The stilt dance collective DANZANKÓ was founded by Esther Geyer (DE/ES), Clara Gracia
(ES) and Anna Vilhelmiina Peltola (FIN) in 2020. The three dancers and performers have been working for many years in the fields of contemporary dance as well as street and site-specific dance theatre – with and without stilts.
They all share a passion for dancing on stilts and aim to introduce it to a wider audience. In addition, by performing in public space, they want to create a framework in which the encounter between performers and audience can be detached from rigid forms and at the same time deepened.
In 2021 all three performers received a DIS-TANZ-SOLO grant in the programme NEUSTART KULTUR, Hilfsprogramm DIS-TANZEN of the Dachverband Tanz Deutschland for their research focusing on developing a method of dancing on stilts.
Their first production DisTouched was premiered in summer 2022 at Artspace Bremerhaven and has since been presented at the international theatre festival Sommerwerft in Frankfurt am Main, Micro!Festival in Dortmund, Gevleugelde Stad Ieper – City of Wings Ypres in Belgium, Pflasterspektakel Linz in Austria and Tutti Matti per Colorno in Italy, among others.
In 2023 they received the Wiederaufnahmeförderung from the Fonds Darstellende Künste with funds from the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and Media within the program NEUSTART KULTUR.
In the same year they were able to deepen their research and continue developing their method with the help of a renewed DIS-TANZ-SOLO grant.
Clara is a Spanish actress, performer, and dancer. She successfully completed her studies in 2010 at the Institut del Teatre, the State Drama School in Barcelona. She has been involved in various dance-theater projects led by artists such as Takahashi, Meredith Nadler, Ingo Reulecke, Alexandra Rauh, Stella Zannou, Valentina Bordenave, and Heike Scharpff. In 2012, she co-founded the Kazibaze Theater collective together with Marina Rodríguez, developing various family theater productions. Since 2015, she has also been a member of the international theater groups Grotest Maru and Theater Anu. www.claragracia.org
Esther is a freelance actress, dancer, performer and hostess. She successfully completed her Master’s degree in acting at the Drama School of Seville and the Royal Conservatory of Brussels. She works both in German-speaking and international contexts and has participated in numerous theater productions and dance-theater projects led by artists such as Lionel Ménard, Heike Scharpff, Sybille Günther, Juan Carlos Malpelli, and Daniel Koch. From 2019 to 2021, she taught movement technique and body language at the Anton Bruckner University in Linz. Since 2018, she has been a permanent member of the theater group Grotest Maru. www.esthergeyer.com
Anna is a Finnish dancer and performer. She completed her stage dance training at DANCEWORKS Berlin in 2013 under the direction of Carol Ellys. In 2015, she furthered her education through the MASA Dance Journey program at Kibbutz Contemporary Dance Company in Israel, collaborating with artists such as Eyal Dadon, Noa Zuk, Oded Graf, Sharon Vaisvaser, and Rina Schenfeld. Currently her focus is on physical and site-specific theater as well as stilt performance. She works across Germany and Europe with companies such as Grotest Maru, Dulce Compania, Skaramouche Stilt Theater, and choreographer/video artist Eric Dunlap. www.annavilhelmiinapeltola.com