Yonit Ben-Yehuda
Due to her voluntary work in the art and cultural scene (Bahnhof eV. in Ottersberg and Tor zur Welt e.V. in Israel), Yonit Ben-Yehuda has developed an interest in combining the social sphere with performative arts.
Yonit Ben-Yehuda is a trained Erlebnispädagogin (experiential educator) and a social worker. In her B.A. studies at the Hochschule für Künste im Sozialen (HKS) in Ottersberg she had a focus on dance and theatre pedagogy. Her immersion in somatic practices and movement research led her to Contact Improvisation. Especially the intensive training with Angela-Mara Florant and Elske Seidel in Hamburg guided her to dance improvisation and exploring her movements.
Supervising international camps (Lüthi-Peterson-Camps) where the focus was on cultural exchange she has become familiar with historical and ethnic dances. She is particularly fond of Israeli folk dances, as they connect with her family background. She uses those dances in different contexts to form groups and physical interaction. Living in various communities has sensitized her to group dynamics and she sees herself using this ability professionally.
Learning in an inclusive context at the HKS and engaging artistically in this context has awakened her interest in working with marginalized people. Particularly the civil dance project HUMAN from Prof. Hans Joachim Reich in Ottersberg, in which various social groups addressed human rights and developed a joint performance inspired her. Her participation in the dance project has shown her that she would like to take an interdisciplinary approach and is interested in transforming dance into social areas and combining social issues with artistic processes.
Currently she is collaborating with Stelzenart from Bremen and discovering her physical expression in stilt figures. In the MA CoDE at the Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst she would like to continue exploring herself in the development of artistic processes and intensify the link between theme and dance and dive in deeper in dance technique and different styles.