Meet the artists Willie Stark and Bianca Hisse

The summer of #CROWDdance 2022 residencies continues with dance artists Willie Stark and Bianca Hisse coming together at Pottporus, Herne, Germany to start their two-week residency from 8th – 22nd August. The artists will also come together at Davvi Hammerfest, Norway from 29th August – 9th September.

Let’s find out more about Willie and Bianca:

Willie Stark

Willie Stark is a French/Ugandan performing artist based in Düsseldorf who works as a movement director, dancer and choreographer where she strives to maintain high standards for creativity and exchange with other artists.

What are you hoping to explore during the CROWD 2022 residencies?
Through choreography and embodied practice, I develop expressive concepts that give form to movements, speech, music and thoughts. I’m looking forward to exchange practice methods with my partner. 

Why did you want to be a CROWD 2022 artist?
I am always curious about new experiences. During this residency we have the opportunity to explore, create and work with another artist. Go deeper into our practice and learn from each other.

What are you looking forward to the most in terms of the residencies and the overall CROWD 2022 programme?
I’m looking forward to grow, discover new ways or deepen existing ones during the process.

What made you interested in creating art with the community?
Coming from the Urban dance scene, community and togetherness is everything. Sharing, exchanging, building together make the community grow.

What is the strength of community-based work for you?
The strength is the implication of its members. The will and desire to share and keep the dance community alive.

What are the limitations working with a community?
As a performing artist, working with a community can be difficult when members are not living in the same city or country. In this case, proximity is a plus.

Does Community dance travel? how?
To me, community dance travels through culture, dance styles, workshops, lectures. Everything that makes the culture and the dance live throughout the decades.

Bianca Hisse

Bianca Hisse is a Brazilian artist who lives and works in Norway. From a double movement between choreography and visual arts, her work investigates how today’s societies are choreographed by global demands. 

In a world where there is a demand for constant movement and high performance, I am interested in understanding how choreography is part of social life, politics and power dynamics in public space.

I want to challenge the binary ‘local’ and ‘global’ as fixed categories through a collective and non-herarchical work.

Dance made within a community can take various forms, often expanding beyond the conventional black box. At the same time that it can travel and exist in different
contexts, it can never be fully reproduced.