2023-2024 PERFORMERS - OZ 4th GEN

Alkistis Kapnisaki is a 25 years old girl from Creta, Greece. At the age of 18 she found herself in arts, specially in writing, mostly poetry and drawing. Her relation with dance started while she was studying her bachelor degree in marine biology. It begins in the times of quarantine, through the need of recall the common human path and language - emotion- without overreaction or shame, but through senses and sensitivity, under the effect of rhythm and music. She starts building her way on dancing by her own, for a year, through different activities, hiking, biking, running, discovering the pleasance and clarity these can give. She continues with her first dance teacher, who had an important impact on her, at the age of 22, exploring mostly with improvisations, performative creations and pilates. That period she discovers also a strong interest in yoga. After a year she moves to Athens to enter in the world of contemporary and ballet. This year in Oficina Zero is her first year of experience a professional programme in dance.She participated in different kinds of workshops in the past with biggest interest in Roni's Chadash workshop.She loves observing the world's contrast facts and the symphony these create together and right now she feels simplicity is more what she needs and founds power in ordinary movements that come out from habit and instinct. She founds every dance lesson as a small life lesson, in which there is no difference of behaviour as a dancer in a solo or a co-creation with the behaviour outside of the "dance world". She dance to improve and understand herself as part of the society and world.

Ana Ortiz, 25 years old, grew up in Piera, a town near Barcelona.

There, she got in touch with the social field, starting to study social work and working as a social educator in different places and projects. Even so, she was always moved and curious about theater and artistic expression, her motivation was continually growing.

In 2020, she started to explore movement with yoga iyengar and ashtanga, that fact led her to keep using her body and in 2021, she started to do aerial circus, later she continued learning trapeze by doing different workshops about technique and artístic creation or sharing with friends. With the aim of putting the art and the social work together, she did social circus studies in 2022, a year in which she also started to explore contemporary dance. For Ana it is necessary to share with others and keep connected with nature, since for her it's the place that gives her inspiration, and feeds her passion to look for different ways to live. She also experienced community life, as well as techniques for communication, decision in groups and self expression (sociocracy, non-violent communication or social theater). Right now, in 2023, she is exploring movement with contemporary dance, but theater, performance and circus are still being present in her work of exploration.

Bal Castro is 26 years old. He is from a beautiful village in Galicia called Moreda do Courel. Nature and artistic expression have always been, and will always be, the pillars of his personality. 

At the age of sixteen he enters a juvenile theatre group called "Os Palimoquirios" where he discovers one of his vocations: the theatre. 

Between 2016 and 2017 he studied something he hated, business. To support these studies, in the after­noons he plays theatre in the University Santiago de Compostela (USC), where he co-stars in Paz Perpetua, a piece by the Spanish dramatist Juan Mayorga, and as the main actor in "El publico" pice of Federico Garcia Lorca. Doing an exercise of honesty with himself, he decides to apply to the University of Drama in Galicia, Spain (ESADg), having the good fortune to be accepted and spend the four most fruitful years of his life. During this period of time he discovers corporal expression and contemporary dance, disciplines he falls in love with and which will become part of his artistic language. But the most important discovery he made at school was a passion for artistic creation, which is why in 2019 he performed his self-created piece "Heridita de un maric6n" at the Sala Artika in Vigo.  In order to continue nurturing himself as a scenic creator, in 2021 he received a workshop in scenic creation taught by Marta Pazos. He complements his training in contemporary dance with Galician professionals like Olga Cameselle, Kirenia Martinez and Estefanfa Vazquez. In his last year of his career he was lucky to be se­lected for a theatrical production of the Galician Dramatic Centre, called "Serva me, Servabote". He is also part of the cast in "Afectos" a co-production of the Galician Center Choreographic with the company Kirenia Danza. Previously he was also part of the cast of the piece "Primeiro a vida" by Kirenia Danza. 

In 2022 he works in the European project "Antibullyng movement series erasmus" in the city of Hildeshiem, Germany. One of the most important gifts his career has given to him is the opportunity to form his physical theatre company Mevadeus, winner of the first award in the theatre category of the "Xuventude Crea 2021", with the piece "Agro 5G". In October 2022 he premiered "Outrora N6s" with Mevadeus. During this year he is in a research process with another member of the company called "Transparentar". 

Beatriz Martins Silva, 01/12/2005, is a artist raised in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. 

She started dancing ballet when she was 5 years old, she kept this and tried other dance styles like tap, jazz, some pointe technique and hip hop. 

When she turned 14 she moved to Porto, Portugal and entered in Balleteatro Professional Dance and Theather School, where she had every day contemporary and ballet technique dasses and also improvisation, composition and partenering experiences along with high school teorical classes. 

There, she also presented 3/4 projects per year in different theathers, created or co-created with different artists. Some of them were: "Exercfcio para uma Coreografia" by Vitor Hugo Pontes; "Coliseum of Porto Cir­cus's" directed by Rui Paixao and Rina Marques; "Serpente" by Beatriz Valentim; "ln-flexao" by Francisco Ca­macho; "Valsa sem Rosto" by Raquel Rua. In July, 2023 she graduated and presented her final work and own creation called "La Sirene" in Teatro Carlos Alberto. 

And now, as you might noticed she is at Oficina Zero trying to discover her pathway in the dance world. 

Caetana Rodrigues (2003, Porto) is a Portuguese artist. 

Mainly focused on the performing arts, her interests also include the exploration of the visual arts, literature, and cinema and how all of these and the remaining arts can coexist. She has since a young age been in contact with a lot of different artistic media, cultivating a life-long lasting passion.

She considers the methodic and scholar teachings of art are not crucial to an artist’s success and can even limit oneself (herself, she is talking herself and how she studied dance for most of her life and still feels that she can’t always properly express herself through movement, due to the many years of technical classes).

If she could steal the work of any artist (alive or dead, but they are all dead) she would steal from: Isadora Duncan, Claude Monet, Emily Dickinson, and Frank Lloyd Wright (in no particular order and all of their pieces).

They are Cali Ramos, born in Granada in 1997.

They graduated in Philosophy at the University of Granada in 2020, it was then that they discovered dance and has not stopped researching until now. In 2022 they graduated in Dance and Circus at the University of Toulouse, where they trained in contemporary dance and improvisation and made his first stage pieces. They are interested in different modes of expression. They have investigated different dance styles such as butoh dance, urban dance or flamenco. They have also dedicated some time to physical theater and clown and has participated in stage creations such as Tierras Posibles in the project Common Ground in 2023.

They are interested in dance as a political tool and have been part of self-organized groups performing in the street with different demands. 

They are looking for the relationship between dance and writing and audiovisual creation.

Diana is, right now, a nineteen year old girl from the city of Aveiro, discovering herself. 

She is me. I come from the background of dance and music, having done ballet, hip-hop and contemporary dance classes, for the past years, while also played the harp and piano. I've spine surgery due to extended scoliosis. 

After highschool, I've taken a gap year, to reflect and ponder my ideas about my present and future self, which is kind of a hobby of mine. More recently, Diana has been feeling a strong conection to the word 'Art' (through the notions of identity, personality, connection and movement), wanting to tangle it in her own way of living and, at the same time, untangle its meaning, the best possible way she can. She's curious, driven and excited to know about other approaches to Be and Live more truthful and authentic to Ourselves, and she was given the opportunity to explore them this year in Oficina Zero, alongside with her new friends.

Dimitra is 27 years old and came from Greece. She started rhythmic gymnastics at the age of 8 and continued with international dances until she was 17. 

At the same time she loved music and she started playing classical guitar. She continued her studies in music with piano and voice lessons. Since her teenage years and onwards she started ballet and contemporary lessons, while at the age of 25 she entered a professional dance school in Greece. 

After she joined seminars with Horacio Macuacua and Aladino R Blanca and Christina Gouzeli at SEAD, she became interested in dance theater and how a dancer can become a performer using elements from all the arts. 

Her goal as a performer is to use elements from music, sound and voice in combination with dance. 

Currently she is at Oficina Zero and is part of the dance theater group "Esperis".

Dimitris Chalikias is a 24 years old, Greek/Egyptian Dancer, Performer, Arts Enthusiast and Gamer.

He started studying Archeology and Theater but after a while he decided to dedicate his studies and time to Dance. His connection with the Japanese culture inspired him a lot with movements, methods and emotions.

Dimitris joined the "Professional Drama School of Theodosiades" back at 2018 and then at 2019 he also joined the Athens Conservatory as an Harpist. At 2022 he joined the "Professional School of Dance Horohronos" and studied for a year there.

The connection with arts made him have opportunities on both Theater and Dance such as, performing at the Municipal Theater of Piraeus twice once as a Performer with the choreographer Hilias Bageorge and once as a back up Musician for the Conservatory, as a Dancer for videos of Choreographers (Alexander Stavropoulos,etc) and as a Model with Arts Thematic Photographies and Clothing Companies. Dimitris also performed with Zakiko-Sensee and Zyra at the Theater Athineon of Thesaaloniki, the martial art of Taikomochi a style of Ninjutsu. Now he's member of Oficina Zero 23-24.

Elina Kavalaki is a greek-german performer born in 2000 in Greece. 

She started dancing ballet when she was 6 and discovered contemporary at the age of 15. She started performing on stage from a young age and loves the feeling of it. She has never stopped dancing in her whole life, it's the only thing that makes sense for her to do.

She studied for 3 years in the professional dance school "Aktina" in Athens and got her degree as a dance teacher. She has taught some ballet and contemporary lessons for adults over the past year.

She has done seminars with Zoltan Olah, Alexandra Kozmer, Rania Papaioannou, Betty Dramisioti, Angeliki Stellatou, Stavroula Siamou, Sandra Grimma, Stefano Biza, Konstantina Efthimiadou and others.

As a performer, she was part of a dance company called Anima Libera for 1 year, directed by Mikaela Kanzafiri. In 2022 she was selected to dance in the piece "Addicted to rust" from Edgen Lame.

She also choreographed and performed a piece about grief called "Der Verlust" the same year.

In 2023 she performed in the K.I.S.S. Dance Festival a work by Zoi Tragidi called "Captures of an exhausted memory". She has experimented with a lot of dance styles. Her backround consists of ballet, rhythmic gymnastics, greek traditional dances and different techniques of contemporary such as release, limon, graham, improvisation and contact imorovisation. She also dances swing and hip-hop.

She enjoys a lot working with music, playing with rhythms and exploring different movement qualities in the body.

Right now she is based in Porto doing the Oficina Zero formation, trying to develop her skills and figure out the direction she wants to take next in her art. 

Eva Comesaña, dancer, creator, Dj and cultural manager from Galicia, Spain. 

I started as a hip hop dancer focus on freestyle and also taking techniques from another urban dances as popping, house and waacking. 

As a creator I was interested on performance and contemporary dance, that`s why I began my formation on that, because I felt more in connection with that language to talk about ideas and concepts. I trained contemporary techniques such as flying low, contact improvisation, release and lot of contemporary impro from different teachers in festivals, regular classes, trainings,... 

Since 2016 I started to create and work as a freelance teaching and dancing, always trying to make synergies with different artistic disciplines like poetry, music, visuals,...combining it with cultural management creating festivals, events and artistic meetings. 

Glaucio Romeiro, born in Brasília, Brazil, is a dancer, teacher, and choreographer. He studied at the Dance Department of the National Ballet of Cuba and holds a degree in Physical Education from the Catholic University of Brasília. Glaucio also earned a master's degree in Dance Teaching from the School of Dance in Lisbon, focusing on the teaching-learning process of choreographic composition.

Among his notable experiences, he was part of Grito Dance Company under the direction of Junior O'Hara, performing in works like "Fear" and "Andante." He danced with the Ballet of Brasília and Dance2000, a dance company formed in the International Dance Seminar of Brasília, under the direction of Gisele Santoro. He was also a dancer with CBD – Brasiliense Dance Company, under the direction of Maria do Carmo Pogi.

In 2012, he joined the Bejart Ballet Lausanne tour, performing "Bolero de Ravel" at the Municipal Theater of São Paulo. The same year, he participated in the ballet "The Nutcracker," directed by Gisele Santoro Filha with the National Theater Symphony Orchestra in Brasília. In 2013, he was part of the cast of the opera "Carmen" at the III Opera Festival of Brasília, directed by William Pereira and choreographed by Gisele Santoro Filha. In 2013, he also choreographed and rehearsed the show "Epopéia de Brasília," under the artistic direction of Regina Corvello, sponsored by the Cultural Support Fund - FAC. In September 2018, he took the Royal Academy of Dance – RAD Level 3 Certificate in Vocational Graded Examination in Dance: Intermediate (Ballet) exam, achieving a "distinction."

As an educator, he taught dance in various schools in Brasília, including the Marista Champagnat School of Taguatinga in 2010, where he taught Jazz Dance, Classical Ballet, and Contemporary Dance to students of various ages. He also supervised the formation process of the Marista Champagnat Youth Dance Group in the same institution. Additionally, he taught at the Lúcia Toller Dance School from January 2012, teaching Classical Ballet to children and adults, and choreographing. In February 2017, he became the ballet teacher for Technical I class at the Étude Seasons Ballet School, at the invitation of director Maria Pogi.

In Portugal, he attended the intensive contemporary dance workshop dedicated to the choreographic repertoire of Wayne McGregor, taught by Catarina Carvalho in December 2018. In September 2023, he participated in the workshop "INHABITING THE BODY/TRANSCENDING THE BODY" with choreographer Nacera Belaza and was later invited to an artistic residency with her company in Paris, France, in November 2023.

In March and July 2019, he was part of the ballet corps of the National Ballet Company, performing in the season of "Don Quixote" at Teatro Camões in Lisbon and Teatro Rivoli in Porto.

As an educator, from October 2019 to June 2020, he was part of the dance department at the David Sousa Conservatory, teaching classical and contemporary dance techniques. From September 2020 to July 2021, he was a professor in the dance department of the Conservatory of Dance of the North, teaching classical and contemporary dance techniques. From January 2022 to June 2023, he was a classical dance technique professor at the Ginásiano School of Dance.

"If something is not within you, then it doesn't reverberate – even if you have technique, even if your effort is great. There's no doubt. What truly exists in the heart is what reaches those who watch. Even if it's hidden, the viewer will understand. What is the soul? And the desire of the soul? What does the spirit want to convey? It's an ongoing problem. In everyday life, in dance, what we want to convey matures gradually. When we want to convey something, we can only do it if we extract it, thus, from our roots, and show it torn." - Kazuo Ohno

Ilianna Timplalexi Mouka was born in Athens in 1998. She has studied mechanical engineering in university of west Attica. Since she was a child she was very close to arts. Painting, dance and music made her feel alive and connected with arts. She gets inspired by Chinese culture because she started learning chinese when she was a child. She did many classes of contemporary, ballet and improvisation and she is trying to find her own way of movement and explore the combination of continuous movement with isolation.

She has took part in a lot of dance seminars, in three movementors seminars in Salzburg experimental academy of dance,in two improvisation seminars with Horacio Macuacua and in a contemporary seminar with Christina Mertzani. 

She also did some performances in Roes theatre and in municipal theatre of Piraeus with the choreographer Iro Konti.

The year 2022-2023 she was studying in higher professional dance school Horohronos at Greece. The year 2023-2024 she is part of oficinazero dance training program at Porto.

Inés Santos , born in 1999, Galicia, Spain.  

Physical theater actress graduated from the   School of Dramatic Art of Vigo   (ESADg). She completed her theatrical training at the School of Dramatic Art of Porto (ESAP) and she did the undergraduate internship at the Balleteatro de Porto with the team of Né Barros. 

She is one of the creators of the physical theatre company Mevadeus, established in Galicia, Spain.With their second play "Outrora Nós" wins the third prize for the show best rated by  the public in the adult public category  in the year 2022 in the VigoCultura programme. They also win the second prize within the Choreographic Contest of Santiago de Compostela. And with their first play "Agro 5G" they won the first prize in the theater category of Xuventude Crea 2021.

The company searches in depth the human nature through the experimentation of bodies and sound space. Mevadeus advocates dealing with themes that reflect the reality and concerns of their generation  through the performing arts.

Inés Santos is a multidisciplinary artist who is constantly learning between the different scenic artistic fields and who has a clear passion for the creation and research of personal projects.

Irene Manso Sanz was born in Jerez de la Frontera in 1996, but grew up in Lorca (Spain). 

She started dancing as a child, parading in the Aguilas carnivals. When she moved to another city, she felt that she didn't want to stop dancing and signed up for an academy where she danced different styles. When he turned seventeen he went to Granada to study Hispanic Philology and Contemporary Dance. Two years later, he continued her studies in Madrid. She has been part of the La matraca Physical Theater Company, where she was an actress in the play “Festum fatuorum”. 

She has worked as a performer in Camile C. Hanson's “Slow shopping walk” and as a dancer in Poliana Lima's “Things move in the distance.” She has participated in international volunteering, collaborating as a dance teacher with the Soul Xpresions association in Kampala (Uganda). He created a solidarity artistic project “Tomando cuerpo” in Lorca, teaching and organizing dance classes and other arts. She is currently in Porto (Portugal) doing an intensive Dance program, Oficina Zero.

Leandros Athanasiou (he/they) is a young mover/dancer from Thessaloniki, Greece.

Following a contemporary (release) and ballet technique background and a BA in Theory and History of Art (Athens School of Fine Arts) the past years they have attended workshops of contemporary technique, repertoire (Peeping Tom, Rosa Parks, Batseva) and improvisation.

Their field of interest is focused on improvisation that explores physicality, rhythm and elements of theatre.

Leandros is also interested in queer/gender and post humanism studies, having his first published essay in November of 2023.

They are super into pop music and science fiction.

Naima Mottola is a dancer and a performer from Florence, Italy.

She has studied philosophy at the Naples University Federico II. During this period she approached theatre being part of a social theatre collective, born with the aim of creating community through the crossing of different arts(theatre, dance, video mapping, visuals arts, electronic music), for five years collaborating with the construction of workshops and performances. She attended an intensive course for contemporary dance, Human bodies, in Pozzuoli(Na) and she continued training and studying through classes and workshop with Jurij Konjar, Herich Milan, Sadé and Kristina Alleyne, Elelei Company, Poetic Punkers, Lali Ayguadé, Gabriella Maiorino, Penelope Mourout, Giselda Ranieri.

She is everyday surprised by the possibilities of expression of the body, she’s interested in the investigation of vocality in relation to movement and in all the extensions that the human body use to adapt, develop and express itself.

She grew up dancing and watching people dancing popular dances from the south of Italy, she studied oriental and middle east dances and she continues questioning about this essential need of every community all over the world to move through dance and how to fight the risk of loss of knowledge ad habits about this in our contemporary cultures. 

Recently, back in Florence, she was collaborating with a collective of dancers, Collettivo O.scena, and researching on improvisation and on the encounter between contemporary dance and rave culture.

The interest in the body and movement intertwined with her university studies about the french philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty and on an interpretation of dance in a phenomenological key.

Noemi Ferrari -yes, Ferrari like the car- was born in a calm village on the Ceresio lake in the italian

speaking part of Switzerland, in 1995.

At 4 she was determined to play piano, but due to her sister's huge harp, her parents suggested she play

violin instead. So she started playing the smallest violin size.

She spent her childhood playing, singing, dancing in the kitchen while her mum was cooking and acting

(especially to tell lies).

During her teenage years she came across Middle Eastern dances, which allowed her to connect to her

body, embody it, feel feminine and explore her movement possibilities.

From the age of 18 she tried to escape from Switzerland as much as she could to travel and perceive the

world. Over the years she invested a lot of time in self growth experiences based on body approaches.

In 2020 she graduated in Occupational Therapy and then worked in pediatrics specializing in autism,

ADHD, dyspraxia and Trauma Informed Practice. In 2022 she attended a programme in Performing Arts

and Inclusion with Accademia Dimitri and Teatrodanzabile. During the last years she has been practicing

Feldenkrais and Contact Improvisation.

She cares about accessibility, inclusion and the possibilities between two points. She is interested in how

humans engage their bodies in space, how it shapes people’s limits, choices and thoughts. She likes to

observe the connection between how crowds organize their bodies in space and how animals do it. Her

practice is inspired by the observation of nature, children’s movements and shifting points of views.

She likes humor and wordplay. Detecting the one and only leaf on a tree that, according to invisible

reasons, moves and vibrates very fast. The space between the ground and the feet during a step or a

jump.

In October 2023 she enrolled in the Oficina Zero programme. And in January 2024 she told someone for

the first time she is (also) a move

Olga Maria Xenaki is a Greek dancer/performer born in Athens in 1997.

She had dance and music classes in all her childhood and teenage years. She participated in various performances from a young age mostly in ballet, contemporary dance and musical theatre. She graduated from 'Rallou Manou' Higher Professional Dance School in Athens and also got her certification as a Pilates (mat and props) instructor.

After that, she experimented with her dance collegues in choreography both for live performance and video dance and she presented her co-creation piece 'The form//The platform' in Athens Video Dance Project. She also attended as many workshops as possible especially in the field of contemporary dance and improvisation, which expresses her more.

She loves movement and physicality and for her dance is a way of connection and a creation of other realities.

Sometimes she likes to experience dance as a game because she feels that this brings out the authenticity and naturality of the movement. She always loves to learn and try new things and lately she is very intrigued by the combination of dance with other art fields.

Right now she is in the Oficina Zero formation where she hopes to develop her skills, connect with herself more and be inspired by whatever comes in her way.

Raquel Rebelo, she/her, born in 2003, V. N. de Gaia, Portugal.

Raquel’s formation in dance started as soon as she could walk. She practiced Ballet for 13 years (2006-2019), graduating from Intermediate Foundation of Royal Academy of Dance in 2018. Finishing her journey in Ballet, by playing the protagonist in the Bailado “La Bayadère”, directed by Ana Filipa Costa, Casa das Artes – Famalicão (2019).

Given that Dance was the sole ele of her artistic formation, Raquel realised she needed to expand her studies. 

With this in mind, she graduated high school in ACE – Escola de Artes Famalicão, in the professional course of Interpretation (2018-2021).

This decision towards her academic path, was in fact, a drastic and lucid change of route. Through Theatre, she realised how Arts drives the evolution of customs. It is the dimension and the political content that Raquel intents to search in Dance, something that she considered before as linear.

To complement Raquel’s professional career as a dance performer, in 2023, she started to attend Pole Dance classes, at Studio Up. This weekly practice has given her strength, resilience and fearless of gravity. Besides that, Pole Dance is a constant reminder to Raquel that as an artist woman, a place of consent and maturity is indispensable.

Nothing can better describe Raquel other than her body. With it, she brings the discipline of Ballet, the politics of Theatre, the determination of Pole Dance and the boldness of youth.

Verónica Martínez Navarro was born in Valencia in 2000. 

She joined the Valencia Professional Dance Conservatory in 2016 until 2022. During her time at the conservatory she completed two Erasmus courses lasting two weeks each. 

The first Erasmus was to Copenhagen in 2021 and the second was to Antwerp in 2022. In the year 2022 - 2023 she took some contemporary dance classes at the María Carbonell academy. 

Vero is currently training at OficinaZero (Portugal).

My name is Uxue Lasa Fernandez, I'm 24 years old, I was born in Vitoria (Basque country, Spain).

I started learning about different circus elements when I was 8, trying a little bit of everything in the circus world. When I turned 21 I got accepted in the international circus and theater school CAU in Granada where I specialized in partner acrobatics and acrodance.

When I finished I continued my studies in Creat, another circus school in Valencia, where I worked more in my handstands (because I couldn't find a partner to continue what i was doing before). I got a bit lost with so much circus, so I came here looking for inspiration, or motivation to create, to develop my movement skills, to go a bit crazy, to keep learning... And probably more reasons, or less, I don't know.