Kosmas Kosmopoulos
Choreographer, performer and dance educator
Giovanni Lo Curto
Photographer, photojournalist and videographer
Kai Pichmann
Writer
Antonios Palaskas
Musician and Composer
Dr. Maria Tsouvala
choreographer
Dr. Georgia Touliatou
Researcher/Intermetiator
Fee Josten
Projektreferentin
Nikoleta Koutitsa
Dancer, choreographer and Video Artist
Davide Lorenzi
Dancer
Maria Kandylaki
Dancer and choreographer
Michael Graessner
Stage and costume designer
Aaron Carey-Burrows
Tänzer, Choreograf
Kosmas Kosmopoulos was born in Athens in 1972. In the late 1980s, he moved to Berlin, where he works as a choreographer, dance pedagogue, performer, and curator for the last three decades. After studying theatrical sciences and art history at the Free University of Berlin, he began his dance training at Tanzfabrik and the Die Etage School for Performance and Visual Arts. From 1995 to 1998, he studied dance and choreography at P.A.R.T.S. in Brussels (artistic directorship Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker). He completed the Training and Research Cycles with a scholarship from the European Union under the Kaleidoscope program and a dance scholarship from the Berlin Cultural Senate (1999). While studying, he performed in works by Robert Wilson, Felix Ruckert, David Hernandez, Randy Warsaw, Jan Ritsema and Thomas Plischke. In 2000, he joined the X-Group project, a creative programme for young choreographers at P.A.R.T.S., in the frame of the European Cultural Capital BRUXELLES 2000.
After living in South America and the Middle East, he moved to Berlin in 2010. There his work has been published several times in magazines and newspapers such as ND, TAZ, FHZZ, CONTRASTE, Cargo and Chorzeit. He was commissioned the production of “Il Collezionista di Baci” for Modadori Electa and “Die moderne Stadt Berlin-Lichtenberg – Ein Architekturführer” for Berlin Story Verlag. Since 2012 Giovanni Lo Curto has been collaborating with the LUNA PARK initiative, and since March 2019 he has also been the vice-chairman of the non-profit association of the same name. Since 2020, as part of the artistic team of Initiative LUNA PARK, he has been realizing the ECHO project as part of an IMPACT grant from the Berlin Senate Department for Culture and Europe.
Kai Pichmann, born in Rostock, Germany, in 1968, writer, playwright and dramaturge Kai Pichmann spent half his life in the former East Berlin. In the last ten years or more, he has been writing texts for adults and children that he presents on websites, in literature magazines, and in theatrical stages, sometimes as a paid employee and sometimes for a public benefit purpose. Other times, he writes utopian ideas all alone, in a skeptical dialogue with himself, which often end up in the trash can.
Since 2005, he has been composing music for contemporary dance and performance practices. He collaborates with “Lemurius Dance Company”, “Griffon Dance Company” and the artistic collective “LUNA PARK”, among others. Many of his works have been presented throughout Europe in theatrical stages and festivals, such as the Onassis Cultural Centre/Stegi and the Athens-Epidaurus Festival. In 2013, he composed the works “Sonic Landscapes # 1” and “Sonic Landscapes # 2”, based on sounds of the Earth’s magnetosphere and the pulsars. In collaboration with the astrophysicist Fiori-Anastasia Metallinou he gave a series of lectures at universities, schools and museums in Athens and Thessaloniki.
From 1990 to 2013 she taught choreography and improvisation, dance history and dance pedagogy at various professional dance schools in Athens. She published numerous articles and papers in Greek and international scientific journals. Her main research interests are dance history, dance phenomenology and critical educational theory. Furthermore, she developed various choreographies for the contemporary dance company Meta-kinesis, sponsored by the Greek Ministry of Culture, Athens Concert Hall and the International Dance Festival of Kalamata, among others. Maria Tsouvala is involved in voluntary work with children and young people, especially with unaccompanied and parentless young refugees, and also with delinquent youth. She has been closely associated with the LUNA PARK initiative since it was founded.
Dr. Georgia Touliatou works as a Researcher/Intermediator. She studied painting at the School of Fine and Applied Arts / Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (BA) and Semiotic Stills and Video at the Wimbledon School of Art / University of the Arts in London, where she obtained a Master of Arts (MA) and a Doctorate of Philosophy (PhD). Her work is concerned with the formulation of protective narratives and the operativity of memory that supports their creation (counter-memory).
Fee Josten is a cultural manager (M.A.) and social worker (B.A.). She has been working for LUNA PARK since June 2022 in the role of project officer and assistant to the project lead for the project “tanz(t)räume”, funded by the dance excellence funding program TANZPAKT Stadt-Land-Bund.
Before joining LUNA PARK, she worked in project – and production management for contemporary dance and various art and cultural projects as well as a social worker in the psychiatric field.
Nikoleta Koutitsa was born in Thessaloniki in 1992. In 2014 she graduated from the State School of Dance in Athens, and from 2015 to 2016 she attended the DANCE START UP school in Bologna. Since 2017 she has been working regularly in productions of the LUNA PARK initiative. She also worked with the Hellenic Dance Company in New York and with Emanuel Gat at the Venice Biennale in 2016, furthermore in a production of the Greek National Opera by Apostolia Papadamaki and Heidi Latsky as part of the Summer Nostos Festival.
Davide Lorenzi, born in Italy in 1996, began his artistic career as a competitive figure skater and trained with the SGC (Sportivi Ghiaccio Cortina) until he was 18.
Im Jahr 2015 zog er nach Florenz, um eine professionelle Ausbildung im zeitgenössischen Tanz an der Opus Ballet International School zu absolvieren.
Seit seinem Umzug nach Berlin im Jahr 2021 arbeitet er als Tänzer bei LunaPark und wirkt in einer Vielzahl von Produktionen mit.
Maria Kandylaki was born in Athens/Greece in 1986. She graduated from the D. Grigoriadou School of Dance in 2013, that is a year after she acquired a degree in Social Work from the Technological Educational Institute of Athens. She completed numerous dance seminars in Athens, Vienna, Constantinople and Berlin. Maria regularly participates in productions and international exchange projects of LUNA PARK Initiative since 2012, assuming various positions like that of a dancer, choreographic assistant and team leader. In addition, she has co operated with other artists taking part in various festivals and plays.
Michael Graessner was born in Berlin in 1969. He studied set design at the Berlin School of Fine Arts (UdK) with Achim Freyer and participated as an actor in many of the director’s productions. He designed the set for the production of Freyer “Die Eingeborene” by Franz Xaver Kroetz presented at the Akademietheater in Vienna, which was invited to participate in the Theatertreffen in Berlin. In the late 1990s, he worked in film and television productions, creating commercials and video clips for the German subversive group of the industrial metal scene “Rammstein”, among others.
Seit 2011 wirkte Aaron Carey-Burrows als Tänzer in zahlreichen klassischen und zeitgenössischen Produktionen verschiedener australischer Produktionshäuser und Kompanien mit, u.a. des Erindale Theatre, des Scott Theatre, des Geoff Gibs Theatre und des Dolphin Theatre, präsentierte auf dem Beijing International Dance Festival 2015 und dem Montpellier Dance Festival 2017. 2018 und 2019 tanzte er u.a. in Robert Solomons Tanztheaterprojekt „Berliner Luftbrücke”, im Deutschen Theater in „Zeiten des Aufruhrs” und in mehreren Produktionen der Deutschen Oper Berlin. Aaron kreiert zudem seine eigenen Arbeiten, darunter Projekte für die Tanja Liedtke Stiftung und das Impermanence Dance Theater.
Aaron ist ein hoch physischer, vielseitiger und ausdrucksstarker Tänzer, ein energetischer Performer und sensibler Partner. Er verfügt über solide Grundlagen in Ballett und zeitgenössischer Technik, sowie in Improvisation, Kontaktimprovisation, zeitgenössische Bodenarbeit, zeitgenössische Akrobatik und trainiert darüber hinaus Jiu-Jitsu, Breakdance und funktionelle Fitness.