Curriculum Vitae

Vera Sander is director of the Centre for Contemporary Dance and Professor for Contemporary Dance at the University for Music and Dance Cologne and has since been central to its development as a teacher, publisher and organizer. Choreographer, dancer or teacher with e.g. Tanzforum Köln (D), Dansgroep Krisztina de Chatel (NL), Itzik Galili (NL), Semperoper Dresden (D), DV8 (UK), Adventures in Motion Pictures (UK), verasanderartconnects (D). Her interest centres on choreographic and body knowledge as a source for interdisciplinary and intercultural creativity. She has been regularly invited to choreograph, to teach as well as to collaborate in lectures and is occupied with the development of study programs and exchange formats in the field of dance.

From 2010 -2016 she was one of the four speakers of the Dance Education Conference (AK|T) and as such member of the steering group of the Dance Education Biennale. As artistic director of the 5th Dance Education Biennale Vera Sander has taken over the task of curating and developing an artistic-content conception. According to the featured topic “feedback and reflection” she promoted together with Mariella Greil the design of the Cologne Biennale as a collaborative and participatory process. Among others she participated in the research project “Dance Technqiues 2010” initiated by Tanzplan Deutschland.

From 2016-18 together with musician Holger Mertin she participated as artistic director in „Atlas Workshops“ – a project funded by the DAAD to foster cultural dialog occurring at the exchange between artists and academics (science) as well as German institutions of higher education and universities in the Islamic world.
As part of the intercultural project Signifying Ghosts (with Rafaële Giovanola / artistic director CocoonDance Company, Kettly Noël /artistic director Choreographic Centre Donko Seko, Bamako, Vera Sander / artistic director Centre for Contemporary Dance, University for Music and Dance Cologne and Nelisiwe Xaba / Johannesburg) she created  NULLSTELLE in 2019, a work that focuses on communication as the basis of collaboration, memory and identity.

Vera Sander studied at the London Contemporary Dance School (UK) and Hogeschool voor de Kunsten Amsterdam (NL).