Underground. My distance from a nocturnal city, temple and cave of an immediate plot.

Yara Li Mennel is a Swiss dance artist based in Berlin. After training at Scuola professional Italiana Danza in Milan (Italy) and at the Northern School of Contemporary Dance in Leeds (UK) she has expanded her studies and works in the field of dance with projects in Switzerland, Germany, the UK, Brazil and Argentina. She is fascinated by the body’s own intelligence and explores its multiple ways of communication by bringing it to a state where what it is doing is also what it is thinking. She has been chosen to participating in LEM in Buenos Aires (AR) a research program for the performer under the direction of Melina Seldes and Viviana Lasparra, where she is currently exploring the use of the body in performance. Music, sound and voice work are great inspiration that influence her work. She has worked with artists such as Angus Balbernie (UK), Anna Keller (CH), Katherine Evans (USA) as well as creating her own pieces and working as a movement director for the English company MAZPOD. Yara has organised various performance, visual art events in Berlin, Switzerland and Buenos Aires.

Lilly Pöhlmann (Germany/Ecuador) is a Berlin based performer and dance maker. Last year she graduated from Northern School of Contemporary Dance where she worked with Beatrice Fleischlin, Angus Balbernie, Ben Duke and Carlos Pons Guerra. Recently she has been working with Katherine Evans for the piece “In der Stube mit dem offenen Fenster”. Currently she is taking part at this year’s SMASH program where she will immerse herself in the methodologies of Sonja Pregrad, Anna Nowicka, Matthieu Burner and Maria F. Scaroni. Beside this she is collaborating with Tora Hed and Yara Li Mennel. “Screws For Fixing”, a collaborative work with Tora Hed was presented at Tripspace, London.

Marcelo Schmittner is a Chilean composer, sound designer and DJ living in Buenos Aires. He approaches his work with sensitivity and precision, listening to the particularities of each image and situation, using this material to create appropriate soundscapes. Marcelo specialized in music for cinema and audio-visuals in Instituto Projazz in Santiago, Chile. On his arrival to Buenos Aires he studied Electronic Music and Production in Sonica. As a DJ he has performed in venues all over Buenos Aires and Chile and is signed with Isolated Record Label which play his music in Latin America, Berlin and Ibiza. Since April he has been working with dance theatre artist and poet Marianne Tuckman (UK) on their project “broken spanish” which involves performances (Casa Azul and Espacio LEM in April 2016), workshops and the release of an EP.

Marianne Tuckman is an emerging artist who approaches dance theatre through the sensibilities and logic of a poet. She has a rich and versatile imagination, able to envisage both fantasies and practical responses to society’s realities.
Marianne graduated from Northern School of Contemporary Dance in 2015 with the NSCD Writing Award and soon after traveled to Buenos Aires to study at Espacio LEM focusing on developing her physicality in performance. She is a performer and co-founder of MAZPOD Rhythmic Stories which combines storytelling and dance with the wild rhythms of Appalachia. Their piece “Mad Meg” was selected to be performed at Resolution Festival, The Place (London, UK January 2016) and Teatro Hasta Trilce (Buenos Aires, AR, April 2016). Marianne is currently working as director’s assistant to Mariano Stolkiner at the Teatro Extranjero (Buenos Aires) on “Bio-lenta” written by Carolina Vergar Olivetti and “Año de Ricardo” by Angelica Lidel. She is also collaborating with composer and DJ Marcelo Schmittner (CH) on their project “broken spanish” which involves performances (Casa Azul and Espacio LEM in April 2016), workshops and the release of an EP.

Martina Gambardella (Italy) is a dance artist and a poet currently based in Berlin (DE). She is particularly concerned with philosophy, dance improvisation, instantaneous composition and the interplay between the physical immaterial consistence of body language. Last summer Martina completed a postgraduate diploma in developing artistic practice at London Contemporary Dance School (UK), where she investigated guided research processes by working with Vera Tussing and Ben McEwen, Rosalind Crisp, Ben Duke and Maresa Von Stockert. Martina has recently performed in two works with and by Maya M. Carroll in collaboration with Roy Carroll and Brit Rodemund. She has been working on the “Plastic Body”, a physical research practice since 2013.