Jo
Bruhn
PERFORMANCE - DANCE - CI
About me
Dance
Since 2001 I have dedicated my life to the performing arts in various facets.
For a long time the art of fire dancing and stilt walking was my great passion. For more than 15 years I performed with the company “mosaique – fire art and artistry” at countless events all over Europe.
In 2007 dance without fire or other props slowly arrived in my life. Delicate encounters with Contact Improvisation were the beginning. Over the years I felt the need to go deeper and deeper into the work of dance. In 2009/2010 I took part in a New Dance training at the Dance Vision Institute. This was followed by numerous workshops on movement and dance (Contact Improvisation, Tango, Lindyhop), voice (Roy Hart), clown, acrobatics and so on.Over time I focused more and more on Contact Improvisation, attending advanced trainings, festivals and workshops. With teachers like Nancy Stark Smith, Nita Little, Andrew Harwood, Elske Seidel amongst many others, I deepened my skills.
One day I reached the point where I felt that I wanted to open the horizon in other directions. This brought me to the “Dance Intensive” at the Tanzfabrik Berlin. Here I intensively trained in dance for one year. Mostly contemporary dance.
Through this I finally acquired the skills to go deeper into the different levels and concepts of Contact Improvisation and performance.
The intensive work with Nancy Stark Smith ultimately gave me the foundation and confidence to teach and to integrate Contact Improvisation into my dance projects.
Now I teach primarily in Germany, Portugal and France, but also in Russia, the USA, Sweden, Spain. And I organize and support CI events and festivals like Contact Time. I am member of the Contact companI.
What Happened Before
It all started in 1996 with partner acrobatics and juggling – especially playing with the diabolo. I needed a compensation for my engineering studies where I was sitting most of the time on my desk only moving my fingers. Once finished my studies, there was nothing to keep me at my desk and I fully immersed myself in the world of movement.
The journey began with street theatre. Important tools came from circus pedagogical training at “Jojo, Zentrum für Artistik und Theater” in Lahr in 2002, and the Mime Academy in Mainz in 2003.
With the foundation of the company “mosaique – Fire Art and Artistry” in 2002, fire shows and stilt walking became my main activities on a path that soon led from street performances to a schedule full of bookings. I had a profession that paid my bills and gave me great pleasure. I performed at a wide variety of events throughout Europe, such as street theatre festivals (e.g. in Linz, Aurillac, Augsburg, Ypres), other festivals (e.g. Fusion), company parties, city festivals, weddings and much more.
Over the years, the shows developed from choreographed performances of fire art, to music into poetic stories with fire, to aerial arts and stilts.
Acting also accompanied me from 2004-2013 when I worked at the OstEndTheater Berlin and later at the Theatre Skurril in “The Black Pirate” and other productions (director: Dietmar Blume).
In 2017, the year in which I said goodbye to the art of fire dancing and stilt walking, fire and drama merged together. This merging took place in the open-air theatre in Zermatt in “Romeo and Juliet at the Gornergrat” (director: Livia Anne Richard), and in the Komische Oper Berlin in “Der Jahrmarkt von Sorotschinzi” (director: Barrie Kosky), where I walked across the stage as a pig on extra long legs.
