2026: NEXT STEPS enters a new round
Bern Ballett, St.Gallen Dancecompany, Migros Culture Percentage Dance Festival Steps, and newly Ballett Basel and Ballet Junior de Genève join forces to continue and sustainably strengthen the support of choreographers in the development of their artistic careers.
From a large pool of applications, four choreographers have been selected for the upcoming phase of the initiative.
Over two seasons, each participating artist will create new productions in close collaboration with two partner companies, further refining and deepening their choreographic writing.
Further information on the planned creations, dates and performance venues will be published in autumn 2026.
Nicole von Arx
Nicole von Arx is a Swiss-British dance-theatre artist based in Brooklyn. Born outside London and raised in Hong Kong and Switzerland, she moved to the US to train at The Ailey School, graduating in 2011. She’s presented her work at The Joyce Theater, Joe’s Pub, Stanford Live, TACAW in the US the BFM in Geneva and Luminato Festival in Canada.She has been commissioned by NW Dance Project, Whim W’Him, Brooklyn Ballet, Edmonton Opera, and Wolf Trap Opera. She is a recipient of the Ann & Weston Hicks Choreography Fellowship at Jacob’s Pillow and has been nominated for the Princess Grace Award (2024-2026).
Photo © Joan Dwiartanto
Sophie Flannery Prune Vergères
Sophie Flannery Prune Vergères is a Swiss choreographer and dancer (Bern/Valais), born in San Francisco. She has danced internationally with companies including Hamburg Ballet, Hessisches Staatstheater Wiesbaden, Bühnen Bern, and Theater Basel. She has collaborated with leading choreographers across dance and theatre. She holds a Master’s in Expanded Theater (HKB, 2023) and is co-founder of Kollektiv 52°07. Her choreographic work spans stage and film, presented internationally and awarded the Nachwuchspreis Darstellende Künste Schweiz (2026). She develops interdisciplinary projects at the intersection of dance and theatre.
Maxime Jeannerat
Born in 1995, Maxime Jeannerat is a Swiss dance artist from Neuchâtel, working as a choreographer and performer. With an early background as an athlete, he later discovered dance through hip hop and freestyle, which laid the foundation for his approach to movement. A graduate of the prestigious SEAD– Salzburg Experimental Academy of Dance, he has performed with compagnies including Prototype Status and Beaver Dam Company. In 2022 he co-founded Compagnie La Méthode, developing work that explores how moving bodies express individual behaviours and social phenomena.
Photo © Studio Massimillano Rossetto
Pablo Girolami
Pablo Girolami is an Italian-Spanish choreographer, born in Neuchâtel, who trained at the Tanz Akademie Zürich, graduating in 2014. He has danced with Hessisches Staatsballett and Spellbound Contemporary Ballet, working with choreographers such as Wayne McGregor, Hofesh Shechter, and Marcos Morau. He is the artistic director of IVONA and, since 2024, of the Fagagna Dance Festival. His work has been awarded internationally. Alongside IVONA, he creates for companies such as Graz Opera Ballet, Jerusalem Dance Theatre, and Nuovo Balletto di Toscana, and collaborates across multidisciplinary and educational contexts.
Photo © Alice Colombo
2024: Launch career support for choreographers
Marioenrico D'Angelo and Rachelle Anaïs Scott are the first NEXT STEPS Artists to create for Bern Ballett, St.Gallen Dance Company and Steps.
The beginning of the NEXT STEPS cycle was marked by Marioenrico D’Angelo with «Night Shining Clouds», which premiered on April 26, 2025, at the Stadttheater Bern as part of the dance evening «Zwielichter».
The first creation of Rachel Anaïs Scott, «Vanishing Point», premiered on September 19, 2025, at the Lokremise St. Gallen as part of the Double Bill «Swiss Mix». On April 18, 2026, her second creation, «The Unfolding», will premiere as part of the double bill «Metaphysics» by Bern Ballet at Vidmar 1.
In March 2026, both works will be combined as the Double Bill «Twi/light» and will tour across Switzerland as part of the Steps dance festival.
Further information on NEXT STEPS can be found in the project description (PDF).
What is NEXT STEPS?
Marioenrico D’Angelo
Marioenrico D'Angelo comes from the Italian region of Abruzzo and is a freelance choreographer and dancer based in Bern. With his choreography for the triple bill “Zwielichter” by Bern Ballett, he opened the NEXT STEPS cycle: The evening featuring works by Lesley Telford, Marioenrico D'Angelo, and Xie Xin was premiered on April 26, 2025, at Vidmar 1, Bühnen Bern. In the 2026/27 season, he will create for the St.Gallen Dance Company.
As a choreographer, he created works for the Daegu City Dance Company from South Korea (2024), the MiR Dance Company in Gelsenkirchen (2023), the Saarländisches Staatsballett Saarbrücken (2022), Frontier Danceland in Singapore (2019), the residency programme “Think Big” of the Staatsoper Hannover and TANZtheater International (2018), and for the Equilibrio Dinamico Dance Company from Italy (2013). Together with Sophie Vergères and Max Levy, he co-created the programme “Dekarnation” (2022) in Bern. With Marguerite Donlon, he choreographed “Medea” for the Theater für Niedersachsen in Hildesheim (2021). He has also choreographed as part of professional development programmes, including the Dance Arts Faculty in Rome (2024 and 2021) and Colab by The Link in Bern (2024). In 2023, his work “Prelude” won second prize at the International Choreography Competition Hanover. In 2022, the duet “Afterthought” was awarded two prizes at the Burgos & New York Choreography Contest.
As a dancer, Marioenrico D'Angelo performed with the Bern Ballett under the direction of Isabelle Bischof until the 2023/24 season. Previously, he danced for the Saarländisches Staatsballett, Spellbound Contemporary Ballet, DaMotus!, Joshua Monten Dance Company, and Donlon Dance Collective, among others. He has performed in works by Stijn Celis, Ohad Naharin, Jiří Kylián, Johan Inger, Alexander Ekman, Anna Konjetzky, Sharon Eyal, Mauro Astolfi, Andonis Foniadakis, Caroline Finn, Estefania Miranda and Cathy Marston among others. For his performance in “Your Passion Is Pure Joy to Me” by Stijn Celis, he won the SponsorClub Prize of the Saarländisches Staatsballett as best performer in 2018. Artist’s website
Photo: Yaiza Davilla Gomes
Rachelle Anaïs Scott
Rachelle Anaïs Scott will create for the St.Gallen Dance Company in the fall of 2025 and for Bern Ballett in the spring of 2026. The French-American contemporary choreographer and performing artist is originally from New York and resides in Basel.
Her first choreographies were shown at Cedar Lake, Staatstheater Nürnberg and Theater Basel as part of platform events for emerging artists. In 2022, she worked with renowned artists from the Paris Opera, creating contributions to the international dance collection “Room to Room”. In the same year, she created "Hidden Matter”, a multimedia dance performance for the “Picasso/El Greco” exhibition at the Kunstmuseum Basel, a collaboration for Ballett Basel. Rachelle Anaïs Scott’s duet “Us” was invited to the International Choreography Competition Hannover in 2023. Her latest choreography premiered at the NUTIDA Nuovə danzatrici/ori Festival in June 2024. In 2024/2025, she will be a participant in the Migros Culture Percentage mentoring programme “DoubleTanz” and will be coached by Ihsan Rustem.
As a dancer, following her training at the Juilliard School, she was a member of the Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet in New York City and a solo dancer with the Staatstheater Nürnberg Ballet. Scott is currently a member of the Ballett Basel ensemble. She has danced in works by Hofesh Shechter, Sharon Eyal, Alexander Ekman, Richard Wherlock, Ohad Naharin, Crystal Pite, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, Andonis Foniadakis, Goyo Montero, Johan Inger and Jiří Kylián among others.
She was awarded the Princess Grace Award in the USA and the Bayerischer Kunstpreis in Germany for her achievements in dance and the performing arts. She has won prizes at the Dare 2 Dance Film Festival and the Kunst- und Filmfestival Mannheim. Artist’s website
Photo: Christian Knörr
