Perrine Valli is a French/Swiss choreographer trained at the Lyon CNSMD, the CDC in Toulouse and the London Contemporary Dance School before undergoing several internships. She has worked as a dancer for Estelle Héritier and Cindy Van Acker for whom she performed numerous dance pieces, including the solo Nixe, featured at Festival d’Avignon in 2010. At age 25, she set up her own dance company, Association Sam-Hester, which borrows its name from Andy Warhol’s cats, whom he called “Sam” for the males and “Hester” for the females throughout his life. Valli has since produced some twenty dance pieces, most of which have been acclaimed both nationally and internationally. In 2016, she was selected as choreographic artist by the Swiss Selection in Avignon (SCH) to present her work Une femme au soleil at the CDCN-Les Hivernales. The issue of sexual identity holds a central place in her research as does the articulation of the relationship between narration and abstraction in her choreographic work.

Marthe Krummenacher is a dancer trained at l’école de danse de Genève-Ballet Junior under the direction of Béatriz Consuelo. In 2000, she joined the company NDT2 directed by Jiri Kylian in the Hague where she danced pieces by Jiri Kylian, Ohad Naharin, Paul Lightfoot and Hans Van Manen. In 2004 she joined the company of William Forsythe in Frankfurt. Here she performed in flagship pieces and participated in the creation of We live here, Human Writes, Three atmospheric studies, Heterotopia, Angulo oscuro, and the film One flat thing reproduced by Thierry De Mey. In 2007, she decided to return to Geneva to establish herself as a freelance dancer and has worked with Noemi Lapzeson, Cindy Van Acker, Foofwa d’Imobilité, Perrine Valli and Crystal Pite (in Canada). In 2010, she created her own company in collaboration with Raphaële Teicher and has created three pieces. In October 2017 Marthe Krummenacher got awarded the Swiss Dance Prize in the Outstanding Female Dancer category.

Iona D’Annunzio joined the sport-studies section of the Ecole Supérieure Nationale de Danse de Cannes Rosella Hightower at the age of 13. She graduated with an E.A.T specialized in ballet and contemporary dance. She then entered the Junior Ballet School of Geneva where she studied from 2008 to 2010. Following her education, she primarily performed for Nagan Production in Paris led by the artist Brice Kapel. This work was performed at Palais des Festivals de Cannes, at Opera Bastille and at Opéra Garnier amongst other places. In 2011 she collaborated with artist Julie Semoroz as part of the project Khor [-os-eia] selected for the Fête de la Musique in Geneva. She then joined the Danceflowingcompany in Zurich as part of the work Espaces Blancs directed by Anne-Sophie Fenner and works for the Opéra de Lausanne as well as the choreographer Perrine Valli. Together with Elsa Couvreur she founded the collective Woman’s Move in 2012. The artistic research taking place within the collective pushed her to begin her studies at the University of Geneva with a Bachelor’s degree in sociology. In parallel, she teaches Hip-Hop and animates workshops for Ateliers Danse en Famille.

Eric Linder, AKA Polar, is a former athlete who turned to music and produced his first record in 1997, Polar 1, then his second album entitled Bi in 1998. His electronic-inspired folk songs were met with great success. In December 2001, he recorded a new album entitled Somatic. His reputation spread and he met French singer Miossec, who offered to write for him. This collaboration gave rise to Jour Blanc in 2006, the singer’s first record in French. Over the course of his career, Polar has opened for artists such as Massive Attack, David Bowie and Louise Attaque. In parallel to his work as a composer, Polar has opened up to various ventures, such as composing music for dance troupes (Grand Théâtre de Genève, Estelle Héritier, Compagnie 7273, Maude Liardon). As Perrine Valli’s artistic partner, Linder has been working with Compagnie Sam-Hester for ten years. In addition to his artistic work, Linder was also the musical curator for Geneva’s La Bâtie festival for ten years before becoming Director of Festival Antigel.

Alexandre Müller Ramirez is Geneva-born musician who started to play the guitar at the beginning of his teens. Quickly marked by the red hot iron of independent rock and eclectic in his choices, he plays ceaselessly and multiplies his collaborations. They span through rock, pop, folk, electronic, experimental and minimalist music and are influenced by 60s America, 70s Germany or 80s Brittain. Always inspired by novelty, Ramirez can often be seen in interdisciplinary projects, be they musical, theatrical or choreographic. He recorded several albums with Equus and HEX, two groups he founded, plays and tours with groups Chapter and Impure Wilhelmina. He joined Polar (Eric Linder) for his latest album, Empress, and participated in one of Perrine Valli’s previous works, Les renards des surfaces.

Bernard Trontin is a Geneva-based French musician and self-taught drummer. Passionate about percussions and electronic music, he got his inspiration from masters like Christian Vander, in order to give form to his own particular style of music. Influenced by German electronic music of the 70s, he links its long contemplative sound sheets to his own explosive drumming. These two seemingly distant worlds find resonance through the experimentation of a self-demanding but never hermetic musician such as Bernard Trontin. He’s been a member of the renowned Swiss group The Young Gods since 1997. He founded November with Simon Jones, singer of British group And also the trees and plays regularly together with singer Polar (Eric Linder).

Laurent Schaer graduated with a BA from the University of Geneva in 2002, going from concerts to shows, shifting towards the world of light design and stagecraft. Particularly fond of a coherent and subtle scenic image, Schaer has worked with Swiss and international choreographers, artists and stage directors (Perrine Valli, Jérôme Richer, Milla Koistinen, Lee Swee Keong, Julien Brun, Martine Corbat, Solam, Philippe Soltermann, etc.) to reveal the outline of their works by taking part in the design of their scenography.