Philippe Olza
Multifaceted dance producer
Swiss Performing Arts Award 2024
Philippe Olza was born in Geneva in 1961 and trained at the Accademia Teatro Dimitri and Maurice Béjart’s Ecole Mudra in Brussels. He lives in Basel and has been working since 1979 – first as a stage artist and later as a dance producer and promoter. Maurice Béjart employed him as a dancer, actor, acrobat and co-creator of his Ballet of the 20th Century. He then worked as a film actor, director, dancer and choreographer at international institutions and on a freelance basis, producing his own theatrical dance pieces from 1998 onwards. He sat on the selection committee for the Swiss Dance Days 2013 in Basel and was a member of the Federal Dance Jury from 2016 to 2019. The French Ministry of Culture awarded Philippe Olza the title of Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 2016 for his dedication to French culture.
Philippe Olza has enabled cultural exchange and tour projects around the world, including for the Ballett Basel, Béjart Ballet Lausanne, the Opéra du Rhin and the Ballet du Grand Théâtre de Genève. Between 2004 and 2006, he coordinated the Swiss International Dance Day for UNESCO while also creating Tanzfaktor, the first network for dance promoters, in Basel. Tanzfaktor expanded to include other cantons in 2007 and 2008 and was taken over in 2009 by Reso Tanznetzwerk Schweiz, which still runs it today. In 2016/2017, he restructured the Association Danse Neuchâtel (ADN) together with Nicole Seiler. Since then, he has continued to develop the winter season Hiver de Danses into a mobile annual programme of the ADN for the whole canton with the aid of more than 30 partners, including theatres, museums and other unconventional cultural spaces. The programme is focused on contemporary dance creation from all regions of Switzerland. This new orientation has made it possible to showcase a wider range of dance works and attract a new audience. Philippe Olza is also a skilled networker with a knack for making things happen at every level.
Et voilà, there you have it: the life of an artist. “Voilà!” was the name of Philippe Olza’s signature piece as a choreographer – after he worked in the circus with Dimitri and as a solo dancer at the Ballet Béjart, then as an actor, tightrope walker, mediator, agent, coach, jury member and consultant. All of this passion finally coalesced into a mission devoted to dance in all its forms and styles, for all audiences, in a region crying out for it. The Hiver de Danses festival, which has now become the ADN - Danse Neuchâtel season, was a minor miracle. Et voilà, that is what happens when ambition for the magnificent performing arts is stronger than personal ambition.
Marco Cantalupo, Jury member
