artists. their current practice includes installation, sculpture and sound and deals with the deconstruction of social norms, alienation of bodies and disgust.

Franck Edmond Yao alias Gadoukou la Star (* Abidjan), Edmond Franck Gnaza, is an Ivorian choreographer and artist-singer of the Coupé-Décalé, expert in modern dance and gymnastics. From the age of 7 the artist started dancing more specifically, traditional dance. After his diploma, at the « Djolem d’Abobo », he became the choreographer of the former football player and singer Gadji Celi. Since 2005 the artist has been involved in many theater productions among others working together with the directors Gintersdorfer/Klaßen and being part of the group La Fleur. Besides his success in Germany the artist was involved in productions shown at Festivals like Avignon, Impulse and toured many European and African countries till Australia. With the creation of his dance label « GLS GROUP CHORÉGRAPHIQUE GADOUKOU LA STAR » (2016), a choreographic label composed of nearly 400 dancers who choreograph the biggest ceremonies in Côte d’Ivoire, In 2019, the artist launched the « Battle Dance de rue by Gadoukou la star », touring the 10 municipalities of Abidjan and providing a platform of expression for the dancers. The final of this competition attracts more than 10,000 spectators. With the rise of Afro-urban dance in Europe, the artist organizes “Battle dance de rue BY Gadoukou la Star” in Germany at the Kampnagel Theatre (2021).
In 2022, the artist presented his creation Transformation, a mixture of different united dance styles from all over the world, which was a great success at Kampnagel Hamburg. In the same year, the artist organized the second edition of Street Battles By Gadoukou the star Hamburg, followed by workshops with Afro Dance choreographers from France and Africa and choreographed the creation « Source », a production combining his know-how with the Porte Avion collective at the Ledoux Theatre in Besançon. In 2023, the artist will be honored as a legend of choreography in Africa at the African Talents Awards. He is also the Afro-dancer-choreographer who will choreograph the Afro-dance fresco of the 2024 Olympic Games in France.

Red Edition works towards the promotion, respect and protection of sex workers’ labor and human rights and fundamental freedoms. Principles of meaningful community engagement and community empowerment guide our actions to advocate for our social and political inclusion. We work towards a society that recognizes sex workers’ agency and right to self-determination and where sex workers can actively organize and participate in the decision-making processes that affect our lives and work. As the sex worker organization in Vienna run by and for migrant sex workers, we at Red Edition are working to promote the human rights of all sex workers in Austria with a particular focus on the rights of migrant sex workers.
Our mission is to bring the sex workers movement to Austria by becoming a stable and sustainable sex worker-led organization. We endeavor to unite sex workers from all backgrounds to self-advocate for our human rights and labor rights in Austria and around the world. We recognize sex work as work and oppose all forms of criminalization against the buying and selling of sexual services among consenting adults of any gender. We recognize that each of us has unique skills to contribute to make a better world for sex workers. Through research, advocacy, information exchange, and building partnerships with local and international stakeholders, Red Edition works in solidarity with the international sex worker movement. We raise awareness about sex workers’ rights by organizing and actively participating in public events and conduct outreach on a regular basis to demand our rights and celebrate our successes.

Rimma Ariel Elbert, born in Lugansk/Ukraine is a set- and costume designer currently located in Heidelberg/Germany. She graduated in set- and costume design at the University of Fine Arts in Dresden/Germany and took part in different theatrical and multimedia projects as an assistant and designer herself. As an assistant she worked with Patricia Noworol and Vita Tzykun at New York Live Arts, at Gene Frankel Theatre with the August Strintberg Repertory Theatre and in Schwerin at Mecklenburgisches Staatstheater with Martin Berger, Sarah Katharina-Karl and Esther Bialas. As a designer she staged « Così fan tutte » with Barbara Beyer at Staatsschauspiel Dresden, « Wir sind keine Barbaren » with Annett Kruschke at Meininger Staatstheater. She worked with Yamille Navarro at HELLERAU Dresden, worked with the filmmaker Ifeatu Nnaobi at Queer B-Cademy at Kampnagel Hamburg. During Corona she was a set designer with the performance collective « Performance Halt » at Ringtheater Berlin and worked as a graphic designer with different associations. She is an active member of the queerjewish association Keshet Deutschland and her next project will be about modern yiddish culture.

Music/Composition

Ursula Winterauer is a musician, sound designer and label boss. Known from various band projects (including Wealth, Agent Cooper, Ash My Love), the bassist, singer and electronic musician has been active with her solo project Gischt since 2017, in which she lets vehement e-bass riffs collide with noise synthesis and gloomy club sounds. Inspirations from metal, techno and ambient merge here with powerful elegance and precision. Gischt’s solo debut IS released on her label Ventil Records. Since 2015, she has been releasing finely selected records from other friends of adventurous-progressive music (including Fauna, Kœnig, Katharina Ernst), who work in fields of tension away from degenerate genre boundaries.

Song arrangement for Gadoukou le Star

Lassehi Woody Hillel a.k.a. Mr le Juif is a young arranger, composer and musician who has performed with tiken Jah, Arafat, Meiway, Soul Bang’s, Dadju, Mix 1er and KEDJEVARA as pianist… Has collaborated on Prods with artists such as Niska ft Fior de bior, Shaoleen, Safarel Obiang, Gadoukou la star etc. . . Has also worked on Alpha Blondy’s latest album and Tiken Jah Fakoly’s album “Le monde est chaud” in 2019.

Lightdesign

Svetlana Schwin born in 1984 in Krasnoturyinsk in the Urals. Studied performing arts in Bremen (D) and theater studies and philosophy in Vienna. She works as a freelance lighting designer, theater director and author in Vienna. The youth play Pietro Pizzi won the Jungwild Förderpreis and the STELLA. She was a participant in the writing class at Schauspielhaus Wien. The radio play Mein Mitleid mit den Dingen received the special prize Sonderpreis für Dichtung at the short radio play competition 2018. As a light designer she works with independent groups in the dance and performance scene. She creates her own light objects and light installations, such as the lighthouse in 2020. Her performance Kuss, a game with body and light, has been around for over 9 years in now 4 versions and has been shown at WUK, Werk and Ballhaus Ost Berlin, among others.

Video

Eduardo Trivino Cely was born in Bogota, Colombia in 1990. He lives and works between Colombia and Austria. Through experimental processes in sound, sculpture and digital media, he intervenes in public space with installations, performances and actions. He explores the value of failure, error, the invisible and the limits of perception. He thus seeks to propose new ways of looking at our natural environment and questioning cultural concepts. With a background in visual arts, he approaches sound in a self-taught way and moves in the experimental field involving materials, concepts, new technologies and parts of the body. His years of working in theatre have led to his artistic work being influenced by set design, acting, props and dialogue.

Dramaturgy

Leila Vidal Sephiha, born 1994 in Paris, is a directrice, dramaturg, performer and theatre scholar. She studied humanities and theatre studies at the University of Paris Nanterre and the Ludwig- Maximilians-University of Munich, and researched Nicolas Stemann’s creative process from 2017 to 2022 for a PhD. In 2015, she began working as a theater practitioner in Germany (including two documentaries for the Akademie der Künste Berlin). After numerous experiences (Münchner Kammerspiele, Théâtre Nanterre-Amandiers, Ruhrtriennale, Opéra Comique de Paris, Maxim Gorki Theater, Théâtre de Vidy-Lausanne, etc.) Leila Vidal Sephiha was assistant director at the Schauspielhaus Zürich and worked closely with five associate directors: Nicolas Stemann, Yana Ross, Alexander Giesche, Christopher Rüping and Leonie Böhm (2019 to 2022). As an artist, she is the initiator and part of the artistic team of projects with different media such as the short film KOMODO Danger en voie de disparition (about the eponymous endangered species), the pieces Performers Rule: B612 (Laura Weibel’s performative and meditative video essay on mourning and memory) and Performers Rule: Soï (improvised duo of body expression and free music in search of oneself with musician Samuel Boutros). Currently Vidal Sephiha is collaborating with opera singer and artist Valérian Bitschnau on a documentary music theater about Alzheimer’s disease and she takes part of the improvised 24h Faust-Performance Project from Das Kollektiv Mahu (Théâtre de l’Élysée, Lyon).

Research

Oscarine Bosquet, born in Marseille in 1964, is an author (poetry) and professor at the École Européenne Supérieure des Arts de Bretagne, Brest site, coordinator of the master’s degree in art « Forms of life and life of forms », seminar « forms-of-life and possible worlds ».
Benoît Jouan is an author and illustrator. He studied fine arts, and holds a university degree (Master of Visual and Plastic Arts/ Lille III University, France) and an art school degree (National Superior Diploma of Expression of Plastic Arts-DNSEP & National Diploma of Plastic Arts-DNAP of the School of Tourcoing, France). He worked for twenty years (1999-2019) at the Lille Métropole Museum of Modern, Contemporary and Outsider Art (LaM), in Villeneuve-d’Ascq (France) as a lecturer and art workshop leader (specialized in engraving) in closed environments such as psychiatric hospitals and prisons. He has been working with Elisabeth Bakambamba Tambwe since 1998. Since 2022 he lives and works in Vienna.

Production

Indra Jäger born in Frankfurt/Main has been living in Vienna since 2000. After studying journalism and communication sciences she co-initiated and directed the art and culture association IM ERSTEN (2012-16). In her role as artistic director, she has conceived, accompanied and implemented over 100 projects at the interface of visual and performing arts. Through collaboration with artists from various disciplines, follow-up projects have developed in which she works as a freelance curator, production and cooperation partner.