Martin Zimmermann & Kinsun Chan

Two very different choreographers collaborate for the first time. Martin Zimmermann combines circus, dance and theatre. Kinsun Chan studied ballet and modern dance. Together, they created a work for 16 dancers. An unsteady stage frequently throws the dancers off balance. Life-size puppets are also on stage. The work addresses the question as to how humans deal with extraordinary situations.

What happens to society when it is thrown off balance? Choreographers Kinsun Chan and Martin Zimmermann explore this question in Wonderful World, their first joint creation. The result of this first-rate collaboration is a visually unique work of art. The stage on which the performance takes place is unsteady, tilting with even the slightest movement and literally ripping the floor out from under the dancers’ feet. The stage is transformed into a symbol for our constantly changing world. Zimmermann and Chan’s Wonderful World is a surreal and abstract, yet also poetic discussion about patterns of human behaviour in extraordinary situations. While interacting with life-size puppets, the 16 ensemble members of the Tanzkompanie Theater St. Gallen ask whom each puppet represents. The dancers risk falling with each step. However, the intrigue of danger prevails, and the dancers must start the daring balancing act over and over again from the beginning. Zimmermann and Chan’s work brings representatives from two different worlds together. Chan is an internationally renowned choreographer and stage and costume designer, who has directed the Tanzkompanie Theater St. Gallen since the 2019/2020 season. Martin Zimmermann is an important figure in the international contemporary dance and circus scene and winner of the Swiss Grand Award for the Performing Arts/Hans Reinhart Ring in 2021. The work combines two different artistic perspectives into an unforgettable evening of dance, which will open the Migros Culture Percentage Dance Festival Steps in St. Gallen.

The Canadian-Swiss choreographer and designer studied art, graphic design and dance at Virginia Intermont College, Georgia State University and the University of Louisville. As a dancer, he was a member of the Ballett Zürich led by Heinz Spoerli and Ballett Basel led by Richard Wherlock and has danced in choreographic works by Jiří Kylián, William Forsythe, Hans van Manen and Ed Wubbe, among others. His choreographic works have been performed by Ballett Basel, Singapore Dance Theatre, the ballet of Staatsoper Hannover, Royal Ballet School Antwerpen, John Cranko Ballet School, Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts and Luzerner Theater, among others. In addition to his own works, he has choreographed numerous opera performances around the world. As an interior designer and costume designer, he has designed sets for numerous productions of renowned companies in both Europe and Asia. He has served as director of the Tanzkompanie Theater St. Gallen since the 2019/2020 season.

The choreographer, theatre director, set designer and performer Martin Zimmermann grew up in Wildberg, Switzerland, and graduated from the Centre National des Arts du Cirque (CNAC) in Paris following an apprenticeship as decorator. For more than 20 years, he has created, choreographed and staged visual and physical theatre without words in Zurich, whose mixture of circus, dance, theatre and spectacular stage installations has inspired large audiences around the world. His works have been performed at BAM New York, Tokyo Metropolitan Theater, Théâtre de la Ville Paris, Barbican London, Sydney Opera House, Festival d’Avignon and the Fondation Beyeler Art Museum, among others. He received the Swiss Design Award three years in a row for his set designs. He is an Associated Artist at Maison de la culture de Bourges/Scène Nationale and at Tanzhaus Zürich. In 2021, he received the renowned Swiss Grand Award for the Performing Arts/Hans Reinhart Ring, Switzerland’s greatest award for theatre.