Huggy Bears Artists 2024

Helena Araújo is an enthusiastic femme maker and performer, lover of plot twists and a clown full of kitsch and bad jokes. She is originally from Rio de Janeiro and currently lives in between Vienna and Brussels. Helena, as a maker, loves to give space for the imagination to flourish and the double meanings to arise. She is interested in leaving space for different artistic languages to coexist and blend together. In this space, the conventional values and expectations projected onto these languages, and how they are supposed to relate to each other, are free to be challenged.As a good libra, Helena loves to please. Besides working within the traditional spaces of contemporary art she also adores to entertain feverous cabaret nights. Helena challenges the canonical language of cabaret theatre by melting the rigid structures of what a cabaret performance should be and look like. It is often a very colorful mix of dance, performance, theatre and screaming songs.Helena's works have been shown in various places such as Radiant Nights Festival (BE), Moving Futures Festival (NL), FDS Festival (CH), Zahrada Theatre (SK), V-Fest Festival (NL), Pinkbus Plataform (CZ), Paradise Cabaret (IE) and House of Circus- Cabaret Night(NL). Also, as a performer she has worked with many artists: TRASH performance group (NL), Ivo Dimchev (BG), Renan Martins (DE/BR), Martin Talaga (CZ/SK), Petra Tejnorová (CZ/SK) and Pietro Marullo (IT/BE).

Ale Bachlechner is an artist working with performance and video, based in Vienna and Cologne. In her performative work, she investigates communication and affect, ways of relating and the pitfalls of neoliberalism. Her works vary in size from solo pieces to working with a team of several performers, artists, musicians and technicians and include the temporary dating agency „Twelve Roses“ (2013), the participatory performance coaching institute „This Is Not A Competition“ (2016),the online TV series „Studio Hallo“ (2018), the solo performance "Men and me" (2019) and a long term collaboration with dancers and choreographers Artmann&Duvoisin. She has studied Comparative Literature in Innsbruck and Art at the Academy of Media Arts in Cologne and has held several teaching positions. Her monograph "I'm Sure Everybody's Doing Their Best" was published by DISTANZ.

Sebastijan Geč aka I am Everything, was born in Slovenia, finished his dance study in Salzburg at SEAD in 2007 in Choreography and contemporary dance. Since then he has been in various projects and performances including choreographers like Cie. Willi Dorner, Elisabeth Bakambamba Tambwe, Jerome Bél, Judit Keri, Annie Vigier & Franck Apertet among others. His own work was shown in many Festivals like in Platforma in Slovenia with performances like „What are you looking at?“ or „After this there for, because of this“. Since six years he has been active a lot in different opera productions like in Theater an der Wien and Staatsoper in Vienna with just few to mention „The fire angel“, „Platee“, „Eugeni Oniegin“, „La clemenza di Tito" or „Tosca“. He is also a first member of the first Kiki house in Austria in Voguing scene. Visiting many Voguing balls all over the Europe. Since few years he has been also acting in films, most of them where Art films. Like with Daniel Moshel on short film „Me Tube 3“, or „MIR:VARIABLE“, Shortfilm by Alexander Kasses. The latest Film was with Elisabeth Bakambamba Tambwe on „The mask of the Schwarzen-Löwenbergs“.

MO-ZA-IK is a Vienna based group who are all Artists, Dancers, DJ’s and passionate contributors within the street and club dance scene in Austria as well as abroad. The collective seeks to share their lived experiences and create spaces of collective transformation and liberation. MO-ZA-IK is a group of four members - Rosa Perl (she/they), Viviane Tanzmeister (she/they), Jamal Abale (he/him) and Mátyás Kántor (he/him) - from different backgrounds, sharing the same passionate language of house dance and music.