Ivgi & Greben
Ivgi&Greben began their collaboration in 2003 with Carmen for the Szeged Contemporary Dance Company in Hungary. Since then they have created choreography for many dance companies around the world. Through themes such as oppression, tension between individuals and groups, the desire for freedom and love, sexuality and acceptance, Ivgi&Greben create a visual world in which movement, music, light and costumes come together in their own aesthetic world.
In 2011, Ivgi&Greben received the prestigious Golden Mask Award in Russia for the Best Choreographer – Ballet/Contemporary Dance category for This Is Not A Love Song, which they created for the Provincial Dance Theater in Russia. In 2014 and 2015 they worked as artistic directors for the Rozbark Theater in Poland. They also started the Rozbark in Motion Festival in combination with a training program for dancers and choreographers. In 2021, Uri and Johan founded their dance company Ivgi&Greben in Leeuwarden. This makes them the first international professional dance company in the province of Friesland. In 2021, they created together the performance Nice To Meet You with their eight international dancers, followed by the performance Wasted Skin in 2022. In 2022, they also collaborated as co-producers on the performance Under Wetter by the Frisian Tryater, the only multilingual theater company in the Netherlands.
Uri Ivgi trained at the Kibbutz Contemporary Dance Company in Israel and received the Emerging Choreographic Talent Award from the Ministry of Culture in Israel in 1998. In 2001 he won the Audience Award for his duet Longing at the Groningen International Choreographers’ Competition and second prize at the International Choreographers’ Competition in Hannover, Germany.
Johan Greben, trained at the National Ballet in the Netherlands, won the Choreography Incentive Prize ’89 from the Amsterdam Fund for the Arts and the Wim Barry Perspective Prize ’90 for his first choreography Straks. Both have created various choreographies for companies, festivals and schools in Europe.
