Josef Eder
Josef Eder is a choreographer and actor in Munich. After graduating from the Music School Domspatzen in Regensburg, he sailed around the world, before taking on agriculture and travelling through Germany as a cattle merchant.
In Köln he met the dancer and choreographer James Saunders. This encounter marks the beginning of his passion for dancing, performing on stage and sharing this experience with other people.
He took part in several projects, in Köln, as Sauders’s assistant, and also in New York, as fellow of Nikolais-Murray Lois dance foundation. Josef Eder absolved classes in contemporary, contact improvisation dance and choreography.
During this period of time he supported himself by making street performances, as a mime. While searching for his own artistic discourse, he had the chance to meet, in various workshops, well-known choreographers and dancers such as Frey Faust, Rui Horta, Johann Kresnik, Pavel Mikulastik, Daniel Leppkoff.
Josef Eder appeared on stage at the Opera Houses in Köln and Bonn, the National Theatre Ingolstadt as well as in various independent productions.
Along his journey in search of new forms of existence in motion, he discovered concepts and techniques such as Feldenkrais, the Alexander technique, Yoga and Pilates gradually which influenced his style.
As artistic director of the theater, he founded Twice in theater-dance in 1994 and produced feature films and a documentary on choreography. At the center of his creation and his activity were always the culture and traditions of his Bavarian native land. Far from loud comedy and clichés, Josef Eder wanted to sublimate the cultural depths of his homeland. His show Passion for the Bavarian forest was awarded the prize for dance-theater in Köln in 1997. Then, at the invitation of the Ministry of Culture of Bayern, the show was performed at the Festival Rendez vous avec la Baviere at the Blagnac Theater in Toulouse as well as at the Dance Fair in Essen in 2000.
Upon his return in Munich in 2000, new subjects caught his attention: Josef Eder became interested in acting and was cast in films and television series.
As a university lecturer, Josef Eder has been working with dancers, actors, musicians, trainers and amateurs, through workshops and seminars for 18 years. The dance concept he developed was named Body as Voice.
He began working with Royston Maldoom in 2005. In Hamburg they realized together the Big Dance project, in cooperation with Kampnagel and the NDR Big Band. The show included 100 participants. While working with Maldoom, Eder noticed that, more than changing lives, dancing gives people a purpose. It gives them an opportunity to discover and develop some of the gifts life has provided them with.
Meeting Royston Maldoom made Josef Eder go back to his beginnings, when he was working with the “community”. Since 2005 they have been touring Europe and coordinating projects in Germany, Luxemburg and Austria.
Josef Eder’s fundamental aim is to bring together people of contrasting origins and backgrounds, make them communicate and get to know each other through the universal language of movement.
