Vera Tussing

Benjamin Sommabere
Trajectory collaboration

About

°1982, she/her, Germany, lives and works in Brussels and London.

Vera Tussings creative processes, performances and installations are driven by her interests in dance, movement, perception, the senses, embodied experience, multisensorial spectatorship, collectivity and consent. Her most recent series of work, the Tactile Cycle, is formed of stage creations, sculptures and movement-sound installations focussed around the creation of unique, inter-personal encounters between audience and performer. She has worked as a dancer, director and researcher throughout Belgium, the UK and across Europe.

Vera Tussing graduated from London Contemporary Dance School, and has worked as a dancer, director and creator throughout the UK, Belgium, Canada and across Europe. In 2011 she premiered Trilogy with Albert Quesada, based on an initial commission from ROH2 at the Royal Opera House. This was followed by the stage pieces You Ain’t Heard Nothing Yet (2012) and T-Dance (2014), as well as the movement- sound installation Sound Bed. The performance The Palm of Your Hand premiered in 2015, followed by Mazing (2016). In 2017 a recreation of The Palm of Your Hand, making the work accessible to blind and partially sighted audience members, was undertaken as The Humane Body Project with ImPulsTanz (Vienna), Kaaitheater (Brussels) and The Place (London). This recreation premiered at CND, Paris. Both, Two, a duet in collaboration with Esse Vanderbruggen premièred at Kaaistudio’s (Brussels) in 2018.

The duet cycle began with Both, Two but is further explored in the online digital project @duetthecity, in collaboration with the photographer Stine Sampers, and in an emergent sculptural practice, featured as part of Performatik 19 (Brussels). In October 2019, Tactile Quartet(s), a performance which expands her research in tactility into the discipline of music, premiered at Kaaitheater, Brussels. Vera is currently in the final stages of another creation running under the title Un-Staging Tactility ( premiere fall of 2023 at Kaaitheater).

A central theme of Vera’s work is how the different senses combine to structure our perception, and the creation of unique, inter-personal encounters between audience and performer. She was a artist-in-residence at Kaaitheater (Brussels) between 2017 and 2022, and formerly Workplace artist at The Place (London), IN/FINITY Artist, Research Associate at South East Dance (Brighton) and KAAP-maker (Oostende/Brugge).

www.veratussing.com

The international distribution of Vera Tussing’s works is done by FAUVES – Agency for the Performing Arts | Julia Danila

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REVIEWS:

ACADEMIC ARTICLE:

Elvira Crois, "A Repertoire of Touch in Participatory Choreography" (EN, June 2023)