Moroccan Bouchra Ouizguen, Portuguese Catarina Miranda, French-Algerian Dalila Belaza, Anglo-Russian Dorothée Munyaneza and Mozambican Idio Chichava are the five artists nominated for the Salavisa European Dance Award (SEDA) 2024.

These artists were selected by a Nominating Committee, which includes a representative chosen by each of the seven European institutions that make up SEDA.

Now it will be up to the jury, made up of three renowned independent dance experts – Mette Ingvartsen, Nayse López and Fu Kuen, Tang – to examine the work of the five nominees and choose the winner, whose name will be announced in November during a ceremony at the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon.

The winner of the €150,000 prize will then showcase their work on the stages of cultural institutions within the partners’ network. 

The nominees

 Bouchra Ouizguen, a dancer and choreographer, lives in Marrakech, where she has been committed to developing the local dance scene. She uses sound, performance and video to express her concerns about society, the visual arts and Moroccan popular art. Her multidisciplinary work has travelled the world, and has been presented in theatres and museums as well.

Catarina Miranda works with languages that intersect movement, scenography and light, approaching the body as a receptacle for transformation. She graduated in Choreography at the International Institute of Choreography/Centre de Montpellier and in Visual Arts at the Escola Superior de Belas-Artes do Porto, and has created several pieces characterised by the construction of fictional topographies.

Dalila Belaza builds her work on a quest for meaning and elevation. Materialising what is invisible and unsettles us, she works on the deep memories of the body, turning intimacy into a universe to be discovered. Dalila Belaza is an associate artist at Briqueterie, the National Centre for Choreographic Development in Val-de-Marne, Paris.

Dorothée Munyaneza uses music, singing, text and movement to approach rupture as a dynamic force and create spaces of resonance and hope. With a very diverse cultural heritage – having lived in Rwanda, London, Paris and Marseille – she works closely with a range of partners, from performers to musicians, as well as a designer and a visual artist.

Idio Chichava started dancing in a traditional Mozambican dance group in 2000, took on contemporary dance the following year and has been collaborating with Kubilai Khan Investigations in France since 2005. In 2012, she founded the Converge+ company, centred on performances that combine singing and dancing. Back in Maputo in 2020, she has been creating workshops, meetings and shows that promote the decentralisation of art from cities to peripheral areas.

The members of the Jury 

Mette Ingvartsen is a Danish choreographer and dancer with a company based in Brussels. Her work combines dance and movement with other disciplines such as visual arts, technology, sport, language and theory. In addition to performing, writing and lecturing, Mette Ingvartsen is also a teacher.

 Nayse López (Brazil), artistic director of the Panorama Festival since 2005 and guest curator on other projects, is a regular presence at various forums, where she discusses issues related to cultural management, art and the media. She is also a guest lecturer at the online research project La Escuela and guest curator of the Forum project at the Lyon Dance Biennale 2025.

 Fu Kuen, Tang is a Singaporean curator, producer and playwright who focuses on performance and contemporary visual arts. He was director of the Bergen International Theatre and the Taipei Arts Festival and curator of the Singapore Pavilion, which received a Special Jury Mention at the 53rd Venice Art Biennale. He has worked with UNESCO on the preservation of intangible heritage and with the Southeast Asia Regional Centre for Archaeology and Fine Arts in Bangkok. 

The Nomination Committee

The Nomination Committee is constituted by one representative from each partner institution. For 2024 the members of the Nomination Committee are Danjel Anderson (Dansehallerne); Kristien De Coster (KVS); Tiago Guedes (Maison/Biennale da la Danse); Gintare Masteikaite (Joint Adventures); Cristina Planas Leitão (Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation); Rio Rutzinger (ImPulsTanz) and Alistair Spalding (Sadler’s Wells).