toula limnaios was born 1963 in athens. after studying classical and modern dance, m. alexander and laban technique as well as music and dance pedagogy in brussels, she worked as a performer with claudio bernardo, régine chopinot and as an assistant with pierre droulers. later, she continued her education at the folkwang hochschule in essen, where she soon became a member of the folkwang tanzstudio and also performed in live improvisations with the musicians konrad bauer and peter kowald. she founded and directs the cie. toula limnaios together with ralf r. ollertz since 1996. she has received numerous prizes and awards for her work and is now one of germany’s most renowned choreographers.
tours brought her to armenia, austria, belgium, brazil, chile, denmark, ecuador, france, georgia, greece, ireland, italy, lituania, lettland, mexico, nicaragua, panama, poland, trinidad&tobago, swizzerland, senegal, spain, cyprus, venezuela … beside directing her own company and theater, she works as guest choreographer in different theaters like theater münster, osnabrück or frankfurt. in 2007/8, she was guest professor for choreography at the ernst busch in berlin.
»toula limnaios’ art takes place in small brushstrokes. as a choreographer of interpersonal moods she is a painter of the intimate, a poet of innermost feelings, which she knows how to express in a very restrained, judicious way. when with a great gesture she awakens feelings reminiscent of those pina bausch brought into play, she does it with much more restraint, with tenderness and extreme sensitivity. at the same time, she is careful not to offend her audience or even to antagonize them. her works exude a breath of romance, full of tenderness and depth, with ephemeral and fragile images full of warmth and hope, full of nostalgia. images which break down the distinctions between dream and reality, in which childhood takes an important place, and the fairy tale world blends closely with just these images. toula limnaios expresses nothing that is not an extract from the heart, which is perhaps what constitutes the originality of this artist, a perfectionist of the extremes. her extremes centre around human beings, about the mysteries of their origin and around the fire of their future.«
(jean-marie gourreau, saison de la danse)
