Karen Bößer (born 1972) is the artistic director of karen-boesser-projects, a choreographer, and a dancer based in Düsseldorf, Germany. She studied dance at the Cunningham Studio NYC, Dance Space Inc., and Panetta Movement Center, and is a certified teacher of the Simonson Method of Teacher Training in NYC. Influential mentors in her contemporary dance style include Janet Panetta, Frey Faust, and Howard Katz, while in contact improvisation, she has been shaped by Frey Faust, Nita Little, and Nancy Stark Smith.
Bößer's interdisciplinary work spans theaters, museums, films, and public spaces. Her projects are known for their intensity, spatial awareness, and abstraction. Her performances have been presented internationally, including venues such as the Forum Freies Theater, Düsseldorf; Lehmbruck Museum, Duisburg; Vision Festival, NYC; and Trafó House of Contemporary Arts, Budapest.
From 2008 to 2018, Bößer's performances were co-produced by FFT Düsseldorf. Her debut film, D| S°DANCE (2021), in collaboration with Dirk Dietrich Hennig, received international recognition. The follow-up film S3NSE (2023) premiered at the Bambi cinema in Düsseldorf and was included in several international film festivals.
She has received numerous grants and residencies, including those from the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media, the Fonds Darstellende Künste, NRW KULTURsekretariat and the Heinrich Scholarship for Dance/Performance. Collaborations with other choreographers characterise her work, as do collaborations with artists from other disciplines.
Beatrix Szörényi, born in 1976 in Düsseldorf, Germany, is a visual artist with a Hungarian-German background who lives and works in Düsseldorf. She earned her diploma in media arts from the Hungarian Academy of Fine Arts in 2006, after studying intermedia and previously visual communication at GHK Kassel in Germany. Her work spans video, drawing, objects, installation and performances. Since 2016, Szörényi has collaborated with Karen Bößer on installative performances projects, including Pieces of Manifesto and The other reason: Exaltation, Trance, and Ecstasy. Their work has been showcased a.o. at the Forum Freies Theater Düsseldorf, Lehmbruck Museum, Duisburg and Trafo Gallery Budapest. Szörényi has received the Klára Herczeg Award for best emerging artist and multiple artist residencies a.o. in Paris, Prague and Vienna. Szörényi’s solo and group exhibitions have been presented internationally a.o. at Kunstverein Wolfsburg (DE), Kunsthalle Budapest (HU), Bunkier Sztuki Krakow (PL).
Isabel graduated Bachelor of Arts from Folkwang University of Arts (Essen/Germany) as a professional flutist for Symphony Orchestra. She holds a Master of Arts degree as Cultural- and Media Manager from the KMM-Institute at the University of Music and Theater (Hamburg/Germany), which adds to her artistic education the areas of law and economics, politics and society, communication and organization, as well as education and career. Isabel is a certified ALP Trainer of the Reflexive Music Academy (New Jersey/U.S.A).
Since August 2023 she is Lecturer in the Arts at Al Akhawayn University, teaching Music and Arts & Cultural Management to undergraduate students. Isabel also conducts the student choir at the university, called "Voices United".
Being a musician since early childhood, Isabel has vast experience in all kinds of musical environments, such as chamber music ensembles, symphony orchestras, performance ensembles, and as a soloist. She has also been working in different environments as Cultural & Media Manager, which included concert agencies and concert halls, public relations and web agencies, as well as TV production companies. After moving with her family from Germany to Morocco she continued building on her passion for human development and education by teaching and consulting. She mainly focuses on her expertise as musician and cultural manager, and her additional training of the ALP practice by Keren Rosenbaum.
Isabel has been involved in a number of projects as ALP Trainer, such as the Active Listening Playgrounds in Morocco (in collaboration with Goethe Institut Rabat), and in Greece (in collaboration with the International School of Peace).
The freelance art historian, cultural manager and fundraiser has been responsible for funding applications, strategic planning and project management at karen-boesser-projects since 2019. As a cultural manager, she has helped to set up and expand a large number of projects and supported artists on the path to their own project. www.dieprojektagentin.de