Chris Leuenberger (Switzerland, 1979) studied acting at the Pacific Conservatory of the Performing Arts  (USA) and choreography at the School for New Dance Development (NL). Based in Amsterdam and Bern as a freelance choreographer and performer, Chris collaborates with different artists in various contexts and formations. His piece White Horse – an attempt at live therapy won the ITS Choreography Award 07 and marked the beginning of an ongoing interest in a therapeutic approach to dance and theater. In autumn 2007 Chris founded the collective White Horse together with Lea Martini and Julia Jadkowski.  After their debut piece TRIP (08) they made ROMANCE (09), TRIP en masse (10), GROUPIES and TOGETHER (2011). All of their work to date deals with social phenomena of togetherness as depicted in the mass media. The work of White Horse has been widely shown in venues and festivals in the Netherlands, Germany and Switzerland.

Together with Swiss choreographer and dancer Katy Hernan, Chris created the performance enter my bubble which won the Premio Award for young theatermakers in 2008 and was nominated for the ZKB Award at the Zürcher Theaterspektakel. Chris is an active member of Sweet&Tender Collaborations, an artist-driven initiative to create alternative means of production, out of which came the projects chanson triste (2007),furry (2008), Uniek (2009), and I I I (2010) and Haut (2012). 

www.whitehorsecollective.wordpress.com / www.sweetandtender.org

2012 creation of HAUT at Kampnagel Hamburg – March/April

new creation with students of Modern Theater Dance Department at De Theaterschool Amsterdam – May/June

organization and facilitation of Sweet&Tender for the End of the World, artistic residency at Dampfzentrale Bern – July/August

creation of SOPLO DE VIDA at Casarrodante, Montevideo – October/November

2011 creation and premiere of GROUPIES at HAU theater Berlin – GROUPIES workshop with teenagers

creation of Der Tänzer auf dem Dorfe, a village solo performance, Ursenbach, Switzerland

East European tour with Masculinity (Budapest, Belgrade)

creation of TOGETHER, commissioned work by DanzaLabTenerife, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Spain

2010 creation and premiere of I I I at Kampnagel Hamburg, further performances in Amsterdam, Vienna, and Berlin

creation of Crying Machine at Dampfzentrale Bern and hetveem Amsterdam

Latin America tour with TRIP including workshops in Colombia and Uruguay

2009 Holland tour with TRIP

creation and premiere of ROMANCE at Frascati Amsterdam, Dampfzentrale Bern and HAU Berlin

participation at PRISMA Forum 2009 in Mexico City en Oaxaca with two performances, workshop, and panel discussions

creation and premiere of UNIEK at Springdance, Utrecht

performances of furry at theatre de la Cite Internationale in Paris and at Campo in Gent, Belgium

2008 creation and premiere of Masculinity at hetveem theater Amsterdam, further performances in Switzerland

creation and premiere of TRIP at Frascati and Sophiensaele Berlin, further performances in Austria, Germany and Switzerland

creation and premiere of enter my bubble at Dampfzentrale Bern and hetveem Amsterdam, further performances in Switzerland and Austria.

participation in Sweet&Tender Porto 08 – artist-in-residence programme in Porto, Portugal: development of furry and Uniek

2007 winner of ITS award for the performance “White Horse – an attempt at live therapy”

participation in Sweet&Tender Collaborations 07 in P.A.F., France – artist-in- residence porgramme

2006 DanceWEB scholarship at Impulstanz in Vienna