Jerusalem Choreography Competition 2022 winners

Touchpoint Art Foundation / BODY.RADICAL International Performing Arts Biennial, Hungary

Batarita – choreographer, dancer, costume- and visual designer, director, festival director and ambassador of the Touchpoint Art Foundation – graduated as a choreographer at the Hungarian Dance Academy and as an art manager at the Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design, founded the Batarita Company in 2000 and since 2003 she is one of the independent choreographer and performer of the National Dance Theater in Hungary. Next to this activity nowadays she performs, choreographs, teaches and does mentor work for young choreographers worldwide already more than 50 cities in 22 countries.
In the early time, after to win international choreographer competitions, Batarita was an awarded winner of the DanceWeb (Austria), the Asia-Europe Foundation (Japan), the Unesco Ashberg Foundation (Thailand), the Foundation Royaumont (France), the Uchida Fellowship of the Japan Foundation (Japan), the CPI-SIDance (Korea).
In 2006, she was a guest artist for the birthday ceremony of the King of Thailand.
She created and danced collaborative pieces with Ko Murobushi and Yoshito Ohno.
In 2006-2007 she was a guest professor of the Dance Centre School of Performing Arts in Bangkok, Thailand. From 2003 to 2010 she was professor and teaching her own unique method at the Liszt Ferenc Music Academy and in 2011 at the Theater Academy in Budapest, Hungary.

In 2009 Batarita has debuted as an opera director at the Hungarian State Opera House and since that she has directed 3 operas there.
She has directed two movies.
In 2009, she founded, and since then has been the director, the curatorial director and the producer of the BODY.RADICAL International Performing Arts Biennial and its touring program.
In 2013, she received the Lifetime Achievement Award “For Parallel Culture” from the Mediawave Foundation.
Founder, director, curator and producer of
BODY.RADICAL International Performing Arts Biennial www.bodyradical.com

Ambassador of Touchpoint Art Foundation www.touchpointart.com

Choreographer, dancer, director, set, light and costume designer, actress www.batarita.com

Mischa van Leeuwen, Rotterdam International Duet Choreography Competition - RIDCC, The Netherlands

Mischa van Leeuwen was born in the Netherlands. At a very young age, he began training in various dance styles at the Nationale Balletacademie in Amsterdam. He has been dancing since 1998 at Scapino Ballet Rotterdam. He danced in work by Marcos Morau, Marco Goecke, Loïc Perela, Georg Reischl, Ed Wubbe, Krisztina de Chatel, Itzik Galili, André Gingras, Nanine Linning, Itamar Serussi and many more.
Mischa van Leeuwen is since 2018 co-founder and co-artistic leader of RIDCC “The world’s biggest choreographic duet competition”
Mischa has been choreographing for Scapino Ballet Rotterdam, Tanzmainz, De stilte,, ….
In 2011 Mischa won the “Prijs van Verdienste” given by Stichting Dansersfonds ‘79.
In the same year Mischa was the choreographer of the solo ‘the beginning’, 2nd place winner in the International Solo Dance Competition Stuttgart 2011.

Independent choreographers, Israel

Niv Sheinfeld and Oren Laor have been creating together since 2004. In their works they combine elements and practices from contemporary dance, physical theatre and performance art. They are regularly invited to present their works in leading festivals and theatres in Israel and abroad, as well as teach and create works for dance academies and companies around the world. Sheinfeld and Laor are the Landau Award recipients for 2020. 


Niv Sheinfeld danced with Liat Dror & Nir Ben-Gal Dance Company for five years. As an independent choreographer, he created works for Bat Sheva Ensemble, Kibbutz Contemporary Dance Company, and others. He was the recipient of the Ministry of Culture award for young dance artist (2007) and the Rosenblum Award for performing arts (2009). Oren Laor studied in the theatre department at Tel Aviv University and worked with acclaimed directors such as Yvgeny Arye, Nola Chilton and Edna Shavit. Laor teaches performance and techniques in physical theatre.

Riku Lehtopolku is a dancer, choreographer and artistic director of Kuopio Dance Festival. He started as a dancer at Pori Dance Company in 2001, performing in works by many leading Finnish choreographers such as Tero Saarinen, Jorma Uotinen, Marjo Kuusela, Tommi Kitti and Jarkko Mandelin. In addition, Lehtopolku has worked as a dancer at Carl Knif Company and Susanna Leinonen Company, as well as a guest performer with Finnish National Ballet, Skånes Dansteater and Iceland Dance Company. Since the mid 2000s Lehtopolku has worked also as a choreographer, creating over 20 works. Alongside several independent creations his works have been commissioned by Pori Dance Company, Kuopio Dance Festival, Oulu Music Festival, Dance Theatre Minimi and Cultural Centre Caisa in Helsinki. Lehtopolku was co-artistic director of Pori Dance Company between 2014 and 2019. In 2020 he started as the artistic director of Kuopio Dance Festival.

Norddeutsche Konzertdirektion, Germany

After graduating in law, Franziska Grevesmühl von Marcard completed her master's degree in mediation, specializing in intercultural communication and communication between artists, creative professionals, and cultural workers. In 2001 she took over the agency Norddeutsche Konzertdirektion Melsine Grevesmühl GmbH. This agency specialized in dance and chamber music. Due to her own background in dance, Franziska Grevesmühl von Marcard decided to specialize only in the dance field for classical, neoclassical, and contemporary dance and gave up the music field. In 2004, in addition to “normal” dance performances, she developed an extensive supporting program such as introduction talks, questions and answers, workshops, master classes, and vernissages. In 2008, she decided to expand this idea program internationally.
In addition to touring and event management, productions that can be toured worldwide are created together with theaters and creative artists. After the first successful collaboration for the project Love Hurts… Petrushka (choreography by Mario Schröder) in 2009 between the agencies Norddeutsche Konzertdirektion Melsine Grevesmühl GmbH and The.Lab Art & Media GmbH, Franziska Grevesmühl von Marcard and Dirk Elwert had the desire to continue and develop the joint work. At the same time, the two noticed that - with more and more savings in the cultural sector - it was becoming increasingly relevant to work together, to exchange ideas and to network. The aim was to connect the available contacts and the given knowledge and thereby create new synergies.
Therefore, a new agency called cult!ur partner was founded under the management of Dirk Elwert and Franziska Grevesmühl from Marcard in 2011. cult!ur partner has bundled the experience of the two agencies in the areas of touring, production, and consulting and advanced new approaches in the marketing and development of dance and theater projects. Under the slogan "immer einen Schritt weiter" (always a step further), new things were ventured.
In the following years, cult!ur partner increasingly established itself on the European market. At the same time, more and more organizational areas merged with those of the Norddeutsche Konzertdirektion Melsine Grevesmühl GmbH, as one of the founders - Dirk Elwert - also pursue new paths in the dance world. Due to the increased workload, cult!ur partner became part of the Norddeutsche Konzertdirektion Melsine Grevesmühl GmbH in 2014.
To broaden the focus in the field of communication in the creative and cultural sector and to support other cultural professionals and creatives, she founded "Cultur Concept - because we need culture" together with Katharina H. Sfaelos in 2021.
Franziska Grevesmühl von Marcard loves dance and prefers to work hidden.