Ugo Dehaes
Ugo Dehaes [°1977, Leuven] started to dance at the age of 18. During a year he took ballet classes, followed contemporary dance with teachers like David Hernandez, Benoît Lachambre and Saburro Teshigawara and attended a half-time theater education at De Kleine Academie. The following year he started his full-time dance education at P.A.R.T.S., the international school for dancers and choreographers directed by Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker.

In 1998 Ugo started to work as a dancer for Meg Stuart/Damaged Goods. During three years he collaborated on the pieces appetite and Highway 101
In 2000 he founded the company kwaad bloed [www.kwaadbloed.com] together Charlotte Vanden Eynde. Their first piece, lijfstof, premiered at Kaaitheater before starting an international tour to Vienna, Salzburg, Berlin, Paris, etc.

From that moment onwards Ugo created regularly new choreographies. 
A first phase was inspired by the visual and mechanical aspects of the human body. He investigates the body as an object, how it grows older and how it can be transformed. 
The second phase consisted of very physical work. He investigates what happens when two bodies occupy the same space, or how bodies can invoke emotions without the help of music or visual aids. This phase concluded with urban dance morphing into contemporary dance in a piece with youngsters and 6 autonomous drones.
Parallel a third phase aroused in which science takes an important role: from very visual choreographies inspired by the universal forces that keep our world together, to an investigation into the mind of persons living with dementia. 

Since 2018 Ugo shifted his focus and became a choreographer of things. Ugo made the moving sculpture Stalactiet (2018) for Tweetakt Festival (NL), Forced Labor: Arena (2020), an installation with 8 interactive robots, Forced Labor (2021), a lecture-performance with small robots, Runner (2020), a self-learning robot, Pickled Punks (2021), a series of robots in jars of formaldehyde, commissioned by KIKK,  and started the research for LIMP, a collaboration with Prof. Geraint A. Wiggins (Computational Creativity) and Axiles Bionics (AI robotized foot-protheses).

Next to his choreographic work, Ugo also made Coupure, a permanent, moving sculpture for the city of Bruges.

As a member of the Flemish Young Academy (www.jongeacademie.be) Ugo has a direct contact with numerous important young scientists and researchers in Belgium.

In the meanwhile Ugo gave numerous workshops and masterclasses and worked for other artists amongst which Stijn Grupping (Post Uit Hesdalen), Ehsan Hemat, Samah Hijawi, Stéphane Arcas, Sachiyo Takahashi, Emil Hrvatin, Arco Renz, Gisèle Vienne & Etienne Bideau-Rey, Kataline Patkaï, Nada Gambier, Antonin De Bemels, Heine R. Avdal,...

bio_ugodehaes_eng.pdfbio_ugodehaes_eng.pdf



- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 



Ugo Dehaes started dancing at the age of 18. He began his full-time dance training at P.A.R.T.S., the international school for dancers and choreographers directed by Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker. In 1998, Ugo began working as a dancer for Meg Stuart/Damaged Goods. In 2000 he founded the company 'kwaad bloed' (bad blood) and created numerous choreographies with professional dancers, amateurs and children. Since 2018 Ugo shifted his focus and became a choreographer of things, making moving sculptures, a lecture-performance with small robots, a self-learning robot and more.



- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -