Artistic Work

Katharina Conradi

I am an artist/educator/therapist who works from the body as a starting point — not just as a medium for performance, but as a place of sensation, memory, story and connection. With  more than thirty years of experience as a choreographer, dancer, educator and movement therapist, my artistic and educational work are deeply intertwined — driven by the same core question: what does the body carry, and what does it need to express? The same curiosity that drives my choreography  is also at the heart of how I teach and how I work with people.

My creative work spans dance performance, dance film and community projects, and is shaped by a love for poetic imagery and a consistent attention to place — urban landscapes, nature and site-specific environments. These places are never just backdrops, but active participants in my work. I approache human themes such as  grief, courage, fury, belonging, freedom — physically and authentic, letting the body speak without over-explaining.

My work is shaped by contrast — the vulnerable body against a powerful environment, the individual within a community, freedom within structure. These contrasts are like a lemniscate, there is not one without the other.

I carry a deep belief about movement; that it belongs to everyone, not just trained dancers. That thread connects my choreographic work to my teaching, my community projects and the way I have related to dance since childhood.

 

If you engage in travel, you will arrive.

 Short Biography

I am educated as a Dancer/Choreographer, Certified Movement Analyst, Master in Dance Therapy, and Registered Somatic Movement Educator and Therapist.

BA Dance/Choreography, MA Dance Movement Therapy, CMA (LBMS Practicioner and Analyst), Registered Somatic Educator and Therapist (ISMETA)

I have been working as a choreographer and dancer in the Netherlands and abroad for over thirty years. My creative work includes dance films, intercultural projects and site-specific performances. I teach Somatic Movement, LBMS, Creative Process, Contact Improvisation and Dance Therapy at the University of the Arts Codarts in Rotterdam and at the Academy for Dance and Theatre in Amsterdam, working with physical actors, dancers, circus artists and dance therapists. I work internationally as a teacher of somatic and creative practice in various settings in Spain, Estonia, Israel, Germany, Switzerland, Polen, Belgium and New York. I offer individual dance therapy, effective movement coaching and somatic practice in my studio in Amsterdam. Together with Marieke Delannoy, I co-founded EMOVE Institute, an educational institute for Laban Bartenieff Movement Studies in the Netherlands. www..emoveinstitute.com

Dance Performance, Films & Book

 

In this section you will find a small collection of  my artistic work – part of it is a collaboration  with other artists of multi diciplinary background and part of it is specifically orientated to dance performance.

 Europium with Nada Kokotovic

I

 Horizon – Dance Film

Horizon is a short dance film about the impulsive search of a woman for the horizon that is no longer visible in the city. A confrontation between body and modern urban architecture. HORIZON focuses on a dancer who uses her surroundings in a search for parts of herself. Amsterdam’s urban environment provides a counterbalance.  

Choreography and directing: Katharina Conradi Editing and directing: Sergio Gridelli Performance: Marieke Dermul   

 The Home Project – Book Community Project

 ‘The Home Project’ is a book about identity and shared experience. Together with photographer and graphic designer Matina Sideri, I created a book about people living in  my neighbourhood in the center of old Amsterdam. We inteviewed thirty residents of the neigbourhood, young and old, of different ethnicity, age and gender, about what home means to them and what is necessary in feeling at home in a neighbourhood. We went to interview and photograph them in their own environment to capture them authentically. A book with beautiful portraits of people in a unique neighbourhood. 

The Snow and the Maiden – Dance Film

A red dot in infinite white. A woman, alone in the snow. She sinks  into the snow up to her knees, inexorably. White virginal, cold. All the colors in one. The white environment at 3000 meters altitude and the dancer are the protagonists in this film. The vulnerable body of a woman is in sharp contrast with the powerful, cold environment. A surrealistic image. The snow is not an easy partner – at one moment the woman nests in the snow as if it were a blanket, in the next moment she falls and comes into speed: like a red ball she rolls off the mountain, just to start climbing back up again. On the top her movements become delayed and seem weightless: she seems to glide like a bird of prey in the air.
Choreography and direction: Katharina Conradi Performance: Danielle van de Ven Film directing and camera: Josje van Erkel Black

Twisted doors – Dance Performance

A solo about fury – sexual, oedipal, magical and brutal; about the terrifying animal in us with its exalted, transcendent, self-destructive untrammeled and creative strength. The specific use of timing, space and strong theatrical images distinguishes this solo. A special dancer gives this solo a stubborn and dynamic character.  
 
Choreography:  Katharina Conradi Dance:  Mirte Courtens
Advice: Annelies Herfst

Leeuwenhart

The heart starts to beat faster; the blood runs through the veins, the mind is focused. And then comes the moment of now – I will do it, now! The decisive moment. How do you experience this moment in the body? Is it liberating or frightening? Or both? Courage gives  the power to overcome fear, to talk and to move in the way you should to become the person you want to be.

 

Choreography:  Katharina Conradi
Adviser: Sarah Ringoed
Performers: Ties van den Broek, Ana Diadorim Rocha de Cunto Lemos, Flint Louis Hignett, Luc Hoogland-Kalff, Thijs Hoogland-Kalff, Cleo Julia Mullis, Balou Rietveld, Anna Vos, Maud Vos  

Kom dichter…

If you are different, you can feel being left out; you are weird and you don’t belong to a group. Kom dichter… shows what happens when everything is turned around and nothing is as it should beA girl who is good at playing the drums, two boys who become intimate with each other, a girl that explores her super-power. The rhythm of the drummer excites them, supports them and triggers them. A dance performance with feminine and masculine aspects that could get out of control.

Choreography: Katharina Conradi

Dance: Mirte Courtens, Uri Evgy, Markus Schnitzer

Drums: Clara de Mik

Dramaturgy: Sarah Ringoet  

 

Black Butterflies – Zwarte Vlinders

Black Butterflies is a collaboration between a flamenco dancer and a physical performer. Two women are performing a ritual about death and mourning; expecting death, mourning the dead and overcoming grief. One rhythm introduces you into the next, while breathing becomes louder and different sounds become words. This universal theme is interpreted in an unexpected and fascinating way.                                                                                         
Choreography: Katharina Conradi
Performance: Maria Cortez and Sarah Ringoet Text: Canto Jondo – Garcia Lorca

 

Duets

In ‘Duets’ two dancers are depending on a wall. They lean onto the wall and need its support. The wall gives possibilities and limitations. The dancers look for each others support and search for balance. At the end they support each other by leaning into each other and the wall is no longer necessary. The back wall of an old red stone fabric building in Amsterdam at sunset is the atmosphere in which this performance takes place.
 
Choreography: Katharina Conradi
Dance: Esther Hinz,  Kristiina Backman

                                                                                  

 

This is what others say…

“As a result of an unprocessed trauma from my past, I was stuck in multiple areas of life and against myself without knowing how to change it. My future was determined by my past. In the dance therapy sessions with Katharina I have developed ‘tools’ to come back to myself at the difficult moments and to give myself some extra love just then. Besides the joy of dancing, I have also discovered the ‘healing effect’ of dancing!

Katharina is an incredibly nice and warm therapist who knows exactly which direction to go to get me to insights. She is very experienced and has extensive knowledge of more than just dance, which also makes her much more than just a dance therapist!”

Marieke

“I sought help from Katharina after the sudden death of my father. Due to a jumble of circumstances, I did not get around to processing the grief and taking care of myself. As a result, I became overworked. From the very first moment I felt welcomed and heard by Katharina. She is empathetic, intelligent and interested. Her questions and guidance inspire me to open myself up to what is going on inside me. Her actions are always attuned to what is important to me at that moment.

There I learned and experienced that feelings, no matter how big and overwhelming, come and go. The fact that in Katharina’s presence I came back in motion to the traumatic farewell of my father is one of my fondest experiences. From that moment on, in addition to the pain and sorrow of that memory, I also feel the beauty and love. That makes my life considerably easier and lighter.”

Bregje

“Katharina’s coaching has been the most successful investment in my personal and professional development I have ever made. She has successfully helped me in very different areas of my life, from personal issues to challenges in my work life and how to develop an authentic style. She combines elements from different forms of dance therapy, somatic work, counselling and coaching and she seamlessly understands what intervention to apply at the right time.”

Petra Hagenbert Management Professional

get in touch

For more information about Dance Therapy, Somatic Coaching and for booking a first session.

Katharina Conradi

06 27070906
katharinaconradi@gmail.com

Eerste Helmerstraat 102 1/2
1054 EG Amsterdam

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