Maura Baiocchi

Founding-director of Taanteatro Companhia

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Maura Baiocchi

Maura Baiocchi is a premier Brazilian dancer, choreographer, director, researcher, and eco-Artistic Visionary. She is renowned as the pioneer of Butoh dance in Brazil, the creator of the globally recognized Taanteatro (Choreographic Theater of Tensions) methodology, and the creator of the concept of Ecoperformance. Spanning over five decades, her decorated and international career bridges Eastern avant-garde performance art with Western philosophy, eco-poetics, and choreographic theater.

The founder of Taanteatro Company (*1991) and International Ecoperformance Film Festival (*2021) directed and choreographed over 80 original plays and performances, notably adapting deep philosophical and literary works based on figures like Antonin Artaud, Friedrich Nietzsche, Frida Kahlo, and Florbela Espanca.

Baiocchi taught at the University of Brasília (UnB) and ministered extensive courses, specialized workshops, and masterclasses at cultural institutions in South and North America as well as in Europe. Among her numerous academic and literary contributions are Choreographic Theater of Tensions (2020) and the first specialized book on Butoh dance written in the Portuguese language, titled Butoh Dança Veredas D’Alma (Butoh Dance Path of the Soul (1995).

Baiocchi has a master’s degree in Communication and Semiotics from the Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo (PUC). with the dissertation “Body and communication in process: the tension principle in the Taanteatro experience”.

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Wolfgang Pannek

Director

 

Wolfgang Pannek is a German author, actor, director, and producer based in Brazil since 1992. Together with Maura Baiocchi, he directs Taanteatro Companhia and the International Ecoperformance Film Festival. Pannek has created and directed critically acclaimed dance-theater productions—including cARTAUDgraphy (2015), 1001 Plateaus (2017), and On Violence: Fanon (2025). He created and organized international projects in Argentina, Brazil, France, Germany, Japan, Romania, and the US, spanning the performing arts, literature, visual arts, philosophy, and cinema. He has directed audiovisual projects—such as Antonin Artaud’s The Theater and the Plague (2020), Apokalypsis (2021), and Ecoperformance Expedition (2022)—and acted in feature films and streaming series (HBO Brazil, TV Globo, Amazon Prime, Netflix, Disney+). In partnership with Baiocchi, he has co-authored publications on taanteatro and ecoperformance. Pannek wrote the book Images of Power: The Iconoclastic Thinking of Gilles Deleuze (2021) and has published articles in international academic journals. He holds a master’s degree (in Philosophy, Literature, and Psychology) from FernUniversität Hagen in Germany.


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MONICA BERNARDES

Performer

Mônica Bernardes is a Brazilian dancer, actress, and producer known for her extensive work in contemporary performance art and ecoperformance. She has a Bachelor’s degree in Performing Arts from the State University of Londrina (2009) and Dance Licensure from the Federal Institute of Brasília (2013). She is an active member of Taanteatro Companhia since 2014 and executive director for the International Ecoperformance Film Festival, managing global eco-centric performance art and digital cinema. Bernardes worked as a performer in Taanteatro dance-theater productions directed and choreographed by Maura Baiocchi and Wolfgang Pannek such as 50 Drawings to Murder Magic (2014), cARTAUDgraphy (2015, 1001 Plateaus (2017), Idea (2019), Apokálypsis (2021), [Te]Ctonic Ophelia (2023), On Violence: Fanon (2025), among others. She completed notable residencies at the Reference Center of Dance São Paulo (CRDSP), showcasing works like 7directions, Marble, and Schizopresences.