Deborah Smith-Wicke (GB/Germany)

• visionary, entrepreneur, spacemaker and warrior

completed her dance education and a pedagogical diploma at the Royal Ballett School in London in 1990. She danced in opera houses (including Nordhausen, Nuremberg, Munich, Kassel, Braunschweig and Konstanz) and now works freelance as a dancer, choreographer and teacher in Germany and abroad for 30 years. 

In 2007 she founded "SOZO visions in motion"; a professional state-recognized vocational school for contemporary stage dance in Kassel and in 2010 a dance theater company. She has created the space, HALLE 2 with her husband Michael Wicke, a dance house in Kassel for training, rehearsals and performance. Quan Dao Kung Fu constantly inspires and influences her work. In 2012 and 2015 she won the Culture Prize of the City of Kassel and in 2019 she won the Anneliese Hartleb Kulturpunkt Prize. She has also been teaching contemporary dance and movement research in the BA and MA programs at the Anton Bruckner University in Linz. Her biggest passion is to encourage and enable.

Chiara Leonardi

• performer, sensitive and curious soul

In summer 2019 Chiara graduated from SOZO visions in motion. She joined the professional course “Modem codici gestuali” in 2015 and 2016, which was directed by Roberto Zappalà. She performed in the Opera of the Staatstheater Kassel “Los Elementos” and danced for choreographers like Pavlos Kountouriotis, Niv Melamed, Ryan Mason, Jianan Qu. During her artistic studies, she attended workshop with Edivaldo Ernesto, Giovanni Scarcella, Mariella Greil, Maya Carroll and Agostina D’Alessandro. 

Florian Heiml

• nature lover, daydreamer, playful person

Before he decided to study the bachelor program “Contemporary dance and Dance pedagogy” at the Anton Bruckner Privatuniversität Linz in 2015, Florian studies fine arts at the Kunstuniversität Linz. He is regularly involved in transdisciplinary projects for example in the work of the artist David Wittinghofer „beyond / performances“ in 2018. His first contact with Quan Dao kung Fu was 2017 in in the working process for the dancepiece „panthera tigris“ of Deborah Smith-Wicke at the Anton Bruckner Privatuniversität.