Editta Braun (born 25 May 1958) is an Austrian choreographer, stage dancer, dance pedagogue as well as founder and director of the Salzburg dance company Editta Braun Company. She is known as a pioneer of contemporary dance in Austria and chairwoman of tanz_house, the association of freelance choreographers based in Salzburg.

Early life

Braun was born in

Vöcklabruck Vöcklabruck () is the administrative center of the Vöcklabruck district, Austria. It is located in the western part of Upper Austria, close to the A1 Autobahn as well as the B1 highway. Vöcklabruck's name derives from the River Vöckla which ...

in the Upper Austrian Salzkammergut. As a child, she learned classical ballet and piano and trained intensively in gymnastics; she was Upper Austrian state champion in 1974. From 1976 to 1982, she studied sports science and German language and literature at the

University of Salzburg The University of Salzburg (german: Universität Salzburg), also known as the Paris Lodron University of Salzburg (''Paris-Lodron-Universität Salzburg'', PLUS), is an Austrian public university A public university or public college is a univ ...

. When she encountered the work ''1980'' of

Pina Bausch Philippine "Pina" Bausch (27 July 1940 – 30 June 2009) was a German dancer and choreographer who was a significant contributor to a neo-expressionist dance tradition now known as . Bausch's approach was noted for a stylized blend of dance mov ...

at a performance in Vienna in 1982 she became interested in contemporary dance. In 1983, she began her dance training in Paris and New York. She was also influenced by acting lessons in method acting with Walter Lott and by a dance project with

Wim Vandekeybus Wim Vandekeybus (Herenthout, 30 June 1963) is a Belgian choreographer, director and photographer. His company Ultima Vez is located in Sint-Jans-Molenbeek (Brussels). Together with Jan Fabre, Alain Platel and Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, Wim Vand ...

initiated by SZENE Salzburg, where she learned to combine her artistic gymnastics technique with contemporary, sporty dance.

Artistic career

In 1982, Braun founded the "Kollektiv Vorgänge" together with Beda Percht, which won the Bagnolet Choreography Prize (ex equo with Saburo Teshigawara) with ''Lufus'' in 1986. In 1989, she founded the Editta Braun Company in Salzburg, with which she has since produced and internationally toured at least one full-length dance piece every year. Her dance pieces have won numerous awards. In the field of dance filming, Braun worked with Othmar Schmiderer, Wolfram Paulus and Hannes Klein, among others, from an early age. Her short film
Collision
, directed in 1993 by Othmar Schmiderer, was awarded the bronze medal at the New York Film Festival in 1995. In 2022, together with photographer and commercial filmmaker Menie Weissbacher, she brought the alienating Luvos beings from their body illusion theatre to the screen in the short film ''LUVOS migrations''. Braun collaborates with composers, live musicians and artists from outside Austria such as Jean-Yves Ginoux and the Egyptian director Mahmoud Aboudoma. With

Jean Babilée Jean Babilée (real name Jean Gutman(n); 3 February 1923 – 30 January 2014) was a prominent France, French dancer and choreographer of the latter half of the 20th century. He is considered to have been one of modern ballet's greatest performers, a ...

she created the dance theatre piece "La vie, c'est contagieux" in 1993/94 in Paris and Salzburg. Since 1996, she has worked with

Thierry Zaboitzeff Thierry Zaboitzeff () is a French multi-instrumentalist and composer. Biography Zaboitzeff was born near Maubeuge, northern France in 1953. He was co-artistic director with of the band Art Zoyd from 1975 to 1997. In 1997, he left Art Zoyd in ...

, who is her partner. Braun's most internationally successful production is ''Luvos, vol.2.,'' developed from the piece ''Lufus'' in Salzburg in 2001, that establishes a series of innovative, purely female body illusion theatres, including ''planet LUVOS'' (2012), ''Close Up'' (2015), ''Close Up 2.0'' (2017), ''Fanghoumé'' (2019) and ''Hydráos'' (2020) and the short movie ''LUVOS migrations'' (2022/23). In these series, Braun and her company conduct continuous research into the visual overcoming of bodily boundaries over more than two decades. LUVOSmove® is the trademarked name for this very special, purely female body language which has also been the subject of scientific research since a colloquium in 2021 at the Anton Bruckner University Linz. Since the 1980s, the decidedly political impulse in her works has got stronger. It can be seen already in the choice of themes for plays such as ''Voyage à Napoli'', ''Luvos'', ''vol. 2'', ''King Arthur''. In 2011, ''schluss mit kunst'' with text contributions by Kurt Palm and Christian Felber, among others, questioned the meaning of artistic creation in the face of hunger, war, environmental destruction, extinction of species and growing inequality. Braun is known for applying an intercultural mode of production: she frequently develops socially committed projects with local artists, especially in Asia and Africa, and contrasts their cultural, historical, and social identities with Central European traditions. The resulting pieces include ''India'' (1998 in Bangalore and Salzburg), ''manifest'' (2002 in Senegal and Salzburg) and ''Coppercity 1001'' (2007/08 in Alexandria/Egypt and Salzburg). Also important in her work is the feminist impulse, which brings women's fates into focus and, in recent times, often leads to exclusively female casts.

Teaching

From 1987 to 2021, Editta Braun has taught acrobatic gymnastics and gymnastic dance forms as well as African dance and Modern Dance at the Interdepartmental Faculty of Sports and Movement Sciences of the Paris Lodron University Salzburg. Since 1997 she is teaching contemporary dance, physical theatre, choreography, improvisation and professional strategies at the Institute for Dance Arts of the Anton Bruckner Private University in Linz (Austria). From 1992 to 1998, she worked as a lecturer at ImPulsTanz Wien (formerly Internationale Tanzwochen Wien) and from 1994 to 1997 as a commissioned choreographer for the Vienna State Opera Ballet School. In 2006, she supervised the youth project "wintertime" at the Festspielhaus St. Pölten. As part of her teaching activities, Braun developed a specific improvisation technique that combines acting and contemporary dance to create "Physical Theater".

Recognition

*1986: Second Prize and Award for Most Innovative Choreography at the Concours Chorégraphique International de Bagnolet in Paris for ''Lufus'' for the Kollektiv Vorgänge * 1995: bronze medal at the New York Film Festival for ''Collision'', director Othmar Schmiderer * 2001: Award for Best Direction at the Cairo International Festival for Experimental Theatre for ''Nebensonnen'' * 2014: Internationaler Preis für Kunst und Kultur der Stadt Salzburg * 2017: Großer Kunstpreis des Landes Salzburg * 2022: Prize for Best Ensemble Performance at the Cairo International Festival for Experimental Theater

References

External links