Pitching I : Dance & Multidisciplinary Arts
Pitching Works
Breath
Creative Group A Person;s (South Korea)
A lonely climb – just like life.
This is the story of one person’s life journey. Tethered to a 30-meter rope and suspended from a crane, he climbs upward with only his body strength, poised on the boundary between life and death. His arduous ascent is precarious, intense – a parallel to the ways we live. As the climb continues, audiences will find themselves collectively holding their breath, exhaling in unison, sharing in this strenuous journey up the challenging ascent of life.
Created in 2022, Breath has been invited to perform at the Festival d’Aurillac in France (2024) and the Freedom Festival in the UK (2025). Breath is supported by the Seoul Street Arts Creation Center and the Seoul Foundation for Arts and Culture.
Art Form: Multidisciplinary Arts
Creative Group A Person;s
A PERSON;S is a creative performance group that thematically focuses on the individual in modern society. They explore the concepts of ‘life’ and ‘things in touch with life’ through physical theatre and circus performance, combining a variety of sensations and genres to generate their unique artistry.
Entre Chiens et Louves (Between Dogs and Wolves)
Cirque Le Roux (France)
Entre Chiens et Louvres (Between Dogs and Wolves) is an expansive historical epic entwined with the lives of three characters across distinct eras: 1870, 1960, and 2022. Through their stories, we revisit collective memories that define and resonate with the present — revolutions, the pursuit of freedom, and the enduring forces that shape divisions. By shining a light on the forgotten narratives of those who have been overlooked, Entre Chiens et Louvres delves into the profound human experience and reveals a world brimming with hope. With a unique blend of circus, cinema, comedy, and acrobatics, eight artists of Cirque Le Roux deliver a breathtaking celebration of a society united by our shared humanity.
Art Form: Multidisciplinary Arts
Cirque Le Roux
Founded in 2013, Cirque Le Roux seeks to create a distinctive stage language that blends acrobatics, theatre, dance, cinema, and visual arts. From the outset, the company has embraced a sensitive, multidisciplinary approach, where the body, imagery, and humour become tools for storytelling, research, and poetic disruption. Each creation emerges from a collective research process, constantly moving between technical virtuosity and embraced fragility; it is within this hybridity that the company finds its vitality.
Through its creations, Cirque Le Roux explores both intimate and universal themes: identity, memory, solitude, and human connection. Humour – sometimes absurd, sometimes tender – runs throughout the work as a guiding thread, offering a way to approach the complexity of the world from a slightly offbeat perspective.
The company’s performances aim to reach audiences directly, drawing on the energy of bodies, the power of images, and the simplicity of a scenario. Each work offers an intense emotional experience that goes beyond the purely theatrical, inviting audiences to feel and reflect while being fully immersed in the present moment.
Among the company’s productions are The Elephant in the Room (2014), a playful homage to 1930s cinema, and A Deer in the Headlights (2019), praised for its rich visual language and nominated for the 2020 Molière Award for Visual Creation. In 2024, Cirque Le Roux premiered Between Dogs and Wolves, an intimate and historical fresco created for Le Bon Marché Rive Gauche.
Today, with three major productions and over a decade of continuous creation, Cirque Le Roux has presented more than 1,000 performances across over 15 countries, reaffirming with each tour its ever-evolving, multidisciplinary approach.
DVA/LICA (Two/Faces)
Ansambl LADO & TerryandTheCuz (Croatia, Malaysia and Australia)
DVA/LICA (Two/Faces) is a groundbreaking collaboration between Ansambl LADO (the National Folk Dance Ensemble of Croatia) and Malaysian/Australian theatre-makers TerryandTheCuz. Commissioned for LADO’s 75th anniversary, DVA/LICA marks LADO’s first major international collaboration beyond Europe. It premiered in Zagreb in 2025, with further presentations planned for 2027 and 2028.
At its core, DVA/LICA explores the fragile nature of memory and how it reshapes history into personal narratives. Drawing on oral traditions and the concepts of selective amnesia and perception bias, the work interrogates how stories evolve over time to shape cultural identity.
Developed over two years through 120+ hours of interviews with past and present LADO ensemble members, DVA/LICA unfolds through the backstage conversations of two women – one preparing for her first-ever LADO performance, the other for her last. Their intergenerational dialogue – and the reflections and contradictions that transpire therein – offer a rare female perspective on LADO’s journey, revealing how gendered perspectives influence the way history is told and remembered.
As the women reminisce, their memories materialise as holograms, transforming the stage into a dynamic interplay between the two live actors and virtual projections of LADO’s 55-member ensemble. To achieve this, LADO and TerryandTheCuz reinterpreted, filmed, and meticulously edited selections from the ensemble’s iconic choreographies. The final 3D holographic content seamlessly integrates with live recordings of the LADO Orchestra, creating a multidimensional aural and visual experience.
The end result is a bold fusion of tradition and technology, the physical and the imagined, the embodied and the illusory – offering a fresh vision of LADO’s legacy for a new era.
Art Form: Multidisciplinary Arts
Ansambl LADO
Ansambl LADO is the National Folk Dance Ensemble of Croatia, founded in 1949 in Zagreb. LADO is a professional company dedicated to researching, preserving, and artistically presenting Croatia’s rich musical and dance traditions. The ensemble comprises 38 dancer–singers and 17 musicians performing on more than 50 traditional and classical instruments. LADO’s extensive repertoire includes over 100 choreographies and hundreds of vocal, instrumental, and mixed works. Often described as a “dancing museum”, LADO safeguards more than 2,000 authentic regional costumes while continually creating contemporary works rooted in traditional forms, reflecting Croatia’s Mediterranean, Balkan, Pannonian, and Alpine cultural crossroads.
TerryandTheCuz
Formed in Malaysia in 2004, TerryandTheCuz is an independent, internationally recognised performance-making company. Known for dismantling theatrical norms, the company creates bold, hybrid works spanning theatre, dance, comedy, site-specific performance, public art, and immersive experiences. Their practice interrogates identity, power, love, and social injustice through visceral, humorous, and emotionally charged storytelling. TerryandTheCuz has presented work across Australia, Europe, Asia, and the Americas, including collaborations with The Public Theater (US), Asia-Pacific Triennial of Performing Arts and OzAsia Festival (Australia), Ciudad Cultural KONEX (Argentina), and Zagreb Youth Theatre (Croatia), amongst many others. Their most notable projects include FLATLAND, SK!N, MADE IN AMERICA, The Failed Romances, and DVA/LICA, alongside ongoing developments in theatre, film, and immersive performance.
In Common
One Fell Swoop Circus (Australia)
A thrilling new work by One Fell Swoop Circus, In Common brings a seemingly impossible “tensegrity” sculpture to life through the company’s signature style of acrobatics – heartfelt, powerful, and intimate.
“Tensegrity” is an architectural portmanteau for “tensional integrity”, used to describe the physics behind highly resilient structures composed only of rigid rods and pliable cables. Tensegrity sculptures have an impossible quality – large solid bars seemingly suspended in mid-air, held in place by floating compression. The same principle of suspended tension applies both to the human bodies of our acrobats and the dynamic connections of a community.
This 60-minute piece combines circus and sculpture, as six acrobats build a unique rigging apparatus live and perform breathtaking acrobatics on and around it. Virtuosic acrobatics and intricate choreography guide audiences through a visceral understanding of the care we owe others in our community and the safety nets we collectively weave.
An exploration of tension both structural and relational, In Common lets you experience the joy of throwing yourself into someone's arms and the warm weight of bearing them.
Art Form: Multidisciplinary Arts
One Fell Swoop Circus
One Fell Swoop Circus uncovers the intrinsic metaphor within circus to create beautiful audience experiences. Based in Melbourne, Australia, the company combines ambitious concepts with visceral physicality, bringing audiences the invigorating mix of joy and risk inherent to group acrobatics. With its high-level circus skills and rich dramatic perspectives, its work ranges from traditional theatre shows to large-scale outdoor circus installations.
By connecting a highly skilled ensemble with an innovative framework and new acrobatic techniques, One Fell Swoop realises new ideas through expansive applications of classic techniques. Through this work, the group brings audiences an appreciation of the rich semantic web of how circus relates to life: trust and risk, tension and force, and the precariousness of moving through turbulence.
Company highlights include touring to Korea, Canada, New Zealand, the Chinese Mainland, the UK, and the US, as well as extensive touring throughout Australia.
One Fell Swoop Circus is founded and directed by Charice Rust and Jonathan Morgan.
Re: Four Seasons
Beyond Dance Theater (Hong Kong, China)
It is often said that dance and music can soothe the soul – a kind of alternative remedy without prescription.
Re: Four Seasons draws inspiration from Vivaldi’s violin concertos of the same name. Under Kelvin Mak’s creative vision, the entire score has been newly rearranged and interwoven with other Vivaldi works, tailor-made for Beyond Dance Theater. To enhance the sensory experience, the music is performed live by the Hong Kong-based string chamber ensemble, Asiartic Camerata, allowing the musicians to improvise onstage in dialogue with the dancers, blurring the boundaries between sound and movement.
Set against the backdrop of Hong Kong’s recent years of turbulence – the pandemic, waves of migration, and economic uncertainty – Re: Four Seasons offers a spiritual passage through theatre. Beneath our calm exteriors lie unspoken wounds; yet the stage, with its unique alchemy, becomes a bridge to the inner world, where healing begins. Premiering at a time of collective transition, this work invites audiences to rediscover solace and renewal amidst constant change, transforming shared fragility into a quiet strength through music, dance, and the power of imagination.
Art Form: Dance
Beyond Dance Theater
Founded in 2017 by Hong Kong arts professionals, Beyond Dance Theater (BDT) is a relatively young and highly creative self-funded arts group in Hong Kong.
Committed to the development of contemporary dance, it focuses on fostering dance theater and cross-disciplinary performance platforms, as well as promoting Asian arts talents and creations to the world by leveraging the founder's overseas network.
Kelvin Mak
Kelvin Mak, Resident Choreographer of MGM (Macao) and Artistic Director of Beyond Dance Theater (Hong Kong), is an experienced performer, choreographer, and educator. Under his leadership, Beyond Dance Theater has produced 16 productions in three years, earning critical recognition from the South China Morning Post.
Mak has been awarded “Outstanding Performance by a Male Dancer” (2016) and “Tom Brown Emerging Choreographer” (2022) by the Hong Kong Dance Awards, “The Young Artist Award (Dance)” (2023) by the Hong Kong Arts Development Council, and “Hong Kong Outstanding Young Dancer Award” (2025) by the Hong Kong Drama, Music and Dance Community’s 76th Anniversary National Day Committee.
Mak has toured internationally and collaborated with renowned companies like City Contemporary Dance Company (Hong Kong), Ballet Preljocaj at Pavillon Noir (France), Atamira Dance Company (New Zealand), and Delattre Dance Company (Germany). As a choreographer and performer, his works In the Wind, The Product Of, and Lies in Waiting have been invited to perform in various regions in the Chinese Mainland. In 2023, his piece Shepherd Run_way was invited to perform at the Want to Dance Festival in Taipei.
Mak’s focus on innovation and talent development makes him a key figure in the local dance community. As a tutor, he has led masterclasses and workshops across Europe and the Chinese Mainland; as an arts professional, he has produced significant dance events, such as the Hong Kong Winter Contemporary Dance Camp and “Think Out of the Box” with Beyond Dance Theatre.
SHÃH MÃT
Uppercut Dance Theater & Holstebro Dance Company (Denmark)
One game, one play, one move, and the opponent is beheaded with the words:
“SHÃH MÃT”. The king is overthrown, checkmate.
In a new choreography by award-winning choreographer Stephanie Thomasen, SHÃH MÃT is Uppercut Dance Theater andHolstebro Dance Company's most ambitious performance to date, with 16 dancers and two live musicians taking over a massive chessboard-shaped stage.
Imagine the dancers as chess pieces – ones that are free to move in symbiosis to create powerful imagery resembling society in all its shapes and sizes. Here, the spotlight is shone on outcasts, despots, blind followers, rebels, lovers, and opponents in their fight for power – illustrated through a tin foil crown.
Be it a world war or a lovers’ quarrel, they move through every potential conflict and their repercussions, holding a mirror for the audience to reflect on the endless repetition of history.
Uppercut’s signature mix of contemporary dance, physical theatre, acrobatics, and street dance is paired with impressive set design and heavy, rhythmic beats performed live by a hip-hop DJ and percussionist. Together, the two musicians create a soundscape worthy of its own concert, interwoven with samples of global folk music and gently interrupted by a painfully present violin.
The performance has gained massive attention from critics and audiences alike since premiering in September 2025; the artists look forward to bringing SHÃH MÃT back to CPH Stage in 2027.
Art Form: Dance
Uppercut Dance Theater
With a history of more than 40 years, Uppercut Dance Theater is one of the longest running dance companies in Denmark. Founded in 1982, the company was a founding figures within Denmark's contemporary and modern dance scene. Since the early 2000s, Uppercut Dance Theater has been a pioneer in bringing street- and break-dance to the stage.
One such dancer is Mark Philip, an avid break and capoeira practitioner who has been with the company for over 20 years. He now serves in the company’s third generation of artistic directors alongside award-winning choreographer Stephanie Thomasen.
With SHĀH MĀT, Stephanie Thomasen reaches a new level and challenges the conventions of an independent arts company to create a massive, ambitious dramatic performance, in co-production with Holstebro Dance Company.
The Bridge
Shenzhen Opera and Dance Theatre & Feng Ling Productions (Chinese Mainland & United Kingdom)
The Bridge draws inspiration from the Chinese folktale “The Cowherd and the Weaver Girl”. This romantic myth narrates the love between Niulang, a humble cowherd, and Zhinü, a celestial weaver girl. Their relationship is forbidden by the Celestial Matriarch, and they are banished to opposite banks of a silver river (now known as the Milky Way). The cowherd and the weaver girl reunite only once a year on the seventh day of the seventh lunar month. The enduring love and longing they represent is celebrated during the Qixi Festival – also known as Chinese Valentines’ Day.
In The Bridge, the celebrated story is reimagined for the modern world, exploring universal human themes of love, hope, and harmony in dialogue with the existence of artificial intelligence. Asking whether love is learned or lived, the work reflects on what drives the human desire to connect across boundaries – between heaven and earth, duty and longing, fate and choice. Rooted in ancient tradition yet resounding with contemporary sensibilities, the production’s movement, music, and imagery invites audiences to witness how love illuminates the spaces between us.
“When we bring diverse artistic voices together, we don’t just create art, we create understanding. The Bridge will show how listening to love stories written in the stars can illuminate our path forward as a global community.” – Farooq Chaudhry OBE
Art Form: Dance
Shenzhen Opera and Dance Theatre
Established in 2018, the Shenzhen Opera and Dance Theatre is comprised of an opera troupe, dance troupe, and choir. The theatre is primarily focused on creating and performing operas and dance dramas, along with providing public cultural services and fostering cultural exchange. The theatre aims to blend Chinese style with contemporary trends and an international perspective, tell Chinese stories, and preserve traditional culture.
The theatre has created several original works, including the world-touring dance–drama Wing Chun. The production has received widespread international acclaim for its innovative fusion of traditional Chinese culture and contemporary movement, firmly establishing its impact on the world stage.
Feng Ling Productions
Founded in 2021 by renowned British producer Farooq Chaudhry OBE, Feng Ling Productions is on a mission to build bridges across cultures and embrace the values of beauty, unity, harmony, and hope. The company’s name, Feng Ling, means “wind chime” in Chinese, reflecting the group’s artistic philosophy that unpredictable movement can give rise to unexpected beauty.
The core creative team is drawn from internationally renowned institutions and has collectively contributed to some of the most influential productions of recent decades, including works by Akram Khan, Yang Liping, the Aakash Odedra Company, Cirque du Soleil, and Tan Dun. Their experience spans major opera houses, theatres, and festivals worldwide, including the Royal Albert Hall, English National Ballet, and the Opening Ceremony of the National Winter Games of China.
Together, the team has received more than thirty major national and international awards. Their collaborative practice is distinguished by its artistic rigour, cross-disciplinary fluency, and a shared ability to transform complex cultural narratives into powerful, emotionally resonant stage experiences.
The Vegetarian
The Three Bowls Co-op (Chinese Mainland)
The dance–theatre production The Vegetarian is adapted from the novel of the same title by South Korean author Han Kang, winner of the 2024 Nobel Prize in Literature. The original story traces the physical and psychological transformation of Yeong-hye, an ordinary woman who, after a dream, decides to stop eating meat, gradually withdraws from language and food, and moves toward a state of silent, almost plant-like existence.
The dance–theatre piece does not seek to reenact the novel’s plot. Instead, it engages the text’s visceral force through embodied performance, spatial transformation, and sonic strategies that explore the relationship between language and the body. The movement vocabulary is grounded in modern dance techniques, translating everyday actions into choreographic material and integrating principles of trigger, weight, and resistance from contact improvisation.
Structured to resonate with the novel’s narrative ethics, the work treats theatre as a mode of discovery and the body as a site where power and trauma unfold simultaneously. It focuses on the female protagonists’ bodies as they move through depletion, resistance, and breakdown, and traces their fleeting searches for one another and moments of fragile alliance. It also translates the cyclical violence of domestication and sexualisation as a shared sensory experience for the audience. The production concept has been approved by the author, and the official performance rights have been secured.
The Vegetarian premiered on 6 March 2026 in Shanghai and received rave reviews both from the critics and the audience.The project is produced by Three Bowls Co-op and Mad Attic, with co-production by Theatre YOUNG (Shanghai) and has received a residency award from the Young Choreographers’ Project (Peiqing Jihua) of the China Dancers Association. A national tour is soon to be announced.
Art Form: Dance
The Three Bowls Co-op
Since the summer of 2014, Jiayun Zhuang and Fan Jiang have collaborated closely, and in 2017, they co-founded The Three Bowls Co-op. The collective embraces an open, interdisciplinary creative process that integrates dance and theatre, and explores narrative across various media to engage with critical social issues, with a particular emphasis on women’s experiences and perspectives. It has developed an active presence in the Chinese Mainland’s contemporary dance scene.
Notable productions by the collective include Web Traffic (2018), Loading, Please Wait… (2020), A Flexitarian (2022), and Variations of Memory (2024). These works have received significant recognition. Web Traffic was presented at the 2019 China International Dance Biennale. Variations of Memory was selected for the annual Distinguished Teaching Program of the Shanghai Theatre Academy’s Dance Academy, supported by the National First-Class Undergraduate Program initiative. A Flexitarian was nominated for Best Script and Best Production at the 2024 Drum Tower West Monodrama Festival; it was also showcased at the 2024 Hong Kong International Performing Arts Expo, where it garnered wide attention and critical acclaim.
Va de Bach (It’s about Bach)
Aracaladanza (Spain)
We all know Bach. We’ve heard his music in concert halls and on television. Bands like The Beatles and Muse have adapted his music. Dances have been inspired by his genius.
Aracaladanza, a benchmark-setter in high quality, all audience's visual art dance, joins this tradition of taking inspiration from Bach’s creative universe. With touches of humour, circus-like scenes, and video projections, Va de Bach (It's about Bach) is a 55-minute dance spectacle for movement- and music-lovers of all ages.
A lovely dancing gorilla, a giant hand as a slide, dozens of small pianos, balloons that sing and explode, wigs unravelling into metres by metres of paper, flying coffee cups…With just five dancers and a four-member technical team operating stunning props and sets, Va de Bach brings imagination, fun, and amazing surprises to the stage.
Aracaladanza is looking for partners in Asia (and the rest of the world) who want to share in this dream, co-produced by the Teatro Real in Madrid. Join us to love and laugh with Bach, his music, and his universe!
Art Form: Dance
Aracaladanza
Since 1995, Spanish dance company Aracaladanza has devoted itself to bringing leading artists together to develop quality creations that transcend language and age. Aracaladanza stands out for its unusual way of working, creating exquisite scenic visions of the imagination where costumes, music, light, props, rhythm, and movement become protagonists in their own right.
In 2010, Aracaladanza won the Spanish National Theatre Award for Children and Young People for its commitment to this audience and its "aesthetic, artistic, and technical demands". It is also the winner of several MAX Awards and has garnered acclaim from critics and a loyal legion of spectators.
The company has been invited to perform at national and international festivals. On previous occasions, its work has been co-produced by Sadler's Wells, the University of Nottingham, and DanceEast in the UK; Festival Grec in Barcelona; the Teatros del Canal in Madrid; and SHCAT (Shanghai). It is supported by the local, regional, and national governments of Madrid and Spain.
Enrique Cabrera
Enrique Cabrera, born in Buenos Aires (Argentina) in 1960 and resident in Spain since 1989, is the driving force behind Aracaladanza. Convinced from the outset that true inspiration comes from creating for all audiences, he has imposed a single duty upon himself: to offer stage works of non-negotiable technical and artistic excellence. His personal “trademark” lies in his handling of objects and scenography, perfectly identifiable as soon as the curtain rises.
Cabrera’s commissioned works have been enjoyed in venues like the Royal Opera House in London and the Edinburgh International Festival, among others. He has served as artistic director at concerts in Palau de la Música, L’Auditori de Barcelona, and Philharmonie de Paris, where he directed a concert show with circus artists from the Parisian Académie Fratellini alongside conductor Jane Latron.
