Ballet

Dancer, teacher and choreographer Alfonso Bordi, born in Mexico, followed his dance education the Boston and Atlanta Schools of Ballet. Following different dancing engagements in Canada, Ireland and Germany, he is now among the most outstanding protagonists at Düsseldorf company NEUER TANZ under the direction of visual artist VA Wölfl.

Chin-A Hwang, geboren in Südkorea, erhielt ihre Ausbildung als klassische Bühnentänzerin an der Seoul Arts High School in Korea. Im Anschluss studierte sie Bühnentanz am Zentrum für Zeitgenössischen Tanz - ZZT in Köln.
Seit 2017 ist Chin-A Hwang als freiberufliche Tanzpädagogin unter anderem in der Tanzfaktur, im Cologne Dance Center Köln sowie in verschiedenen Ballettschulen tätig.
Sie unterrichtet sowohl Amateure als auch Profis im klassischen und modernen Tanz.
Regelmäßig tanzt Chin-A Hwang auch in verschiedenen Produktionen der Deutschen Oper am Rhein Duisburg/ Düsseldorf und der Oper Köln.
Seit 2019 studiert sie den Master-Studiengang "Tanzpädagogik klassischer Tanz" an der Folkwang Universität der Künste in Essen.

When Dawna Dryhorub first started ballet dancing at age three, the decision was already taken: “I want to be a dancer!” She took additional classes in tap dance, jazz dance and folkloristic dance, subseqently pursuing her dance education at the School of Toronto Dance Theatre where she specialised in Graham and classical dance. She received an invitation to collaborate on a project in Düsseldorf during the mid-1990s and swiftly became an artist close to the “Werkstatt”, the precursor of tanzhaus nrw. The native Canadian remained in Germany and participated in various productions by, among others, Rodolpho Leoni and Samir Akika. She offered trainings at Folkwang Tanzstudio for many years and was a guest lecturer for classical dance at the Folkwang University of the Arts. 2020 will see Dawna concluding her Master’s degree in dance sciences from Bern University in 2020.

Feline van Dijken, born in Amsterdam, studied ballet and dance at the Royal Ballet School in The Hague and the Heinz Bosl Foundation in Munich. She deepened her training in summer courses at the Royal Ballet in London and the Juilliard Summer Dance Intensive program in New York. Feline van Dijken's first engagement took her to the Bavarian State Ballet in Munich. She then spent many years as a solo dancer with the Ballett am Rhein Düsseldorf and Duisburg. During this time, she danced in countless pieces by various choreographers, including Hans van Manen, Martin Schläpfer, William Forsythe, George Balanchine, Merce Cunningham, Trisha Brown and Andry Kaydanovskiy, and has thus developed a wide range of different styles during her active dance career. Numerous solo roles have been created for her. Feline van Dijken has also choreographed herself and is passionate about dance coaching.

Marclúcia do Amaral, born in Ponte Alegre, Brazil, left high school at 15 and accepted a scholarship invitation to the Cuban National Ballet School in Havana. Her training in Cuba lasted three years and fundamentally shaped her, both technically and artistically.
From Cuba, she moved on to New York in 1995, again with a scholarship in her pocket that allowed her another year of training, this time at the Joffrey Ballet School in New York City. When she was offered a contract as a dancer with the Joffrey Ballet after completing her training, she declined and moved back to Brazil instead. There, she earned her high school diploma and studied dramatic arts for two years at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul. At the International Ballet Competition in Brasília in 1998, the German chamber dancer Birgit Keil became aware of her and offered her postgraduate studies at the Academy of Dance of the State University of Music and Performing Arts in Mannheim. Thus Marlúcia do Amaral came to Germany in October 1998, stayed, and found a second home.

In 2000, choreographer Martin Schläpfer engaged her for his newly formed ballettmainz. She followed him to the Ballett am Rhein in Düsseldorf in the 2009/2010 season. In ten years, Schläpfer created an immense repertoire and created numerous leading roles for her. A special testimony to the Schläpfer-Do Amaral connection is given by two duets by Hans van Manen, which the two of them have brought to numerous performances and which were recorded on film: "Old man and me" and "Alltag" to be seen in the film "Feuer bewahren - nicht Asche anbeten". From 2009 to 2020, as a first soloist of the Ballet of the Deutsche Oper am Rhein, do Amaral also embodied numerous principal roles in works by other style-shaping choreographers, ranging from Jirí Kylián, William Forsythe, Brigitta Luisa Merki, Marco Goecke, Jerome Robbins and Mark Morris to Antoine Jully, Hubert Essakow, Terence Kohler and Natalia Horecna or Hans van Manen.
In July 2021, she completed her master's degree in dance education at the Palucca Hochschule für Tanz Dresden and lives in Düsseldorf.

Ronaldo Navarro was born in São Paulo/Brazil and successfully completed his ballet education in the Royal Academy of Dancing style. An engagement at Bremerhaven’s municipal theatre led him to come to Germany in 1993, where he would go on to later freelance work as a dancer with dance theatre icons such as Reinhild Hoffmann or Johann Kresnik at his Choreographical Theatre at the Volksbühne am Rosa Luxemburg Platz in Berlin. Ronaldo has been living in Düsseldorf since 2007, working as a classical ballet teacher. In July of 2016, he published his third book in Brazil, this time revolving around his experiences in dance: “Etapas de um artista da dança“.

Sofia Klein Herrero was born in Düsseldorf and received her dance training at the Escuela de Ballet Carmina Ocaña y Pablo Savoye in Madrid, as well as at the Conservatorio Superior de Danza María de Ávila de Madrid, where she completed a Bachelor in Choreography and Dance in 2018. Sofia has danced in numerous ballet companies and theatres (Aalto Ballett Essen, Deutsche Oper am Rhein, Oper Wuppertal, Ballett Bautzen, Musik Theater im Revier Gelsenkirchen, Pasodos Dance Company Mallorca, and many more).
Her work as a dance teacher includes various dance schools, workshops and companies where she taught different styles: ballet, contemporary, modern dance, pointe, creative children's dance, preballet, stretching, improvisation technologies, choreography, as well as yoga, pilates, balletfit and body conditioning. Since 2020 she is studying a Master in Dance Education (Classical Dance) at the Folkwang University of the Arts Essen. Sofia Klein Herrero works as a dancer, dance teacher, choreographer and fitness trainer.

Tereza Matos completed her studies in classical ballet and modern dance at Brazil’s Universidade Federal da Bahia. She was subsequently invited to journey to Germany by renowned Wuppertal choreographer Pina Bausch, later studying at Folkwang University of the Arts in Essen. Here, she graduated as a classical ballet dance pedagogue in 2008. Tereza took part in several opera and musical theatre productions. She accumulated more than 35 years of stage experience in pieces like “Orpheus und Eurydice”, “Hair”, “Die Bassgeige” and as a guest dancer at Essen’s Grillo Theater, as well as in Dortmund and Aachen. Among her colleagues and role models are Jean Cébron and Susanne Linke, both seminal choreographers, in their works closely linked with the Folkwang University of the Arts.