In October, we are pleased to welcome choreographer Jasmine Ellis and her team from Munich to Produktionszentrum Tanz + Performance as part of TanzPulsSüd 4exchange+.

During their residency, the artists will continue developing their research project Before the Hardening. The residency provides space for artistic exchange, shared research, and the further development of a new work. Alongside Jasmine Ellis, performers Nicholas Garlo and Alessandro Marzotto Levy will take part in the residency. Stuttgart-based dancer and choreographer Bar Gonen, a member of Produktionszentrum Tanz + Performance, will join the process as a local collaborating artist. The residency will conclude with an informal studio showing, offering insights into the current stage of the project's development.

About the Project

Before the Hardening explores questions of masculinity, care, and emotional inheritance. At its core are reflections on what remains in the bodies of men, which experiences and patterns have been passed on by their mothers, and what has been lost or rejected along the way.

Drawing on texts by bell hooks, Frederick Joseph, and Ruth Whippman, the artists investigate how these themes are inscribed in bodies, gestures, and relationships. They are particularly interested in forms of intimacy, vulnerability, and resistance, as well as the question of what it means to be held or to resist being held.

The residency serves as an open space for research between movement, language, and encounter. Through collective reading, embodied exploration, and artistic exchange, the artists develop new perspectives on masculinity, connection, and care.

The Artists

Jasmine Ellis

Jasmine Ellis is a Canadian choreographer and film director based in Munich, Germany. Her work combines movement, text, and music to create layered, poetic, and often humorous performance worlds. At the center of her artistic practice are empathy, interpersonal relationships, and the shared experience of being human.

Nicholas Garlo

Nicholas Garlo is a dancer and choreographer from Florida, USA. His artistic career has included work with the Kibbutz Contemporary Dance Company in Israel as well as numerous international productions and collaborations. He has maintained a long-standing artistic partnership with Jasmine Ellis.

Alessandro Marzotto Levy

Alessandro Marzotto Levy is an Italian dancer, choreographer, curator, and teacher. His work moves between choreographic research, performance, and education, and is characterized by a particular interest in bodily awareness, encounter, and collaborative processes.

Bar Gonen

Bar Gonen is a dancer, choreographer, movement therapist, and educator. After training in Israel and Portugal, she is now based in Stuttgart, Germany. As a freelance artist, she collaborates with choreographers and theatres nationally and internationally, creates her own choreographic works, and teaches at various institutions in the region. As a local collaborating artist, she contributes her perspective to the artistic research process of the residency.

Professional Class with Alessandro Marzotto Levy

As part of the residency, Alessandro Marzotto Levy will also offer an open professional training class for the local dance community.

Drawing on somatic practices, breath work, and body awareness, the class creates a conscious connection to the body before moving into more dynamic and technically demanding movement sequences. The focus is on presence, movement quality, and responding to the individual needs of participants. Alessandro Marzotto Levy approaches teaching as a space for focused practice, physical challenge, and the joy of dancing together.

Further information about the studio showing and professional class will be announced soon.