Team
Birgit Juch – Artistic leader AVIV
Dancer, teacher and choreographer AVIV Dance Company and Alive Dance Company
Birgit can be described as a visionary, go-getter and passionate modern dancer and choreographer. She transferred her dream of unity in the dancing community into a mission. After graduating at Fontys Dance Academy she wanted to be able to work together with dancers instead of competing with each other.
Up to now AVIV has grown into a beautiful foundation and Birgit has become one of the dancers, choreographer and artistic leader of AVIV Dance Company.
Birgit: “AVIV means spring in Hebrew, and AVIV really is to me. We are a community; we are bringing dancers together to be (newly) inspired, to learn from each other and to grow and blossom.” Birgit enjoys the unique way of moving for each dancer and their own process of development. She visibly enjoys these things. Reflecting God to the people around us is her goal.
Josephine Rodrigues – Co-founder AVIV
Dancer, teacher and choreographer AVIV Dance Company en AVIV Projects
As a dancer, teacher and choreographer within AVIV Josephine shows her love for dancing, people and for God. During her dance education and internship at a modern dance company her interest in the lyrical jazz, contempary, limon and graham styles grew. After her contribution as a dancer, teacher and choreographer at the Christian Dance Company, Lisa Broere and Josephine took the initiative to start a new group, called AVIV Dance Company. Apart from her family and dance Josephine enjoys her job as a social worker. Josephine’s dream is to touch people worldwide with hopeful choreographies.
Grace Robson
Dancer AVIV Dance Company
Grace, 20 years old, is a member of AVIV since 2019. Grace has done her dance training at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague. Then she went to New York to dance at the American Ballet Theater JKO School. Grace is now an American Ballet Theater National Training Curriculum certified dance teacher and credited Dance Movement Therapist. Grace is interested in Christian Therapy and Bethel’s SOZO ministry. She would like to combine both with dance. Grace wants to work with God to bring healing and health to the body, soul and spirit.
For the first time, Grace has found a place where she is embraced and challenged and where she is completely free to be herself. We are very grateful that this is at AVIV. It is an honor for Grace to be part of this unique company, which God uses vigorously to release and launch creative, innovative, new ideas in both the Christian and non-Christian worlds!
For the first time, Grace has found a place where she is embraced and challenged and where she is completely free to be herself. We are very grateful that this is at AVIV. It is an honor for Grace to be part of this unique company, which God uses vigorously to release and launch creative, innovative, new ideas in both the Christian and non-Christian worlds!
Roos de Groot
Dancer AVIV Dance Company
Roos graduated in 2018 for dance teacher at Codarts in Rotterdam. In addition to teaching a lot, she is also dancing herself and is looking for opportunities to perform for a diverse and wide audience. “At AVIV I get the opportunity for this. Here I have the opportunity to develop myself as a dancer, but also as a person, into someone who inspires others.”
Anneloes van Schuppen
Dancer and teacher AVIV Dance Company and Alive Dance Company
Anneloes has been dancing with AVIV Dance Company and AVIV Alive since 2018. She is currently studying for a Dance Teacher at Codarts School of the Arts. She likes to make pieces and perform herself. “The variety of choreographers, projects and performances makes AVIV a challenging place for me to dance!” Anneloes finds it extra special to perform for different audiences, who normally would not come into contact with dance, such as: in hospitals or asylum seekers’ centers.
Laurette de Heij
Dancer and choreographer Alive Dance Company
Laurette loves to dance! She has been dancing with great pleasure at AVIV Alive since 2017. “I dance at Alive because I get the chance to combine my faith and my passion here. I missed this a lot during my dance training. ” Laurette likes to work hard during the training and at the same time have a lot of fun working towards great performances. Until now, she loved performing in an asylum seekers’ center with the dance “Miracles” the most.
Joëlle Rozema
Dancer Alive Dance Company
From 2017 on, Joelle has been dancing with AVIV Alive. After a search where she could combine dancing and faith, she found her place at AVIV. At the time, she graduated as a Dance Artist from the Nova College Dance and Theater dance course. About her time with Alive she writes: “I have grown as a person, dancer and in my relationship with God and I would love to continue with that.”
Thirza Schotanus
Dancer Alive Dance Company
It has already been a couple of years since Thirza took up the challenge of combining faith and dance. She has completed an internship at AVIV and has been dancing with Alive since 2016. Now Thirza is studying to become a Dance Teacher at ArtEZ School of the Arts, after having followed a dance education at Aventus. “At AVIV I can express my creativity as a dancer and I can also talk to other dancers about faith. AVIV inspires me to use dance as a means of spreading faith. ” Thirza indicates that she has experienced many beautiful moments within AVIV and we hope with her that this will only grow into more.
Elsbeth de Boer
Dancer Alive Dance Company
Elsbeth has been dancing since the age of nine and has been dancing with Alive since 2018. She would like to develop further in the field of dance and faith. “I’ve been dancing with Alive for a year now and I really enjoy it! I think it would be super cool to continue growing and eventually dance at AVIV Dance Company. ”Elsbeth studies Nutrition and Dietetics in Amsterdam and would like to study Dance Teacher afterwards. So far, Elsbeth found the performance “Direction” we did at Revival most special.
Joyce Brandes
Trainee Alive Dance Company
While studying Musical at the Dutch Academy of Performing Arts in The Hague, Joyce is doing an internship at AVIV Alive. Joyce wants to dance at AVIV Alive, because she wants to worship God in her dancing and also wants to become technically better in the modern dance style.
Guest choreographers
Desiree van Drongelen
Guest choreographer AVIV Dance Company 2019
AVIV project “Inside Outside” was Desiree’s first choreographic challenge since stopping as the artistic leader of the Christian Dance Company. In the previous years she took classes and workshops at Fresh Tracks and Codarts Rotterdam. She is now following a three-year course LBMS at EMOVE Institute. In preparation for the creative process, Desiree used LBMS to investigate and identify a new palette of moves with the dancers. Her previous work was strongly influenced by her classical and modern dance education at the Royal Conservatoire, but she let go of this in the AVIV Project. She is very happy the AVIV dancers want to co-create a new creative process. “I’m very excited! Let’s see what it brings us!”
Sigrid Braam
Co-starred on the “There is Time”-project
With “There is Time” (2017) Sigrid has experienced the creative co-operation and co-creation with the dancers of AVIV Dance Company. In the meantime, she graduated as a theatre maker. In her education she focussed on the fascination for the complexity of the human body, her love of movements and her faith as a base of her creations. On top of that Sigrid is inspired by the beauty and complexity of the world around us. She creates pieces that are characterized by their rawness, physicality, intimacy and energy. She hopes to touch the hearts of her audience in this way.
Tushar Changoer
AVIV Projects
As an all-round trained dancer, Tushar loves to dance with everything he has learned and is learning in God’s presence, completely free. That is the most beautiful thing he has experienced in dance. Tushar is active as a dance teacher, choreographer and performing dancer. He is a graduate of Lucia Marthas Institute for Performing Arts and the first 3 months of 2019 attended a Dance Intensive at Bethel Church in Redding, California. At Bethel he experienced daily that worship, praying for people and everything you normally do with words can also be done with dance. “AVIV Network Day was a stepping stone for me to start my journey with God again.” Tushar would like to share his enthusiasm with us and explore with us what it is like to dance with everything in us. “Then God looked over everything He had made and it was very good.” (Genesis 1:31).
Danielle Minnee
AVIV Projects
After graduating from the Amsterdam School of the Arts, Danielle started developing her own movement style. Art and expression is her passion and her mission is to find the sense of failure and achievement. Danielle made the piece “Soon (i) hope” with AVIV which was released in a video. She hopes to inspire others to live without fear and love yourself with a healthy dose of self-mockery.
Dance network
By offering dance projects, professional dance lessons and networking days AVIV aims to provide a broad platform for dancers, teachers and choreographers to connect and develop. AVIV gives dancers the opportunity to start projects, to develop choreographies and to teach. In this way they are able to develop their dancing in multiple areas.
Together we strengthen each other and get the best results while dancing.
“For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.” (Romans 12: 4-5 NIV)
board
AVIV Dance Company is a foundation with a Dutch cultural ANBI status. We would like to introduce our board members:
- Chair: Mrs. I. de Jong-Schoenmakers is a multimedia artist and often works as a theater designer and advisor for dance and theater productions.
- Secretary: Mr. H. Christiaanse works for Everything is Health, part of the National Prevention Program. He is the initiator of various national alliances, such as the Child Poverty Alliance and the Health and Literacy Alliance.
- Treasurer: Mr. B.D de Boer
- Advisor: Mrs. I.H. Wolfswinkel
Next to our board we have a team of advisors we can consult. Below you will find our team of advisors:
- Leen la Rivière has been professionally active in all arts for over 50 years. He is the founder of Continental Sound, Christian Artists and Continental Ministries. Apart from that, Leen is also the author of 28 books on the arts, believing, young people, church and society. At the moment Leen is active as a coach and lector of the masterclass Cultural Leadership.
- Carla Veldhuis is a storyteller and artist in heart and soul. This theatre maker/drama teacher tells stories through dancing, acting and sculptures based on her belief in God. Through Arts Alive, Carla’s foundation, she organises projects, meetings, weekends and performances.
- Desiree van Drongelen is a dance tutor, choreographer and she is currently following a study LBMS at the EMOVE institute. She works as a staff member student registration and exchange coordination at the Leiden university.
To get more information about our foundation I would like to refer you to our policy: