Étape Danse is a trilateral European residency programme that supports three selected new dance productions from France, Germany and Italy each year. In an open studio the fabrik Potsdam presents this year excerpts and works-in-progress byDalila Belaza, Stefania Tansini und Yotam Peled & Nitzan Moshe. A bus shuttle between Berlin and Potsdam is available (with registration - see price information).
IDENTITY IS A RUMOR, UNTIL DEATH WRITES IT DOWN
Mackenzy Bergile (Lorient)
Following Autothérapie, Mackenzy Bergile is working on a second chapter of his artistic exploration: a dense and intimate solo piece exploring identity as a fragile, fluid construct. Between memory, inheritance and desire, self-portraiture becomes a space of transformation and questioning. The work explores what shapes us, what we inherit without choosing, and what we learn to desire—opening a space for an “I” that resists fixed definitions and remains in motion.
Mackenzy Bergile is a French-Haitian interdisciplinary artist, choreographer, pianist, poet and researcher. His work explores memory, power and transmission through the body and gesture. Trained in traditional Haitian, Afro-American and contemporary dance, as well as classical music and visual arts, he works at the intersection of performance, research and postcolonial critique, investigating diasporic bodies as sites of memory, politics and imagination.
27 (POSTHUMOUS WORK)
Vittorio Pagani (Milan)
27 (posthumous work) unfolds as a performative investigation of the threshold between fiction and reality, presence and disappearance. Inspired by the myth of Club 27 (a journalistic expression referring to a group of artists who died tragically at the age of 27) and the poetics of the filmmakers Varda and Kiarostami, 27 takes the form of a live documentary questioning success and artistic identity. Created before the artist’s 27th birthday, this performance is both a celebration and a farewell.
Vittorio Pagani (2000) trained with Ballet Junior de Genève, performing works by Hofesh Shechter, Roy Assaf, Marcos Morau and Jan Martens. In 2023 he earned a Master’s Degree at the University of the Arts London, and has since created work presented in international platforms and festivals such as the Rotterdam International Duet Choreography Competition, Aerowaves and Romaeuropa Festival. His choreographic practice explores performativity, multimedia subversion and a precise yet metaphorical physical language.
HIDDEN MOTHERS
Elisabete Finger (Berlin)
Hidden Mothers is a choreographic research project on care as both a visible and invisible practice, grounded in feminist ethics. Drawing on the “Hidden Mothers” (a 19th-century photographic practice) and a personal biographical rupture, Elisabete Finger works with the embodiment and animation of archival images, exploring the hidden roles and forces that shape relationships of care.
Elisabete Finger is a Brazilian choreographer and performer based in Berlin, trained at Centre National de Danse Contemporaine in Angers and University of Arts/HZT Berlin. Her creations explore raw bodies and materials, revealing inner/outer anatomies through images and situations that stand in the border between delight and disturbance. Sensorial narratives challenge expectations around gender, behaviour, and normativity. Her work has been presented internationally across dance, performance, and visual arts contexts.
