Joseph Simon

Sticky Feet and House Ballet are two jazz-infused approaches to ballet developed by Joseph Simon, this means strongly influenced by Black, African diasporic culture. He developed them from the desire to explore how ballet technique and codes could coexist and mingle with the universe of House Dancing and Grooves.

This interest comes as a result of Joseph’s upbringing in Breaking and HipHop culture, his balletic heritage as a Frenchman and more recent interest in UK Jazz Fusion and House Dance.

During the class, we will explore how we can keep the physical work and precision of ballet training in some places of the body while inviting looseness, groove and individuality in other places. This will be done through exercises, drills and a little bit of choreography, introducing you to the universes of Sticky Feet and House Ballet.

Bio
Joseph Simon is a freelance dance artist based in Rotterdam. He found his way into dance through Breaking and HipHop culture and graduated ArtEZ School of Contemporary Dance, Arnhem (NL) in 2014. He works internationally as a performer, teacher, choreographer and collaborator.

As a performer he is currently touring with Oona Doherty and has worked with Erik Kaiel, Hooman Sharifi, Alida Dors, Jochen Heckmann, Jean-Guillaume Weis, Eric Trottier, Christina Liakopoyloy, Jonas Frey, Tu Hoang and Dalton Jansen. With the support of Dansateliers (Rotterdam), he created several works, centering around bridging dance cultures and questions of identity. This interest has its roots in Joseph’s identity as a “Third Culture Kid”: A frenchman who grew up in the Netherlands, Japan and Germany with a passion for languages, which is also reflected in his broad interest within the field of dance.