Board

The business board of Aktion Tanz – Bundesverband Tanz in Bildung und Gesellschaft e.V. is being elected for two years by the general meeting. Since the election in the frame of the general meeting from May 9, 2025, the business board looks the following:

Esther-Maria Merchel

Esther-Maria Merchel completed her diploma in dance education in 2012 (off theater Neuss, tanzhaus nrw). From 2012 to 2013, she completed intercultural artistic experiences with an international musical group and traveled with the ensemble to European countries and India. In 2013, she began her studies in Social Work B.A. at the Technical University of Nuremberg with a focus on school social work. This degree opened the doors for her to continuous project work in schools. She taught the seminar “Cultural Education in School Social Work” at the TH Nuremberg.

She has been working with TanzPartner e.V. in dance education in schools since 2018. In addition to her role as project manager, she also focuses on administration, funding acquisition and networking. As a project manager, she is always committed to a process-oriented approach with a strong focus on the participation of the participants. She also works in cooperation with other artists and prepares the projects in an interdisciplinary way.

In 2024 she completed her Master’s degree in Cultural Education in Schools (Philipps University Marburg). She is currently being trained as a training officer for the Kompetenznachweis Kultur (BKJ e.V.). She has also been working at the KunstKulturQuartier in Nuremberg since 2024, in the working team of the Tafelhalle Nuremberg and is a jury member of the re:festival 2025 in addition to event management.

Rut Profe-Bracht

Vita will follow soon.

Bahar Meriç

Bahar Meriç is a choreographer and initiator. She works project-related and interdisciplinary with dancers, actors and amateurs of different ages in the fields of dance, theatre, performance and community dance and develops artistic-educational formats and programmes. The focus of her work lies in the fields of identity and diversity and in researching how these themes are located in the body.

Bahar is a member of Future Move e. V. The association aims to make people and their issues visible through dance and movement, people who have so far been insufficiently represented in cultural and artistic life. The association’s offers should enable access and participation, empower people and support them in their artistic development. Bahar is artistic director at Future Move e.V.
www.baharmeric.com | www.futuremove.e

Assessors of the board:

Sophia Brehm

Sophia Brehm studied political science and psychology in Jena, Rennes and Athens. After a scholarship in project management, she gained her first experience in festival production and discovered her interest in working in a cultural environment. In 2023, she began working at the Kultur Palast Hamburg Foundation, where she was involved in setting up the Hip Hop Academy in Harburg until 2025. Among other things, she was responsible for organizing public stage formats and coordinating hip hop courses at schools and in the foundation’s cultural center.
Since 2025, Sophia Brehm has been temporarily in charge of the project “Step by Step – Dance Projects with Hamburg Schools”. Together with choreographers, she accompanies school classes in their dance-based exploration of personal and social issues. Her work consistently operates at the interface of education, art and empowerment.
https://stepbystep-hh.de/

Bianca Kruppa

Bianca Kruppa is a freelance artist working in the fields of dance, choreography and mediation. She is interested in participatory art practices that address pressing social issues of our time. She initiates and leads projects in which dance can create new connections, collaborating with various artists and cultural institutions at the local and international level. In her work as an educator and lecturer, she is also active in the field of cultural education, where she shares her experience in dance and schools (2nd state examination in philosophy and sports (2. Staatsexamen Philosophie & Sport)).

As part of the MA Dance: Participation, Communities, Activism programme at the London Contemporary Dance School (expected graduation: September 2025), she is working with a team of international artists to explore the contribution of dance to the creation of sustainable social structures. In her thesis, she examines the approach of social choreography as a means of reflecting on existing systems and structures. She explores how dance can create temporary communities that explore new forms of coexistence and addresses aspects such as complexity, connection and change.

Bianca is co-initiator and co-director of the cultural venue and association Falschen Farm e. V. in a small village in Bavaria. She often reflects on her work from a rural context and is particularly interested in the realities of life and artistic practice outside urban centres. Since January 2024, Bianca has been working as a mediator in the model of the Neuen Auftraggeber für das Programm Tanz & Performance in the Amberg/Upper Palatinate region.
www.biancakruppa.de 

Dr. des. Ellen Steinmüller

Dr. des. Ellen Steinmüller is a professionally trained dancer, an experienced community dance artist and a qualified dance therapist with almost twenty years of professional experience. She received her dance training in classical ballet at the Heinz Bosl Foundation and the Royal Academy of Dance, as well as in contemporary dance at the renowned Trinity Laban Conservatoire in London. After completing her undergraduate studies in pedagogics at Ludwig Maximilian University (LMU) and an MA in dance movement therapy at Goldsmiths College, University of London, she focused her professional career on her therapeutic and educational practice with disadvantaged children and young people.

Through her work as a dance director at the renowned community dance organisation Dance United, she has gained many years of professional experience in the field of social integration of disadvantaged and marginalised groups. As part of this work, she worked with the organisation’s specific, performance-led methodology, which aims to bring about transformative educational processes through artistic self-efficacy.

Since returning to her hometown of Munich in 2017, she has continued to develop her practice as a freelance artist at the intersection of professional dance and participatory work in various contexts, including in an academic setting: she completed her PhD on the methodological concept of Dance United at the LMU with the highest distinction, summa cum laude. She is the founder and artistic director of ExisTanz, an innovative organisation whose dance projects engage people who, for personal and social reasons, have limited access to the arts.
www.exis-tanz.org