Entertainment

Yoann Bourgeois is a French artist who gracefully and with remarkable refinement deconstructs the boundaries between circus, dance and theatre. His poetic language creates suspended spaces in which gravity and balance become true dramaturgical partners and narrative tools. His research, which he himself defines as the “unreachable point of suspension”, unfolds in an endless flow of movement and site specific creations that enter into a deep dialogue with each place. After performing alongside leading choreographers, he founded his own company in 2010. From 2016 to 2022, he directed the Centre Chorégraphique National de Grenoble (CCN2), becoming the first circus artist to lead one of France’s 19 National Choreographic Centres. Today, he continues to cultivate and expand his artistic vision through new creations, international collaborations and workshops around the world with the Yoann Bourgeois Art Company.

Photocredit: Domino Aurora

When the Commeter Art Gallery established its first location on Johannisstraße in 1821, it was the first business of its kind in Hamburg. Founding fathers Ernst Georg Harzen and Matthias Commeter played a significant role in shaping Hamburg's art scene. Today, the gallery remains a prominent institution in the city's art world. Over the decades, it has consistently been led by family members with a keen sense and passion for art. Since 1997, Carola Persiehl, whose great-great-grandfather took over the gallery, has managed the business. Under her leadership, the gallery has firmly established itself at the center of contemporary art. She follows a principle that has always been crucial to the gallery’s success: "You must fall in love with a painting to recommend it," she says about her work. A passion for art and business acumen, combined with the idealistic yet pragmatic belief that good, true, and beautiful things have their price, forms the legacy of Harzen and Commeter. This legacy has endured through the changing tides of history, providing the solid foundation for the art pieces that continue to be discovered at the Commeter Gallery today and in the future.

Always in dialogue. For 23 years, TV presenter Inka Schneider has hosted the popular talk program DAS! on NDR television, interviewing prominent guests from the worlds of entertainment, politics and science on the famous red sofa. The journalist was born in Rüsselsheim. After a year as an au pair in Paris, she studied social and business communication at the Berlin University of the Arts. This was followed by a traineeship at WDR in Cologne. Inka Schneider became known throughout Germany as a presenter and reporter on the ARD morning program and as a correspondent in the ARD Washington studio during the period around 9/11. Inka Schneider was a scholarship holder of the RIAS Berlin Foundation and the German Marshall Fund for Young European Leaders. She lives in Hamburg and Berlin and is married to author Sven Kuntze.