Brigel Gjoka

Born in Albania, Brigel Gjoka studied at the National Ballet School in Tirana and Ecole Supérieure de Danse de Cannes Rosella Hightower. Starting in 2006, he danced with major companies including the Ballet de l’Opéra National Du Rhin, Staatstheater Mainz and Nederlands Dans Theater. In 2011, he joined The Forsythe Company, participating in new creations (A Quiet Evening of Dance, 2018-2021), and performing a wide range of William Forsythe’s repertoire (DUO2015 or Life in Progress). Since 2015, he has been the artistic curator at large at the Albanian Institute New York. He has collaborated with the Goethe Institut from 2013 to 2017 as a sponsored choreographer artist. From 2014 to 2020, he was artistic director of the Art Factory International Contemporary Dance Program, Bologna (Italy). His latest creation NEIGHBOURS, a duo with Rauf “RubberLegz” Yasit, was produced by Sadler’s Wells London and PACT Zollverein Essen with the support of Dance reflection by Van Cleef & Arpels.

Mechanical Energy & The Distribution Of Effort In Choreographic Composition
“We connect in permanence with the environment through energy. Our body is constantly creating energy. As movers, we have the ability to control and deconstruct our body language. As dancers, we have the ability to execute with precision by mastering the analysis of our coordination and mechanics. The main focus of the workshop will be: investigating the distribution of energy through each articulation of our body parts, the effort needed in order to connect each point in our body, the effort to find a weightless state, or to archive the fastest movements from our neutral position. We will navigate through different choreographic tools, questioning each step until reaching a state of effortless.”