associate artists

Kristine Sommerlade - Artistic Director

Kristine has been the recipient of Germany’s prestigious NRW artists’ travelling award and has worked with choreographers such as Lea Anderson, Rui Horta, Susanne Linke, Ian Spink and Victoria Marks. She has choreographed for companies in the arts and commercial sector as well as for many training institutions. Kristine has worked internationally as a lecturer for vocational training institutions and universities. In 2004 she completed her postgraduate studies with an MA in Choreography. In the same year, she was appointed as Artistic Director for tees valley dance.

Neil Hainsworth - Dancer

Neil studied at Middlesbrough College before training at London Contemporary Dance School. Neil was the recipient of the 2009 Lunn Prothero Dance Award during his year with EDge 09 a postgraduate company based at The Place. He has recently worked with Ponydance Theatre Company in Ireland before joining tees valley dance. Neil has worked with many choreographers such as Jeremy Nelson, Hanna Gillgren, Andrea Rauch as well as Kim Branstrup and Richard Alston. Neil has a keen interest in web design recent projects was designing this very site!

Maria Cassar - Dancer

Maria startied dancing when she was four and trained at what now is called the Johane Casabene Dance Conservatoire, Malta. In 2006 Maria got accepted at Laban School of Contemporary Dance in London where she obtained a BA(Hons) Dance Theatre.
Since then Maria has worked with various established choreographers such as Tom Dale, Kerry Nicholls (Wayne McGregor Random Dance), Dam Van Huynh, and Lizzie Kew Ross. In 2008 she founded RedTape Dance Company and has choreographed and performed for this company both in Malta and the UK. She has also performed and choreographed at Resolutions! and BluePrint Performance at East London Dance. Her work has also been shown on the Bonnie Bird Stage, Laban.

Linda Boninsegni – Dancer

Linda trained at Centro Studi Doute in Florence in Italy. She, then, went on to study at Salzburg Experimental Academy of Dance in Austria under the direction of Susan Quinn. She has also danced with Ballet Junior de Geneve.

Adrian Evans – Composer

Adrian is an experienced studio musician who has collaborated with Eric Bell (Thin Lizzy) and various members of The Chris Rea Band. He has played for indie band Hurrah and was a founding member of Newcastle-based band, Bronze. Since 2003 he has been working as an accompanist at Newcastle College. He has composed for Dora Frankel Dance and has created music for tees valley dance productions such as Garden Party with Physical Exercise, Space Invaders, MatchGirl and Kick Off.

Chiara Fulgentini – Dancer

Chiara studied at the National Dance Academy in Rome and at Rotterdamse Dans Academie. She has danced for Opera Bazar, choreographer Padma Menon and mind the gap Tanztheater.

Sarah Goldfarb – Composer

Sarah Goldfarb studied at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and at City University in London and holds diplomas from the conservatories of both Liége and Brussels. Sarah founded the company ChiaraScura, with the dancer Kathy Crick, and has developed her own multidisciplinary group projects (Zig-a-Tag, Swoop), composed music for dance shows (Shobana Jeyasingh, Angela Woodhouse) and taken part in many educational projects (Spitalfields, Glyndebourne Touring Opera). She has also run workshops at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, the Laban Centre and London Contemporary Dance School.

Kim vom Kothen –Technical Manager & Digital Media Artist

Kim works as a photographer, filmmaker and lighting designer. Her photographic work has been published in national and international print media and has been exhibited in Germany and published in Frankfurter Rundschau, Frankfurter Allgemeine, Theater Heute, Emma and Ballett International. She has worked as a lighting designer and production manager, touring Europe, South America and Aisa. Kim specialises in lighting for dance and in film production and documentation. Kim has worked at the German Dancefilm Institute as an editor and camerawoman and more recently she has been researching the use of digital applications within performance arts.

Pietro Lusvardi - Composer

Pietro is an accomplished soloist and composer. In 1997 the Italian double bass player earned his degree from the Conservatorio of Como in Italy with a special emphasis on the contrabass. Since then, his contrabass has carried him around the globe and led to performances with numerous musicians and orchestras in Europe and USA. Pietro has published two albums featuring original music written for solo double bass and seven albums with the Gatto Marte ensemble. He has also written and premiered an Opera Buffa Colombo Tutto Tondo. Find out more about Pietro here

René Pieters – Dancer

René trained at Rotterdam Dans Academy in the Netherlands. He has danced for a number of European companies and choreographers such as Introdans Educatief, Feri de Geus, Cees Mathijse and mind the gap Tanztheater. René was awarded the Jane Attenborough Dance in Education (JADE) Fellowship 2007-09 to help him make the transition to a further career as a ’dance in education’ specialist.

Lee Rushworth – Photographer

Find out for about Lee on his website

Matthias Vogel – Lighting Designer

Since the 2009/2010 season, Matthias has worked as a lighting designer and Head of Light at the Deutsches Theater Berlin. He has previously been Head of Light at the Staatsschauspiel Hannover, Schauspiel Bonn and Thalia Theater in Hamburg. Since the nineties, he has worked with renowned directors of German drama. He accompanies the productions on numerous tours through Europe, Asia and America.