Isabelle Schad (born 21 April 1970) is a German dancer and choreographer.
Biography
Schad was born in Stuttgart and studied ballet there from 1981 to 1990. She then danced for six years in various ballet companies before becoming a member of Ultima Vez (Wim Vandekeybus) in Brussels and working with choreographers such as Olga Mesa, Angela Guerreiro, Felix Ruckert and Eszter Salamon. Since 1999 she has choreographed her own work.
Schad has initiated several projects/artist groups/work structures such as Good Work, Praticable and Wiesen55 e.V. In 2003 she initiated the series Good Work with Bruno Pocheron and Ben Anderson, and developed various pieces with Manuel Pelmus, Frédéric Gies, Hanna Hedman and others. In 2005, with Alice Chauchat, Frédéric Gies, Frédéric de Carlo and Odile Seitz, she originated an open collective called Praticable, within which a specific model of dance and choreographic collaboration is practiced. Schad is co-founder of the Verein Wiesen 55, a group of artists active in the areas of choreography, dance, lighting design, sculpture and multimedia. Together they operate the production site Wiesenburg-Halle.
Schad was a member of the jury at the International Choreographic Competition in Sofia and a mentor at DanceWeb 2011 and PAP 2016–19, and has been an artist in residence at the Podewil/TanzWerkstatt Berlin, Espace Pier Paolo Pasolini, Monty Antwerp and Rimbun Dahan Malaysia.
Schad teaches at Berlin’s inter-university dance centre HZT, in Cologne, Helsinki and Stockholm, and around the world in workshops or short projects organised by the Goethe-Institut and followed by performances, for example in Kigali (RW), San Francisco (USA), Bogota (CO), Lagos (NG), Kuala Lumpur (MY).
She understands learning and teaching as a circulating unity that she has shared for years with a ‘core’ of dancers, who thus participate in her own learning process. Physical praxis, training and choreographic work are related to one another and made communicable in a format developed by her known as Open Practice Sessions (OPS).
Schad has received awards such as Hope of the Year, Choreographer of the Year, and a tribute to her outstanding artistic development in contemporary dance at the 2019 German Dance Prize.
Artistic practice and style
Schad works at the interface of dance, performance and visual art, with a central fascination for group formation and the ensemble. Interests such as community in dance or collective bodies are deeply rooted in her movement research. Bodies and movements are examined in terms of their materiality, processuality and experienceability. Physical praxis is seen as a place of learning, community and political participation. Schad orients her work to somatic bodywork such as Body-Mind Centering. She was decisively influenced by an embryology workshop with Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen.
She is a shiatsu practitioner, and has practiced aikido zen since 2014. These form the basis of her qi training together with Asian kinetic teachings such as meridian work and qigong. Western and Eastern practices and ways of thinking are also reflected in her solo and group works. She is concerned with the formation of communities in dance and formulates the body as a place of resistance so as to investigate norms, competition, discipline, conformity and the status of collective processes.
Schad has collaborated for many years with the visual artist Laurent Goldring. Together they developed the concept of the ‘amplifier’, which functions as a transition between the inner and the outer worlds.
Projects and works (selection)
In 2007 Schad headed the mentoring project Tanztage Berlin. She also created Bach, for two dancers, which was taken into the repertoire of the Red House Sofia, and her solo Ohne Worte (Praticable). Since 2008 she has collaborated with Laurent Goldring on the project Unturtled #1–4. She also initiated community projects, including Tüddeldüddel-Lüd, in Hamburg, which was revived for the Tanzkongress 2009.
In 2010 and 2011 she developed the group pieces Glazba (Praticable) and Musik (Praticable), each for 14 dancers, Communicare for 25 dancers in Lima, Experience # 0.1 for 20 dancers in Bogota and Experience # 0.2 for 10 dancers in Lagos. In 2011/12 she developed Experience # 0.3 for three Bulgarian dancers, a collaboration with the Goethe-Institut Sofia.