BIO­GRA­PHY

Juan Cor­res Be­ni­to is a dan­cer, cho­reo­gra­pher and tea­cher ba­sed in Ber­lin for 11 ye­ars, and he has mo­ved to Frank­furt to stu­dy in the MA CoDE at Hfmdk.

Juan’s first en­coun­ter with con­tem­pora­ry dance was in his home­town of Vi­to­ria-Gas­teiz, Spain. The ap­proach of his tea­cher Mar­ga Arro­yo, with an em­pha­sis on awa­reness and care towards the body has in­spi­red his prac­tice the­re­af­ter. At that time he also stu­di­ed clas­si­cal mu­sic at the con­ser­vato­ry, lear­ning trom­bo­ne and pia­no.

He went on to stu­dy at Lon­don Con­tem­pora­ry Dance School for two ye­ars, and in 2007 he con­ti­nued his trai­ning at Dance Ap­pren­ti­ce Net­work aCross Eu­ro­pe, with base in Dres­den. Wi­t­hin the pro­gram, ha­ving the chan­ce to work with Wil­liam For­sy­the and mem­bers of his com­pa­ny ope­ned up new ways of thin­king around cho­reo­gra­phy and im­pro­vi­sa­ti­on.

Sin­ce 2009, mo­ved by his in­te­rest in ver­sa­ti­li­ty and risk-ta­king as a per­for­mer, he has de­ve­lo­ped an eclec­tic ca­re­er as a free­lan­ce dan­cer, col­la­bo­ra­ting with a broad ran­ge of crea­tors with dif­fe­rent ae­s­the­tics and lan­guages. Par­ti­cu­lar­ly me­a­ning­ful have been his col­la­bo­ra­ti­ons with cho­reo­graph­ers such as Eva Re­cacha, Anna Röth­lis­ber­ger, Isa­bel­le Schad or Lola Mau­ry.

Sin­ce li­ving in Ber­lin his prac­tice has in­tert­wi­ned fur­ther with other fields. He has per­for­med and cho­reo­gra­phed for The­da and Ju­li­an Nils­son-Ei­cke in their du­ra­tio­nal thea­t­re in­stal­la­ti­ons: pro­vo­ca­ti­ve works at the in­ter­sec­tion of thea­t­re, vi­su­al art and per­for­mance, pre­sen­ted at Schau­büh­ne, Ber­li­ner En­sem­ble and Schau­spiel Köln. He has also done mo­ve­ment and sta­ge di­rec­tion in several pro­jec­ts with So­lis­ten­en­sem­ble Ka­lei­do­skop, which is de­di­ca­ted to new forms of ex­pe­ri­men­tal mu­sic thea­ter. Juan is also a mem­ber of the punk band nun­of­yr­bees­wax, whe­re he per­forms as a mu­si­ci­an and dan­cer.

As a tea­cher he has re­gu­lar­ly taught mo­ve­ment re­se­arch clas­ses at Tanz­fa­brik Ber­lin and Dock11, and he has taught work­shops for ac­ting and di­rec­ting stu­dents at Aka­de­mie für Dar­stel­len­de Kunst Ba­den-Würt­tem­berg.

Juan is in­te­rested in ex­plo­ring the au­to­no­my of the dan­cer-per­for­mer, and in fa­ci­li­ta­ting spaces of sup­port whe­re vul­nera­bi­li­ty can have a place in or­der to plun­ge into the risk of the new and un­cer­tain.