Stefan Dreher

Stefan Dreher studied at the Folkwang University of the Arts in Essen. He worked for many years in Belgium, where he collaborated with numerous renowned choreographers, dancers and visual artists. In 2003 he founded the internationally touring collective Loving Lucy. He was artiste associé of the Halls of Schaerbeek and artist-in-residence at the choreographic center Charleroi/Danses. In parallel, he developed trainings combining dance and yoga for renowned Belgian companies. Since 2003, his work includes about 15 stage - as well as site-specific works, which have been shown worldwide. Most recently, Stefan Dreher realized the 24-hour dance marathon Dancing Days for the first time in Munich with dancers from all over Europe and also celebrated great successes with it in Prague and Antwerp.

Homepage: www.stefandreher.com

Förderpreis Tanz 2016 of the City of Munich

Stefan Dreher is an exceptional dancer. As a choreographer, he has been cooperating with actors, musicians, visual artists and dancers in constantly changing constellations since 2002; his productions are internationally present. In 2007 he was one of the "Young German Choreographers" presented by the Goethe Institute on the occasion of the EU Council Presidency. Dreher's work has been continuously honored with municipal project funding and can be seen at the city's festivals.

The artist, who trained under Pina Bausch at the Folkwang Academy, worked for a long time in Belgium and has lived in Munich since 2006, is not a choreographer who excels at developing and intensifying a movement language or working continuously on a question. What makes Dreher unmistakable is the constantly new, surprising way in which he puts parameters of dance and dance presentation to the test and makes them think through and experienceable for himself and the audience: his eleven-day dance marathon "Dancing Days" in public space, for example, accompanied the DANCE festival at the Gasteig in 2015 and, together with the dancers, made concentration, coordination, cooperation, participation and a sense of time tangible in a sensual way and thus made his idea of the "educating" dancer vivid. In "I wish I were a hay" (2012), on the other hand, he experimented with notation as translation and prescription; here the dancers danced according to a score fixed in advance without rehearsal, coded in the wording of a poem by Emily Dickinson, in which the dancers read off movements and spatial paths and the audience could read along.

Dreher reflected on the impossibility of learning to dance and, on the other hand, devoted himself to perfect movement. He explores a wide variety of media images, whether artwork or camera use, investigated arrangements in transit and viewing spaces (such as the Pinakothek museums), and choreographed for a one-square-meter space with a pole dance pole.

His wide spectrum of - always individual - approaches characterizes Stefan Dreher's stage pieces and dance installations, which are always characterized by high quality, clever composition and great charm. Thus, his media-reflexive, at the same time genuinely dance oeuvre meets the two award criteria of the prize, namely that of an artistically outstanding performance and also that of an unusual artistic position. An artist eager to discover, who will continue to surprise himself and the dance world.