German premier

The Tanzquartier Wien opened in 2001 and has been managed by Sigrid Gareis until June 2009. She has given Austrian contemporary dance an international format. The most prominent representatives of a radical script include Philipp Gehmacher and Milli Bitterli.

In March 2008, Philipp Gehmacher curated the »walk + talk« lecture performances as part of the »still moving« series, which included works by Milli Bitterli, himself, and eight other choreographers. The aim was to combine movement and language. The process resulted in an audio visualisation in which Gehmacher remains at a distance whilst Bitterli reveals a great deal that is personal.

Philipp Gehmacher was born in Salzburg in 1975. In London he studied at the Contemporary Dance School till 1996 and at the Laban Centre till 1999. In 2001 he created the duet »good enough« and in 2003 his own group play »mountains are mountains«. Together with

Meg Stuart he created and danced the duet »Maybe forever« (2007). Milli Bitterli was born in 1969 in Vienna and studied at the ballet school of the Vienna State Opera House and the Vienna Conservatory. She danced, among others, with Nigel Charnock and Loyd Newson, London, and Meg Stuart, Brussels. In 2000 she founded the company artificial horizon in Vienna and created numerous own choreographies.

»Many of the concepts work only with an active, participating spectator as a counterpart« (Judith Helmer, Theater der Zeit, Berlin, March 2009).