Sasha Waltz
Sasha Waltz is a choreographer, dancer and director. She studied dance and choreography in Amsterdam and New York. Together with Jochen Sandig she founded the company Sasha Waltz & Guests in 1993 and was co-founder of the Sophiensæle (1996) and the Radialsystem (2006), two spaces for performing arts in Berlin. From 1999 to 2004 she was a member of the artistic direction of the Schaubühne am Lehniner Platz.
The development of innovative, interdisciplinary forms of performance and creation is an important focus of her artistic work, which ranges from internationally renowned dance pieces such as the »Travelogue« trilogy (1993/1995) or »Körper« (2000) to choreographic operas (»Dido & Aeneas«, 2005) and exploratory dialogue projects (»Dialoge 09 – Neues Museum«). In her current choreographic work Waltz concentrates on the condensation of collaborative processes, such as the fusion of choreography and music (»SYM-PHONIE MMXX«, 2022 or »Beethoven 7«, 2023).
To mark the 300th anniversary of its world premiere, Sasha Waltz staged Johann Sebastian Bach's »St. John Passion« (BWV 245) as a timeless tale about the human search for truth and justice beyond its original religious implications (2024). At the same time Sasha Waltz is committed to the transfer of dance knowledge and dance as a medium of social and socio-political understanding. In 2021, Sasha Waltz created the choreography »In C« based on Terry Riley’s revolutionary and open score of the same name, which has since not only been successfully performed nationally and internationally, but has also developed into its own system with a growing community.
In 2011, Sasha Waltz was awarded the Bundesverdienstkreuz am Bande for her special services to the cultural field. Since 2013, she is a member of the Akademie der Künste Berlin. In 2021, Sasha Waltz was appointed »Commandeur des Arts et Lettres« by the French Ministry of Culture, and in 2024 she received the German Dance Award. In May 2025, Sasha Waltz will be awarded the Helmut Schmidt Prize; this award honours international personalities who, through their significant work, stand for democracy and the common good.
