Thusnelda Mercy

Thusnelda Mercy is born in Marseille in 1977 and grows up in Wuppertal. Following an engagement at the Theater der Klänge as a dancer and actor, she continues her dance studies at the Folkwang University of the Arts in Essen. In 2002, the choreographer Sasha Waltz invites her to join the creation of NoBody. She has been a regular guest dancer in Waltz’s productions ever since. From 2003 to 2015 she is a permanent member of the ensemble of the Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch, continuing as a guest dancer and assistant after 2015. She appears in Wim Wenders film PINA as a dancer. Thusnelda Mercy teaches dance nationally and internationally, in the studio and online. She also choreographs her own work. Together with the choreographer and dancer Pascal Merighi she founds merighi | mercy, a dance company specialising in international and interdisciplinary collaborations. It has developed a distinctive style characterised by artistic explorations of everyday movement and humanity. Thusnelda Mercy continues to work as a dancer and assistant for many different artists while also acting as rehearsal director for the Pina Bausch Foundation. Her projects for the Foundation include the re-staging of Orphée et Euridice at the Opéra de Paris in 2018. At the Folkwang University of the Arts in Essen she creates the piece This is my now for 22 students, and in 2018 she is invited by the Ballet de l’Opéra national du Rhin to realise her creation PARTITA. For some time now, she has also been exploring the interplay between dance and film. Following her first film With in, which was shown in the Tony Cragg exhibition at the Von der Heydt Museum in Wuppertal, her second film Bataville 1931-2002 was selected for the 2018 edition of the WomenCineMakers Biennial and for the Film Festival Thessaloniki 2019.