The MiR Dance Company, the contemporary dance company based in Gelsenkirchen, is building up its own repertoire with a special focus on contemporary dance under the direction of Giuseppe Spota. In the themes of its productions, too, the company always has its finger on the pulse of the times. Spota does not miss the opportunity to use dance to trace what moves us and the world.

The sixteen performers who have come to Gelsenkirchen from all over the world to demonstrate their skills are strong artistic personalities. They transform the traditional dance vocabulary into a completely new expressive body language. Based in the unique Musiktheater im Revier, the company stands for contemporary dance that is rooted in the Ruhr region, but has an impact far beyond.

On the ensemble's history
Since the opening of the Musiktheater im Revier in 1959, dance has been an important part of the artistic programme.  The former ballet director Bernd Schindowski shaped the face of the company as a modern dance theatre ensemble for over 30 years with his Ballett Schindowski and set important impulses in the field of youth work in dance. In 2012 Bridget Breiner took over the direction of the newly formed Ballett im Revier. With its mixture of neo-classical ballet and contemporary dance language, the company has twice won the most important German theatre prize, FAUST, in Gelsenkirchen. In 2019, director Giuseppe Spota presented his new MiR Dance Company in a decidedly contemporary way.

Giuseppe Spota
Born in Bari, Giuseppe Spota received his training as a dancer at the Scuola del Balletto del Sud and the Scuola del Balletto di Toscana. In 2002 he took up his first engagement in the ensemble of the Balletto di Roma. In 2009 he came to Germany as a member of the Gauthier Dance Company Stuttgart. For the 2010.11 season Giuseppe Spota joined the ballet company of the Hessisches Staatstheater Wiesbaden as a soloist under the direction of Stephan Thoss.
In 2011 Stephan Thoss created the leading role for Giuseppe Spota in his ballet "Blaubarts Geheimnis". For this interpretation Spota was awarded the German Theatre Prize DER FAUST in the category "Best Performer Dance". Giuseppe Spota started his choreographic career in Wiesbaden with the piece "Un/attainable". With this first choreography he won 2nd place at the International Competition for Choreographers in Hanover in 2011. In 2012, at the ApuliArte Festival in Barletta, he was awarded the Honorary Prize of the Premio Internazionale ApuliArte for his artistic achievements abroad. From 2016 to summer 2019, Giuseppe Spota was choreographic assistant and house choreographer at the Nationaltheater Mannheim. As a freelance choreographer, Spota regularly created pieces for dance companies in Germany and abroad, including at Staatstheater Mainz/Tanz Mainz, Theater Dortmund, Hessisches Staatstheater Wiesbaden, Zagreb Biennale 2019, Theater Ulm and Theater Regensburg, as well as for Aterballetto. In 2015 he brought some of his creations to the programme of the Beijing International Ballet Gala and in May 2019 he made his debut as an opera director with Philip Glass' "Akhenaten" at Theater Dortmund. As of the 19.20 season, Giuseppe Spota is the director of the MiR Dance Company Gelsenkirchen. He celebrated his debut as a choreographer at the MiR in January 2020 with the production "Momo".

„Normally, the most meaningful art is made naturally, while artists do not realize they are making it“

Giuseppe Spota

Links to productions from 2020/2021

L’Orfeo
Notre Dame de Paris

Links to productions from 2019/2020

Shoot Me Into the Green Screen 2
Adam & Eve
Les Noces/Sacre
Momo
Shoot Me Into the Green Screen - Teil 1 | Teil 3