Laura Hicks (she/they) is a Canadian artist living and working in Germany since 2012. Focused on choreography/performance, education/pedagogy, and artistic research, her interests connect diverse fields such as affect theory, kinesthesia, queer and feminist philosophy, the nervous system, and biomechanics. Inspired by an exploration of states and intensities that are constructed through improvisation, her works draw on the contradictoriness and aliveness inherent in bodily experience, and are often marked by an intense physicality and moments of humour. Creating several works as part of the duo Hicks&Bühler, she produced, directed, and performed in the remount of Der Klumpen for the Tanzfestival Rhein-Main 2022, a collaboration with Hessisches Staatsballett und Künstler*innenhaus Mousonturm. Since 2017 she has collaborated with Ilana Reynolds researching idiosyncratic movement and spontaneous gesture, their first work Making Impressions…(2018) continues to tour. In 2022 she produced Dritter Raum, and began a collaboration with Martin Nachbar as dramaturg. The work conceptualized the theater setting as a “Third Space” through the lens of contact improvisation was awarded the #TakeAction Neustartkultur funding. As a choreographer she has also worked for Schauspiel Frankfurt, LIGNA, Compagnie des Corps Parlants (Marseille). She teaches for Dance Theater Heidelberg (AD Ivan Perez), the Dresden Frankfurt Dance Company (AD Ioannis Mandafounis), the Frankfurt University of Music and Performing Arts and P.A.R.T.S School for Contemporary Dance. She holds a BA in International Development Studies and Comparative Politics, and an MA in Contemporary Dance Education.
Hicks & Reynolds Bibliography:
- Halberstam, Judith. (2011) The Queer Art of Failure. Duke University Press.
- Harraway, Donna J. (2016) Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene. Duke University Press.
- Nachmanovitch, Steven. (1990) Free Play: Improvisation in Life and Art. Penguin/Tarcher.
- Fitzpatrick, Melissa. Kearney, Richard. (2021) Radical Hospitality: From Thought to Action. Fordham University Press.