With over thirty years of experience as a choreographer, performer, dance film director, teacher & mentor, platform organizer and dance facilitator, Andrea Boll (Switzerland) operates at the intersection of dance, film and society. Her work combines artistic precision with embodied research, creating spaces of resonance between movement, image, inner experience, and audiences. She runs a company under the name bollwerk and a dance film festival in Zurich, DANCE ON SCREEN.
The short dance form is a distinctive phenomenon of contemporary times—a response to the accelerated flow of information, limited attention, and increasingly brief content. Within a few minutes, the creator must distill an idea to its essence: every movement, every transition, and every moment counts. Short form is not only a challenge but also an opportunity for an intense and condensed experience, open to multiple interpretations.
As part of the discursive program Na knap, we will discuss why short dance form is important today, what it offers creators, and how audiences experience it, with two experts from the international dance scene.
Valerio Verzin comes from the world of contemporary dance, performing arts management, and literature. He has collaborated with numerous Italian festivals and, since 2018, has worked as a producer with Scenario Pubblico/Compagnia Zappalà Danza in Sicily. Since 2022, he has co-curated the international festival Teatri Riflessi, which focuses on short contemporary dance forms, and from 2024, he serves as the Sicilian representative of the Anticorpi XL network, which particularly supports emerging choreographers.
Andrea Boll is the artistic director, choreographer, and dancer of the company bollwerk, as well as an internationally touring choreographer and teacher. She has collaborated with dance companies in the Netherlands, Belgium, France, and Germany, and has served as artistic director of Hans Hof Ensemble (1996–2008) and Tanzhaus Zürich (2011–2014). Since 2008, she has worked as a choreographer with bollwerk in Amsterdam, and since 2014 also in Switzerland.