Choreographer, Oral Historian, Researcher and Mentor working across Dance, Music Theater, Tanztheater, Education.
I work with artists, companies, universities, archives and cultural institutions to explore how knowledge is created, embodied, remembered, transmitted and activated — through movement, oral history, archives and artistic practice.
RESEARCH & WRITING ❦ Dance History ❦ Dance Cultures ❦ Memory & Embodied Knowledge
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My current work increasingly focuses on Activating Archives and developing new approaches to Memory and Transmission, including the possibilities offered by emerging Knowledge Technologies. I am also interested in the applications of Human Embodied Knowledge beyond the Performing Arts.
About
Ricardo Viviani
choreographer, Researcher
Ricardo Viviani is an artist–scholar whose work integrates choreography, oral history, and dance heritage. Based in Wuppertal, he leads the oral‑history program at the Pina Bausch Foundation, where he has developed one of the most substantial archives of embodied knowledge in contemporary dance. Over the past decade, he has conducted approximately seventy in‑depth interviews with dancers, collaborators, and witnesses of Tanztheater’s development, producing a multilingual, multi‑generational corpus published with high scholarly standards and widely used by researchers, artists, and institutions.
Viviani’s research focuses on the articulation of embodied knowledge, the transmission of artistic practice, and the relationship between lived experience and archival evidence. His methodological contributions include an ontology for thematic clusters of narration, a refined interview practice shaped by choreographic experience, and a hybrid model that integrates oral testimony with archival objects. He has presented this work internationally at IOHA, DSA, IETM, Harvard CHS, Université Côte d’Azur, Goethe‑Institut Ukraine, and Bergische Universität Wuppertal.
Born in São Paulo and trained at Ballet Stagium and the Joffrey Ballet School in New York, Viviani danced with Balé da Cidade de São Paulo, Cisne Negro, Manuel Alum and Dancers, and the Tanztheater ensemble of the Nationaltheater Weimar. His choreographic work spans independent dance and theater productions as well as opera and musical theater in Brazil, the United States, and Germany. He has taught modern dance technique, choreography, and composition at the State University of New York, Dutchess College, and Folkwang University of the Arts.
Viviani’s combined artistic, pedagogical, and archival practice positions him as a distinctive voice in contemporary discussions on dance heritage, embodied epistemology, and the preservation and transmission of artistic knowledge. His current work continues to expand the methodological and institutional frameworks through which dance history can be documented, understood, and activated for future generations.
Oral History for Dance Heritage
Intensive Workshop · National Art Museum of Ukraine
Impulse Transformation Platform — Viktor Ruban · supported by Goethe-Institut Ukraine
Kyiv, Ukraine · 01–06 December 2025
Dancer Knowledge Management
Presentation · Produire la mémoire en danse : histoire orale et mnémotechniques
Université Côte d’Azur · Nice, France · November 2021
Stories that Matter
Online presentation · Roundtable on Epics, Performance and Dance
Harvard University CHS Athens · April 2021
2020–2021
Finding Your Own Voice
Semester Seminar · Folkwang Universität der Künste
Oral History with Juan Allende-Blin · Activating the Archive Euphorie und Aufbruch
Essen-Werden, Germany · Winter Semester 2020/21
Euphorie und Aufbruch
Publication · Research / Historisation Project · NRW 1959–1969
Pina Bausch Foundation · Folkwang University · Deutsches Tanzarchiv Köln
Germany · 2020–2021
2019
Common Dance, Uncommon Stories
Presentation · Dancing in Common
Northwestern University · Evanston, Illinois, USA · August 2019
The Material and Immaterial of the Archive
Presentation · The Whole Life: Archives and Reality
Pina Bausch Foundation / Haus der Kulturen der Welt
Dresden, Germany · May 2019
Pina and New York
Publication · Documentary Film · Writer and Researcher
Arte1 / Producing Partners NYC / Pina Bausch Foundation
Chicago · New York · Wuppertal · Essen · Brazil · 2017
Note: This index is part of an ongoing chronological archive of Ricardo Viviani’s professional work. Each entry is intended to lead to a corresponding page documenting the project, lecture, publication, or research in greater detail.
