The 2026 Tanja Liedtke Fellowship Comes to a Close
Our three selected fellows—Lúa Mayenco, Leah Marojević and Anna Chiedza Spörri—have now completed their fellowships. Throughout the year, alongside their individual itineraries, the artists came together for a series of video conferences hosted by Foundation representative Paul White to share their visions, processes and findings, and offer feedback to one another. The fellows said the regular check-ins and ongoing contact as an important source of support; having other artists alongside them helped create a sense of being part of a team and brought additional ideas, perspectives and encouragement to their individual processes. It was an enriching experience for this group of high-calibre artists, who supported one another in pursuing their artistic goals. Here are a few reflections from each artist at the end of their fellowship.
Lúa Mayenco – Residency at Milvus Artistic Research Center, Skåne, Sweden
“For the first time, having all the space and time needed to get lost without worries. The first week of my artistic residency coincided with Easter week. The holidays quietly paved the way into a busy mind. Working with only myself turned out to be surprisingly intimidating. I quickly had to develop a system to document and archive my explorations. Drawing, writing, collaging, recording, photographing, meditating… Actions and systems that without my full awareness began shaping my creative practice. Little by little the research began to unravel. Alongside my time working independently in the studio, Kajsa and Rachel Tess introduced me to the centre’s ongoing projects and welcomed me into their meetings and discussions. The insights I gained from these meetings helped me develop a broader perspective not only on M.A.R.C.’s reach and impact, but also on my own work and the many ways it can engage with its surroundings. I was inspired and motivated to continue developing my ideas and to share them within my communities and beyond. The support, trust, reassurance, and guidance received during this time have become a solid foundation for further artistic creations. I thank the Tanja Liedtke Foundation for making all of this possible and, therefore, for providing the confidence needed to continue this journey of self-discovery and artistic development.”
Photograph of Lúa Mayenco by Bradley Waller
Leah Marojević – Residency in Berlin
“What started as a period of making space for myself and tracing my own dance history, gradually became a much more specific investigation into voice, memory, and the question of what it means to create a frame around my own practice.
My relationship to song became an unexpectedly important entry point. These songs brought inherited rather than invented material into the studio and I began to think about song as a way of being with the bodies that have run through mine throughout my performing history. Singing and sounding became a way of spending time with others and led me to a practice that I have been pushing myself to do in front of others during this residency time.
The fellowship provided a rare experience of time that was not organised around production or product. This groundedness nourished my ability to enter the studio with openness. The fellowship has also changed the conversations I am able to have professionally. It created a frame in which I could speak with other artists and professionals not only about my work as a performer, but about my developing choreographic practice and my desire to continue making my own work.
I want to continue developing a practice around voice, movement and song, particularly the relationship between inherited songs and embodied memory. For this, I am deeply, deeply thankful to the Tanja Liedtke Foundation.”
Photo of Leah Marojević by Erika Symonds
Anna Chiedza Spörri – Residency in Bilbau, Lisbon and Bern
“The workshop was a gift in several ways. It was a genuine pleasure to exchange with people who did not know me, my dance or my work. That anonymity gave me a rare freedom: to explore, to try new things, and to move comfortably within movement that was already familiar. I spent a great deal of time free-writing, meditating and reading. It felt liberating to have space for my own thoughts, as though I was slowly returning to my body, my language and a piece of myself. In that space, I realised how much can emerge when nothing is being forced to happen. I set myself the goal of moving every day, but I also made a deliberate decision: my focus would not be on dance alone, but on creative input and output more broadly. These experiences reminded me that creativity does not always arrive through the studio. Sometimes it arrives through conversation, through history, through making something with your hands or simply through allowing yourself to notice where you are. Slowly, creativity came back. Ideas began to surface in unexpected places, on a walk, in a coffee shop, during a yoga class or during cooking. The residency gave me time, space, and a renewed sense of possibility and it pointed clearly toward what comes next. It has been pivotal for my career and for me as a person. Back in Switzerland, I spent two mornings with a vocal coach, Igihozo, getting to know my voice from a new angle. Movement has always been a language for me, but I am becoming increasingly interested in what happens when the body and the voice meet, when movement can carry words, and words can carry movement. I have come to realise that my practice is collaborative, but it comes from a place of urgency, a need to tell stories I wish existed and to create spaces I want to be in myself. This residency reminded me that sometimes creativity needs to be pursued, and sometimes it needs to be given room to find you. I came away with new ideas, new collaborators, and new questions but perhaps most importantly with a renewed sense of where I am standing and where I want to go next.”
Photo of Anna Chiedza Spörri
Tanja Liedtke Foundation Fellowship 2026
Leah Marojević Kicks off Her Tanja Liedtke Fellowship in Berlin
(News April 2026) Our second of three fellows for the year, Leah Marojević has concluded the first week of her self-directed fellowship in Berlin, Germany.
After many years of very successful collaborations worldwide, Leah’s application for the fellowship concentrated mostly on time to develop her own individual creative practices and methods. After her first week in the studio, we asked her how it was progressing. Here’s what Leah had to report:
“This fellowship has been hovering in my calendar since January, symbolising a seismic shift in both my life and my work as a dancer. It became a destination for my own time and space—a glowing, beating beacon on the horizon that I have slowly been moving towards. Finally arriving last week was both overwhelming and deeply calming.
I imagined I would feel alone once I was finally solo in the studio. Instead, I was met by the presence of many bodies, histories, conversations, dances and memories that led me to trail down my own dance archive and history – a refresher course in understanding how I’ve arrived to where I am now. Holding an entire week within the frame of this fellowship has shifted how I perceive my own actions and how they feed a process—from the way I chose to wake up on Monday morning to the way I danced in a club on Friday night. I’m deeply grateful for this new way of experiencing my own practice, and I’m looking forward to discovering where the coming weeks will lead.”
Lúa Mayenco – Kicks Off the First of Three Tanja Liedtke Fellowships
If you remember back to our January newsletter, Lúa Mayenco was chosen as one of our three fellows for 2026. Kicking off the first of the fellowships offered this year, she spent the month of April at the Milvus Artistic Research Center (M.A.R.C.) in a small town called Knislinge in rural Sweden.
Working mostly out of an “old wooden dance hall, with a great disco ball floating in the middle”, Lúa said was “…weirdly inspiring”.
After her first week of the fellowship Lúa reported, “I have spent most of my time alone, trying things, and moves, and pushing judgement away. For now everything is a chaotic soup. I am learning how to trust … creating space for things to crystallise on their own… I have also been busy creating some nice props and inventing characters.”
As part of her itinerary, Lúa was to be mentored by Rachel Tess resident artist and director at M.A.R.C. “I have observed the work she is engaged with as a performer and some of her fundraising mentorship-sessions. She is a powerhouse from Oregon who, after traveling the whole world as a dancer, ended up in the middle of the Swedish country side, shaking up everything she could. I am happy to be able to learn so much from her. She has shared a lot of reading materials, questionnaires and resources to question my own practice as I shape it. Even if everything is very still around, I am buzzing.”
Catching up with Lúa in the last week of her fellowship, it was clear by her enthusiastic energy and the reflections she shared, that the fellowship had been a valuable adventure for her. She graciously sent us a few words to share about the last few weeks:
“Time, when you are immersed so deeply in a creative research, loses all its edges. I have now been in Knislinge for three weeks, attending my imagination with a clarity I have never experienced before. Just in the past couple of days, I immersed myself in two different collaborative projects. Bradley Waller and I spent a day capturing my choreographic process through his camera lens, suspending the most exciting moments of this thrilling journey. Shortly after, the videographer Graham Adey arrived ready to shoot a dance film, reflecting on the many questions that appear when committing to the practice of making. After such an intense weekend, I feel proud and fulfilled, allowing myself to recognise the courage and trust that it requires to share one’s ideas.
Now, approaching the final days at Knislinge, I prepare to become part of MARC’s team. On April 24th and 25th, they will be hosting a music and dance festival and I will be joining them to host, exchange and enjoy the work of national and international artists. I am sure this last stretch is still full of eye-opening experiences.”
We are proud to have been able to support Lúa Mayenco for this fellowship, and looking forward to seeing more from her for many years to come
Lúa Mayenco
Photos: Bradley Waller
Tanja Liedtke Foundation Fellowship 2026
(News January 2026) We are thrilled to announce the selected fellow(s!) for the 2026 Tanja Liedtke Fellowship. Given the overwhelming and historic number of applications, the jury found it a great challenge to create a shortlist, let alone choose only one fellow to support, and therefore requested that the foundation support each of the shortlisted artists. Thus, it is with great pleasure that we announce the following recipients of the Tanja Liedtke Foundation.
Lúa Mayenco, Leah Marojevic and Anna Chiedza Spörri
In order to enhance the benefits of supporting multiple artists this year, the selected fellows have agreed to support one another throughout their journeys. Over the year, they will meet both in person and online to share and observe one another’s processes and findings, fostering a collaborative spirit that we trust will enrich their experiences. As a collective of distinct artistic voices embarking on varied journeys, we wish these wonderful women the utmost success in their exploration and development this year. We look forward to hearing from them later in the year as they share what they made possible for themselves and their communities through this fellowship.
Lúa Mayenco
“I am a performer, choreographer, and graphic artist from Madrid, currently creating from the city of Copenhagen. I am fascinated by physical expression and curious to understand how to develop a sustainable artistic practice. The Tanja Liedtke Foundation has granted me the time and support to explore the ways in which care, humor, and the embrace of failure transform and define the processes of both making and sharing performative works. To complete this research, in the spring of 2026 I will be travelling to the Milvus Artistic Research Center in Knislinge, Sweden.”
Leah Marojevic
“My name is Leah Marojević. I’m from London and based in Berlin. My work as a performer and maker has grown through many years of close collaboration across Europe and the UK. This fellowship supports a long-held curiosity about authorship and gives me the time and space to develop my own choreographic practice more intentionally — something I’m deeply thankful for and very excited about.”
(Photo credit: Spyros Rennt)
Anna Chiedza Spörri
“I am always doing something, creating, hosting, teaching, sharing or watching artists, art and others’ creativity. I love learning in different cultural contexts and from different people, discovering new realities and getting inspired by my surroundings. My art is personal, often challenging dominant narratives while creating space for new ones to emerge. Being selected as a fellow of the Tanja Liedtke Foundation feels like an essential step in my artistic development, offering a meaningful moment to reflect, deepen my practice and shape the direction of my work in the year ahead.”
(Photo credit: Laura Gauch)