Tanja Liedtke Foundation Fellowship 2026
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
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)