Team

Aly Khamees - Choreography and Performance

Aly Khamees is the artistic director of Below the Skin, a company he founded with his wife Jelena Mair in 2019. Khamees was born in Cairo in 1986 and is a choreographer, dancer and actor. He received his training in contemporary dance at the Cairo Contemporary Dance Workshop Program curated by Studio Emad Eddin and Laurence Rondoni (2008-2011). Khamees further developed his skills as a dancer and performer by collaborating with various dance companies in Europe and Egypt: Desent-Danse (2011-2013), Ultima Vez (2013/17), Homa Company (Monkey Fish Technique) (2013/14/17), to name a few. In 2013, he became a member of the International Dance Council. Currently living in Switzerland, Khamees has resumed his own work as a choreographer. He has benefited from important residencies in which he was able to develop his movement vocabulary Bullet and Knife and test the basic ideas for the solo piece Naslah: Pro-Helvetia residency Theatre L'Octagon (2020), Covid-19 working grant of the City of Zurich (2021/22), ATLAS - ImPulsTanz Festival Vienna (2021), Tanzhaus Zurich residency (2022), Mixed Pickles Roxy Birsfelden (2022). Bullet and Knife is inspired by Egyptian street dance, which Khamees brings into dialogue with contemporary dance and power movement. His most recent productions were: Breaches (Off Cairo Biennial Festival 2018), and The Absentee (2be Continued and DCAF Festival 2018). Khamees' work is interested in using the language of dance to speak about social challenges and issues, and to engage audiences in dialogue.

Jelena Mair - Co-Author, Production Manager, Diffusion

Jelena Mair is the creative director of the Below the Skin company and develops the artistic concepts in collaboration with Aly Khamees. Her professional background is diverse. She studied Expressive Dance and Art Therapy at the Tamalpa Institute in San Franciso (2006), received her Bachelor in Transdisciplinary Studies at the California Institute of Integral Studies (2008) and her Master in Peace and Conflict Transformation in Basel and Innsbruck (2015). She worked as a project manager in various start-ups and NGOs with a focus on peacebuilding, social inclusion and sustainability. She is currently deputy director for the transdisciplinary initiative School of Commons (schoolofcommons.org). Her personal interests and academic background are in the fields of human empowerment, social change, transgenerational trauma and resiliency. She is a certified Resiliency Coach (Organic Intelligence®). Already as a child she spent a lot of time at her mother's theatre, around the stage she feels at home. For her, art is an important means of personal and social transformation.

Ahmed Saleh - Composition and Music

Ahmed Saleh is a musician, composer and sound artist from Alexandria, Egypt. He has become one of the spearheads of the electronic music scene in Egypt. (Press - Cairoscene Magazine - March 2015). Saleh's experience as a visual artist had a great influence on his music. He composed his first live solo set and performed at the 100LIVE festival in 2009. Saleh is a member and one of the founders of the well-known band Telepoetic, he composed the soundtracks for many independent films, contemporary dance shows and theatre. In 2014, he was part of the Jazz Nomades project and performed at the La Voix Est Libre festival (France). Saleh's music has been played on many radio shows in Poland, the US, Italy, Germany, France, London and Egypt.

Romain Guion - Coach & Outside Eye

is a performer, dance educator, festival curator and cultural manager with a 25-year career in the performing arts. He trained at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse in Paris and has subsequently been a member of various international dance companies including Charleroi-Danses, National Dance Company Wales, Dance Theatre of Ireland, John Scott's Irish Modern Dance Theatre, Gelabert-Azzopardi Companya de Dansa, Eun Me Ahn Dance Company, PVC-Stadttheater Freiburg, Staatstheater Mainz, Constanza Macras-Dorky Park and les ballets C de la B, with whom he performed C(H)OEURS and Nicht Schlafen. In addition to his performing career, Romain collaborates in the creation of dance, music, theatre and opera productions with artists such as Alain Platel (Coup Fatal), Martin Zimmermann (Good Bye Johnny; Danse Macabre), Koen Augustijnen (Sehnsucht, limited edition; Dancing Bach), Eugénie Rebetez (Bienvenue), Francesca Foscarini (Animale) and Juliette Navis (Tout ce qui reste; La timidité des arbres). Romain curates the Berlin dance festival LUCKY TRIMMER and the professional training of Tanzhaus Zürich. He is artistic coordinator of the collective The Field and artistic director of Brückerei, a platform for choreographic development. In 2019, Romain received a cultural award from the city of Zurich. In 2021, Romain graduated with a Master's degree in Cultural Management from Leuphana University. In his master's thesis, he investigated environmental sustainability in the European contemporary dance sector.

David Baumgartner - Lighting Design

is the technical director of the Tanzhaus Zürich, a freelance lighting designer, former cultural manager and has been working on the stages of Europe for 20 years. He completed his training at the IHK Hamburg to become a master of event technology in the field of lighting. He has been technical director at the Tanzhaus Zurich for seven years, before that he was technical director at the Theater Tuchlaube in Aarau. He began his technical and artistic career at the Sophiensaele in Berlin. In addition to his employment, he develops lighting designs for various companies and accompanies them on tours throughout Europe. Most recently he has worked with artists such as Isabel Lewis, Tabea Martin and Alexandra Bachzetsis. He is always happy to work in new places and with different people, and has, for example, been the technical director for the festivals zürich moves! and fanfaluca Aarau.

Simon Froehling - Dramaturgical support Tanzhaus Zurich

Simon Froehling, born 1978, is a Swiss-Australian dual citizen and lives as an author and dramaturge in Zurich. He has published two novels ("Lange Nächte Tag" and "Dürrst", shortlisted for the Swiss Book Prize 2022, both published by Bilgerverlag) and written more than a dozen full-length plays and radio plays for Swiss and German stages and radio stations. He has won various prizes for his work and was Writer in Residence at the German House at New York University. Simon is also involved in the performing arts as a freelance production dramaturge (including for the UTOPISISTAS led by Jenna Hendry) and as a lecturer, external mentor and expert, including for the Zurich University of the Arts ZHdK, the Cultural Foundation of the Canton of Thurgau and the Albert Köchlin Foundation. In addition to his freelance work, he is deputy artistic director of the Tanzhaus Zürich and also heads the dramaturgy pool. In the course of this he accompanies productions by artists and groups such as Eugénie Rebetez, Isabel Lewis & The Field, Ivy Monteiro, Lea Moro, Valerie Reding and cie. zeitSprung as well as national and international guests in residence. He also supervised the young talent platforms SHOW-OFF (2020 & 2022) and kicks! (2021) as a coach.