MANUELA BACHMANN BERNASCONI
I think every activity, every profession, is ultimately a pretext for a personal journey. The purpose of my work lies in the possibility to question myself, to confront my resistances and limits. It’s through engagement with my daily lives, with apparent repetition, that I uncover the transformative potential within each gesture.
Art and dance are no different from other activities: they are paths that help explore who I am and redefine my relationship with the world. It’s about how I do it—the quality of presence I bring to each action.
The journey is one of constant discovery, with every step, if deeply listened to, revealing a new inner landscape.
I was born in Fribourg in 1982, Switzerland. I have Sicilian, Greek, German and northern Italian origins. I have been dancing since I was five years old. I started working as a dancer in Italy and France, between musical and contemporary dance projects. Between 2010 and 2011 I met Gaga and Ohad Naharin's work in Israel, in Tel Aviv. It was a transformative encounter. The same year, in Ticino, the Italian part of Switzerland, I met my husband Felix-this encounter was even more transformative.
For the last 12 years I have been working with him. Today we can count more than 20 creations together and many creative processes. Our reflections encompass the performing arts, cinema, site-specific creations, documentary films, archiving projects, the organisation of festivals and meetings for socio-cultural reflection and transmission, the management of spaces for artistic and cultural research, pedagogical proposals, and tools for the development and valorisation of the independent scene.
We have 4 children pushing us to go deeper in understanding the complexity and organicity of reality.
In 2016 we moved to the lower town of Fribourg and with some friends we founded Xocolat, an association for the mobility of creativity.
Now we live between Ticino, a small antique town called Bedigliora, and Fribourg.
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