MEET THE MAKERS

(UN)FAMILIAR

(un)familiar is both a personal and universal reflection on transition — the tension between rootedness and exploration, between safety and possibility. It explores the inner conflict between longing for change and the fear of losing connections, stability, and control. By weaving her own experiences of relocation into the work, Ania Skotniczna examines the themes of belonging, attachment, fear, courage, and freedom.

(un)familiar is an ongoing research, drifting through questions: Where do we truly belong? What ties hold us in place? What does it take to loosen our grip on the comfort we so carefully weave around ourselves? Is growth possible without letting go of stability and control? Might the unfamiliar hold freedom rather than danger? And what unfolds when we let go of all we know and step into the unknown?

Music: Nils Frahm

Ania Skotniczna is a dancer, performer, and emerging maker from Poland, currently based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and soon relocating to Barcelona, Spain. Drawing on her background in psychology research and dance experience, she creates work that explores the complexity of human emotion, thought, and behaviour. Rooted in improvisation, her practice seeks to capture the authenticity and depth of human experience, translating inner landscapes into movement. 

BOUND

This is McKenna’s new work in progress. Bound explores the process of setting and unraveling boundaries as an impetus for change. What limits exist purely in one’s mind? How can we approach situations with more curiosity and fewer pre-conceived ideas about how things are supposed to go? Conversely, how can setting limits open us to more creativity?

Music: Gwenno Morgan

McKenna is an autodidact contemporary dancer creating and performing in Amsterdam and beyond. She created the platform Fledgling Dancers Amsterdam as a gathering place for blossoming dancers to perform. She can also be seen performing with contemporary collective Modern Bruises, improvisation collective Movement Laboratory, and freelancing as a dancer, actress, and producer in Europe and the United States.

AIR HAS NO BORDERS

Olena Stoian is a Ukrainian choreographer currently living under temporary protection in the Netherlands. Her deep concern for what is happening in her country, along with a personal journey shaped by ancestral heritage and the collective grief of her people, has led her to explore the relationship between freedom, land, borders, and cultural identity.

A year ago, she began developing a movement language that embodies the Ukrainian experience-one that draws on elements of folk dance, physical labor, and a deep-rooted connection to the land.

As a result, the piece Air Has No Borders was born. The audience is invited to witness the intertwining of past and present through a person caught between struggles for the freedom to make their own choices.

The idea of a trio comes from a sketch by Ukrainian artist Kazimir Malevich ‘Where there is a sickle and hammer, there is death and hunger’. Instead of human faces, a sickle and hammer, a cross and a coffin are depicted. They symbolize the murder of peasants during Holodomor in 1933, when all the food and all their harvest was taken away leaving them for sure death.

AIR HAS NO BORDERS

Chreographer and director: Olena Stoian

Dancers: Olena Ananieva, Lisa Hurinenko, Olena Stoian.

Original sound: Clara Cozzolino, folk songs “Tsvite teren” by Nina Matvienko, “Tuman Yarom” by Veryovka Choir.

Creative coach: Roberta Maimone.

Project made possible thanks to the support of:

Lela Di Costanzo and Uri Eugenio for rehearsal support; Anna Chebanenko, Olena Ananieva, Nadia Tomenzako, and Paola Martire for rehearsal assistance; Project Zakhira for brainstorming creative input; Jort Faber for his guidance on project development; AFK for making the realization of the project possible.

THE ROOM

“The Room” arises from a personal need: to question the image I have built through waacking. The performance delves into the subtle tension between being and appearing within a context—waacking—where aesthetics and character construction can often impose limits on identity.

For a long time, I inhabited a “constructed” image that I genuinely believed was mine. Yet, at a certain point, cracks began to show: I started to wonder whether what I was expressing was truly sincere, or merely a response to external expectations.

This rupture led to a central question that continues to guide my research: “Is my dance authentic, or am I simply performing what the mainstream expects of me?” In this performance, waacking becomes both a vehicle of liberation and a symbol of constraint, a metaphor for a dual impulse: the desire to belong and the deeper urge to remain authentic.

“The Room” is an invitation to embrace imperfection, to create space for complexity, inadequacy, and nonconforming beauty. It is an act of honesty towards oneself. And perhaps one day, that little girl will find a place beyond what others expect of her.

Music: Yann Tiersen, Watchdog, Kool & the Gang

My name is Irene Maglio and I'm a dancer and choreographer with a versatile background in contemporary dance, hip hop, and a strong specialization in waacking — a discipline I have explored deeply both in Italy and abroad. I began my training in ballet and contemporary dance in my hometown in Italy, and over time, I expanded my practice to urban styles, with a growing focus on the expressive, performative, and community-driven dimensions of waacking.

Over the years, I’ve been part of the Torino Waacking Project, an experience that opened the door to international performances and battles across Europe. I’ve worked as a dancer with choreographers such as Sadek Berrabah (Moncler – Milano Fashion Week), Simone Bua (Faces), Claudia Quaglia (About My First Love), Lorena Venezuela, and Urban Theory (America’s Got Talent), performing in both theatrical and street contexts in cities like Milan, Paris, Amsterdam, and Los Angeles. In theatre projects like Plastik Diva and Faces, I had the opportunity to explore the intersection between contemporary and urban choreographic languages.

Alongside my work as a performer, I’m active as a freelance choreographer and teacher of waacking and hip hop and I also collaborate as an event assistant for WaackDictionary, and continue to cultivate a strong interest in improvisation, interdisciplinary research, and collaborative creation.

DREAMING BODY

Dreaming Body was created out of a desire for escape from being caught in being a body. This last year I found this sensation arising more often that usual, and I began creating moments of dream-like existence for myself when I would be out and about, particularly at the Nieuwemeer. I would let myself exit the objectifying restrictions of being in a woman’s body, drifting into a more aerial or aquatic state by identifying not with my flesh, but with how my movement and breath can synchronize with the air around me, with the waves in the lake near my home. I began to spend more and more time in these states, letting myself become increasingly a part of these motions in the world rather than a body-object imposed upon its surface. In doing this, I feel that I have found an alternative to living in a body that is so often understood as an object. These dream-like moments of lightness between moments of living I carry around with me, secretly slipping into these dreams - the lake-body, the wind-body - whenever I felt my subjecthood disappearing. Dreaming-Body is an attempt to move these dreams.

Music: Balenescu Quartet

INEVITABLE

Inevitable speaks to our longing to hold on, to shape what cannot be shaped, to resist the flow of life. Change, the only true constant, moves faster than we can grasp, touching us even in silence, even when we are unaware. In our struggle to resist changes, we meet only tension, suffering, and inevitable failure. Yet the question remains: how do we soften and surrender to what we cannot control? 

This piececaptures a struggle between resistance and release, embodying the tension of letting go and the grace of becoming. What begins in conflict finds its way to acceptance, carrying a thread of hope. Because change is inevitable, the path of least suffering is learning to be graceful.

Inevitable grew out of a broader exploration of change and improvisation-based movement research guided by Ania. The final composition is a co-creation shaped by the collective voices of performers McKenna, Seline, and Wiktoria.

Performed by: Wiktoria Zygumunt, Selin Yucelbak, McKenna Mahacek

Music: McKenna Mahacek

FUTURE

My name is Dmytro Borodai, dancer and choreographer with Ukrainian International Ballet (UIB).

I was born in Tokmak, Zaporizhzhia region, Ukraine, and began my professional journey in choreography at the age of 15. At 22, I discovered contemporary dance, which broadened my creative vision, and by 23 I started developing my own choreographic works.

I worked for three years at the National Opera of Ukraine, participated in the NDT Summer Intensive 2024, and performed as a guest artist at the Opéra National de Bordeaux.

About our company:

Ukrainian International Ballet (UIB) is a beacon of cultural resilience and artistic resistance. Founded during a time of displacement and challenge, the company brings together dancers from around the world, offering them a platform to express both their indomitable spirit and artistic excellence.

About the piece:

“Future” by Ukrainian choreographer Dmytro Borodai explores the cyclical nature of human relationships, societal changes, and personal transformations. At its core are women who live in harmony and share a common goal. This harmony is disrupted when dark forces divide them physically and influence their consciousness. They lose their former sisterhood, conflicts arise, and a struggle for personal space unfolds, ultimately leading to the destruction of the symbols of their unity.

Performed by: K. Novikova, V. Kovalenko, I. Khutorianska

Music: Danylo Drachov, Dakhabbrakha

Photo: Kim Vos

Costumes: Etnodium

Drawings: Rob Sjouke, Joel Sjouke, Ilona Timmer, Catharina Jaggi.

Prop: Grogory Petrovich, Dmitry Romanov

REDACTED

This piece tells the story of Sienna's ******** where she struggles with having to let go of her dream of ******* *** with the love of her life. She experiences a tug of war between self pity and guilt whilst mourning the death of her ****. Her feelings of shame won't allow her to be able to fully communicate her struggle, but she also can't mask her feelings. 

Music: Mitski

DE WIND EN IK

This piece is about standing in the wind to feel (uitwaaien). It's about finding peace when everything feels hectic, and feeling your inner storm when everything seems to stand still. It’s about accepting change within yourself and the changes that happen every day around you.

Performed with Rosa Grillo

Music: Småland, Lily Chou Chou

YOUNG AND BEAUTIFUL

This is a modern/contemporary solo delving into the theme of change. It questions whether love will last even when external things such as beauty and age change, exploring how time inevitably changes us all.

Music: Lana del Rey

FRAGILE PRESENCE

This choreographic concept explores change as a fundamental condition of the human experience, starting from a central question: how does the body shape our inner life, our emotional state, and our way of being in the world? Through dance, the body becomes the space where the tension between external expectations and inner fragility is expressed. The performers move between the desire to disappear and the unconscious will to resist. In this struggle, the body does not give in: it vibrates, adapts, falls but continues to transform. It is within this change that a deeper truth emerges: change is not merely a transition from one state to another, but a living process, inscribed in the flesh, in the breath, in the gesture. Dance thus becomes a space of resistance and renewal, where the human being confronts their own limits and discovers, through movement, the possibility of going beyond them.

Performed with Gabriél Vassilli Biondini
Photo: Jacopo Greppi
Music: The Beatles, Nils Frahm

Chiara Mucciarella is a freelance performer and choreographer. She graduated in Italy at ArteMente, a center for advanced dance training, and since then has collaborated with several choreographers who have profoundly shaped her artistic journey, including Constanza Macras (Non ho l’età, Lunella Cherchi (Societas), Simone Donati (The Weight of Air), Maria Giovanna Delle Donne (41), and Vittoria de Ferrari Sapetto (Turn it on/off).

Over the years, she has developed her own choreographic language, driven by the urgency to give voice to contemporary, often political, issues, with the intention of provoking critical reflection on today’s world. Her creative research grows out of personal experiences and seeks a kind of movement that feels necessary, authentic, and rooted in emotion.

She draws inspiration above all from bodies not trained in dance, observing how they move in specific situations and translating this into gestures that are alive, real, and never ornamental. Every creation begins with an emotion, exploring how it arises and takes shape in the body spontaneously. In her process, she guides performers through dedicated training that allows them to access deep emotional states, from which sincere and transformative movement can emerge.

In 2024, her co-creation with Anna Bonechi, Il Paradiso sa di mare, was selected for the MilanOltre Festival as part of the Affollate Solitudini Teens program, and was presented in October 2024 at Teatro Elfo Puccini.

Thank you to the many people that made this evening possible. We operate without external funding and your ticket sales make an evening like tonight possible.

Thank you to all of the makers and performers who volunteer their time to show their art.

Thank you to Fajo Jansen for offering the space and technical assistance.

Thank you to Gemma Rijnders, Timothy Andrew, Ania Skotniczna, and Christina Mastori for photo and video assets.

Thank you to our intern Selin Yucelback for production support, lighting support, and hosting.

Thank you to Kim Catharina for hosting.

Thank you to our volunteers Georgina Markopoulou, Yessica Diaz, and Sofia Garcia Miramon

Thank you to Kevin Wallace for production support.

We hope to see you at our showcases in the future!

Sincerely,

McKenna (our founder)