Rainer Behr

Rainer Behr was born in Neustadt an der Waldnaab in Germany in 1964 and studied dance at the Folkwang University of the Arts after completing an apprenticeship as a gymnastics teacher. From 1990 to 1995 he danced at Folkwang Tanzstudio in Essen, working with Susanne Linke, Raffaella Giordano, Urs Dietrich and Mark Sieczkarek. He was a guest dancer with the Tanztheater Wuppertal until Pina Bausch invited him to become a permanent member of the ensemble in 1995. Rainer Behr has been choreographing since 1989. For Die Wendung der Dinge (The Change of Things) he was awarded the first prize at the choreographic competition in Cagliari in Italy and in 1990, he received the Claasen Dance Award. His pieces for the Folkwang Tanzstudio in Essen include Rote Rose (Red Rose), Solo, Einsames Königreich (Lonely Kingdom) and ButterflyRiverMountainSun-Moon. In 2004, he created and performed in Der eiserne Pudel (The Iron Poodle) for the International Dance Festival NRW – Three weeks with Pina Bausch. He has also created several works for the Tanztheater Wuppertal’s UNDERGROUND series. In 2012 and 2021 he worked as a guest choreographer in Bielefeld and won the L'Association Professionelle De La Critique 2015-16 award for Best Performer. He was part of the team of choreographers for Encounters in 2020 and in June 2021 created the film version of his first full-length piece for the Tanztheater Wuppertal, Sleeping Woman, which premiered live at the Wuppertal Opera House in January 2022 to great success.