Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Lili Tewes. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Lili, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.
I saw Pina Bausch’s “Café Müller” when I was three. I was the shyest girl you can imagine, but from that moment, I knew I wanted to be a dancer. That’s how I ended up moving from Germany to New York as a teenager.
Lili, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
I am a dancer based in New York and work as a performer, model, teacher, choreographer, and rehearsal director nationally and internationally. I am originally from Hamburg, Germany, and graduated from the Martha Graham School under the artistic direction of Janet Eilber, where I danced principal roles in several of Graham’s ballets, including “Woman in White” in Diversion of Angels and “Pioneer Woman” in Appalachian Spring. I danced for RIOULT Dance NY, Sensedance, CES Danceworks, CRDance Company, have performed works by Martha Graham, Merce Cunningham, Pascal Rioult, Jacqulyn Buglisi, Virginie Mécène, Henning Rübsam, Caterina Rago, and collaborated on projects with Alastair Macaulay, New York Theatre Ballet, and the Buglisi Dance Theatre. My work as a choreographer was featured at Tanztheater Wuppertal create, presented at the Martha Graham Studio Theater, and I was awarded a residency at K3 Center for Choreography at Kampnagel. In the USA, I taught at Peridance, 92Y Harkness Dance Center, New York Theatre Ballet School, Western Connecticut State University, etc., and many workshops and masterclasses across the globe. But I also love to work with private clients either at a studio or in the privacy of their own homes, where I focus on finding joy and empowerment through movement (dance workouts, barre, pilates) and its transformational benefits for both body and mind. And I have a secret life as a professional Hula dancer. From the age of ten, I studied Hula under Kumu Hula Kalei’ulaokala Makekau to later join her company in Hawai’i and toured Europe and the USA. And as a soloist, I have done everything from big galas, after parties, concerts, TV, pop-up shows, and business events to weddings, birthday parties, anniversaries, bachelorette or bachelor parties, and baby showers. Some clients gift a loved one a moment they will never forget. A Hula just for them. Instead of flowers on Mother’s or Valentine’s Day, as a birthday gift for a best friend, or when proposing to the one. You can say it with Hula.
Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?
As a dancer and choreographer, I am interested in psychological movement narratives and the interplay and interdependence of body and psyche. And more recently, how an individual/society navigates the aftermath of trauma and its generational echoes and to expose those depths of human emotions through movement.
What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?
Being an introvert, training, rehearsing, and teaching from home during the COVID lockdown allowed me to reach deeper into myself and to bring my totality to any given moment with greater vulnerability. I hold on to that!
Contact Info:
- Website: www.lilitewes.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lilitewes/
Image Credits
Stephanie Diani