Artistic Collaborators
NOUR BARAKEH studied at the Higher Institute of Dramatic Arts in Damascus and graduated from The Faculty of Pharmacy at Damascus University. Through her scientific academic study and artistic work she strives to understand society from different viewpoints. Having gained experience ranging from theater and dance to social work and journalism, her goal is to support the establishment of sustainable educational projects focused on empowering young people. Ms. Barakeh has conducted numerous contemporary dance workshops with internal refugee children in Syria. Most recently she was featured by the Austrian broadcaster ORF on occasion of International Day of Peace and the UNHCR on occasion of women day.Her theatre play ‘Not a Fate’ about peace-building among youth in conflict situations was performed in the Austrian Parliament at the event Frauen – Überleben. She has spoken on numerous high-profile panels on Refugee and Migration issues highlighting young, female voices and the SDGs such as the European Forum Alpbach 2018 alongside Dr.Ban Ki Moon and Dr. Heinz Fischer. Ms. Barakeh spent a month at IIASA in 2016 during the Citizen Artist Incubator project. In 2018 she was part of the Artistic Cast of Migrspectives, an art-science production which premiere at the summer school on evidence and policy, which IIASA hosted together with the European Commission’s Joint Research Center under the under the Auspices of the Austrian EU presidency.
CHANTAL BILODEAU is a playwright and translator whose work focuses on the intersection of science, policy, art, and climate change. She is the Artistic Director of The Arctic Cycle – an organization created to support the writing, development and production of eight plays that look at the social and environmental changes taking place in the eight Arctic states, the founder of the blog and international network Artists and Climate Change, and a co-founder of Climate Change Theatre Action. She is a recipient of the Woodward International Playwriting Prize as well as the First Prize in both the Earth Matters on Stage Ecodrama Festival, and the the Uprising National Playwriting Competition. She curates the HowlRound series Theatre in the Age of Climate Change and has written about the intersection of arts and climate change for American Theatre Magazine, the Center for Energy and Environmental Research in the Human Sciences, and the World Policy Institute. Bilodeau spent a month at IIASA in 2016 during the Citizen Artist Incubator Project and was subsequently invited to participate in the session 'The Arctic: New Narratives for a Disputed Territory' at the European Forum Alpbach with IIASA research scholar Anni Reissel. In 2017 Bilodeau co-authored The Art of Systems Analysis with Gloria Benedikt and Merlijn Twaalfhoven. In 2018 she - co thought the Stories for the Future workshop at the Mellon Summer School at Harvard University and was the playwright of the art science productions Migraspectives and UnEarthing.
CHRISTIAN FELBER is a linguist and contemporary dancer who studied Spanish, Psychology, Sociology and Political Sciences in Madrid and Vienna, where he lives and works. He is co-founder of Attac Austria, an internationally renowned speaker, contemporary dancer, lecturer at the Vienna University of Economics and Business and author of several bestsellers including: 50 Suggestions for a Fairer World, New Values for the Economy, Let's save the Euro!, Change Everything: Creating an economy for the common good, and Money. The new rules of the game. Felber is the initiator of the Economy for the Common Good (ECG) and the project Bank for the Common Good. He collaborated with IIASA on the dance film Post Truth? The Paradox of Progress, which premiered at the Viennese Science Ball in January 2017 and was a speaker in the Science Beyond Boundaries Series for the IIASA Young Scientists Summer Program in August 2017.
LANXING FU is a Chinese-American writer, director, and performer. She is co-director of Superhero Clubhouse, a New York City based eco-theater company, currently working as project director for the Living Stage as artist-in-residence with University Settlement. Other work includes, co-creator of PLUTO (no longer a play), (The Brick), and JUPITER (a play about power), (La MaMa ETC). She has collaborated on and led interdisciplinary projects on globalization and the environment through research in Sri Lanka, Morocco, Turkey, and the United States through The Center for 21st Century Studies, as previous associate director of Critical Point Theatre, and as an ensemble member of Building Home, working in the New River Valley. She participated in JACK's "Creating Dangerously" series, led by Virginia Grise and Kyla Searle, has trained with SITI Company for two years, and is an alumnus of Orchard Project's Core Company. She holds a B.A. in Humanities, Science, and Environment and a B.A. in Theatre Arts from Virginia Tech. In 2019 she wrote the play Piece of Cake on resource depletion, climate change and demographic development with IIASA Senior Research Scholar Fabian Wagner.
KRISZTIÁN GERGYE is a Hungarian dancer, choreographer and stage director. After spending a year in Java as a Darmasiswa scholar, studying ancient Indonesian dance, he started mixing eastern traditional and western contemporary dance, thus creating his own vocabulary for dance and body. He has been staging his own choreographies since 2001. Independent projects soon led to permanent collaborations and he founded his own company called Gergye Krisztian Tarsulata, which engages artists from across disciplines. As a dancer and choreographer, he has been a guest to nearly all established Hungarian dance companies and performed in all contemporary dance theaters and venues. He has been awarded several prizes both for his creations and as a performer. Recently his work was performed in Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Czech Republic, Germany, France, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America. Commissioned by the Austrian Cultural Forum Budapest, he collaborated with Gloria Benedikt on a new work about the Austrian painter Egon Schiele in 2013. In 2015 Gergye and Benedikt were invited to create a full length work on Alma Mahler and Oskar Kokoschka, which premiered at the Bridging Europe Festival and has toured internationally since. In 2017, he collaborated with IIASA on the dance - science piece InDilemma, and in 2018 on the art science production Migraspectives and in 2019 on UnEarthing.
HANNAH KICKERT is an Austrian dancer, who attended the Vienna State Opera Ballet Academy for 9 years and graduated with honors. During her education she performed at the New Years Concert, the Viennese Opera Ball, various guest performances in Madrid, and took part in performances of the Vienna State Ballet many times. Directly after graduating she got a contract with the Vienna State Ballet with which she performed for 3 years. She choreographed and danced an extract of Edward Scissorhands for the Hollywood in Vienna breast cancer Charity Gala. Due to a variety of interests, she started studying political science at the University of Vienna. In 2016 she got a scholarship for the European Forum Alpbach, where she first encountered IIASA and the Science & Art Project. The following year she returned to the European Forum Alpbach collaborating with IIASA on the dance-science piece InDilemma. In 2018 she collaborated on the art science productions Migraspectives and Dancing with the Future.
MARIETTA KRO completed her classical dance training at the Conservatory Vienna with a dance diploma. Before working freelance she danced with eminent companies across Europe including Lepizig Ballet, State Opera Hannover and Alterballetto for 13 years. She performed choreographies of prominent chroeographers such as William Forsythe, Jiri Kylian, Mauro Bigonzetti, Marco Goecke, Uwe Scholz, Johan Inger and Ohad Naharin. Kro collaborated with IIASA on the art-science production UnEarthing.
MIRANDA LAKERVELD creates innovative staging for opera and classical music. As a director, she aims to develop a new form of opera that reflects cultural diversity and functions as a platform for dialogue across communities. For this purpose, she has founded World Opera Lab. Important creations include ‘Orfeo in India’ an Indian adaptation of ‘L’Orfeo’ in Ahmedabad, ‘Erda’, a performance/lecture about ecology at the Dutch National Opera, ‘The homecoming of Ulysses’ and ‘Majnun and Leyla’ which were created with communities in Amsterdam-west. She also developed a series of debate-operas on conflicts in the Middle East. New works include ‘Temple of Time’ an inter-religious ceremony with gamelan for the opening of the prestigious Holland Festival Proms, Verdi’s ‘Nabucco’ and ‘The Sacrifice’. To support her creative work, Miranda has done extensive research into traditional music-drama practices from India, Iran, Mexico, Japan, Guatemala and Tibet. Lakerveld spent a month at IIASA in 2016 during the Citizen Artist Incubator project. She has developed a workshop-method that she has taught at conservatories, universities and also as part of the Science Beyond Boundaries Series at IIASA in 2017. Through the project ‘Requiem for a river’, she is currently exploring how mythology and traditional music-drama practices can give new insights to dynamics of culture and ecology.
ALEXANDER MAYS is a classically trained dancer with African American heritage, originally from Sweden, but raised in New York City. He started his early dance training at the Joffrey Ballet School in New York and trained under many reputable names such as Gelsey Kirkland and Nikolai Levitsky. In 2015 he moved to Europe to pursue Europen companies, and danced with the National Theatre in Sarajevo as a guest and also with the Slovak National Theatre for two seasons. He is currently based in Vienna where he freelances and teaches. Mays collaborated with IIASA on the art-science production UnEarthing.
MIMMO MICCOLIS is an Italian-born dancer and choreographer who has worked across Europe and the USA for the past decade. He is particularly interested in creating work around social issues. In spring 2015 he won the Outstanding Choreographer Award at the Youth American Grand Prix, New York, and in 2011 the BBC Performing Arts Award for his choreography of RIGHTS(?). Miccolis obtained his dance education at Fondazione Niccolò Piccinni and Balletto di Toscana. He currently serves as faculty teacher and choreographer at the Washington Ballet, and at George Mason University. He started to collaborate with Gloria Benedikt in 2014 on Growth, which premiered at the Kennedy Center in Washington DC. In 2015, they were consequently invited to create works for the House of the European Union Vienna and the European Commission’s Joint Research Center, Ispra. Miccolis collaborated with IIASA on a number of art-science projects including COURAGE, InAll, InDilemma and Contextual Matters, and Dancing with the Future.
HENOCH SPINOLA, a native of Cape Verde Islands, began his classical training with Jose Mateo’s Ballet Theatre, graduating from the Young Dancers Program in 2006 to become a full company member 2007. After leaving JMBT, Henoch began working with Prometheus Dance from 2011–2012, along with other dance companies local to Boston. He then moved to New York City to dance in a work by Itzik Galili at the Metropolitan Opera from 2013-2014. He recently completed the Master of Fine Arts program within the Creative Practice: Dance Professional Practice Pathway at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance in London. Spinola collaborated with IIASA on the art-science production Dancing with the Future.
JESSIE JEANNE STINNETT holds a BFA in Dance Performance from The Boston Conservatory and an MFA in Creative Practice: Dance Professional Pathway from Trinity Laban Conservatoire, in conjunction with Independent Dance/Siobhan Davies Dance. She has performed for the Metropolitan Opera, Tate Britain, Prometheus Dance, Anna Myer and Dancers, Rebecca Rice, The Boston Baroque Opera, Bard College’s SummerScape Festival, and Boston Dance Theater; most notably in works by Itzik Galili, Pablo Bronstein, Marjorie Folkman, Sidra Bell, and Gigi Caciuleanu. Stinett is the co-artistic director of Boston Dance Theater. She collaborated with IIASA on the art-science production Dancing with the Future and reflected on the experience on the IIASA blog.
MERLIJN TWAALFHOVEN is a Dutch composer who works in conflict areas, unconventional locations, and concert halls. He is founder of The Turn Club, a community of artist and change makers that create impact in society, tackling wicked problems with an artist-mindset. He received a UNESCO award and collaborates with the Kronos Quartet and the New York Philharmonic. His projects explore the richness of cultural diversity and human interaction, often engaging musicians of contrasting styles, local traditions, or children in large events. He collaborates with artists, scientists, diplomats, and other idealists in new and creative ways. This results in a unique blend of sophisticated music and rough, unpolished sounds. Striving for a world without boundaries between art and society, his goal is to revive the creative and artistic potential in everyone in order to create meaningful connections and understanding between people. Advocating a larger role for artists in society, he has presented practical and direct ways for artists to become engaged in pressing global issues such as growing inequality, climate change, and disruptive technological change at conferences such as the European Cultural Forum, Aspen Ideas Festival, TEDx Amsterdam, and at universities across Europe, the USA (Georgetown, Fordham, Columbia), and Japan (GeiDai). He collaborated with IIASA on a number of Art Science projects including COURAGE and Contextual Matters, co-authored The Art of Systems Analysis, was a member of the Alpbach- Laxenburg Group 2015, 2016 and 2017 and presented his work at the Concert for a Sustainable Planet 2017. He reflected on bringing the IIASA production Courage to ESOF 2018 on the Nexus blog.