Silvia Farias Heredia
was born in Córdoba, Argentina, in 1976 and grew up in Ecuador. At the age of six she joined a dance school and gradually realised that she loved modern dance more than ballet. When she was just 16, she became one of the youngest members of the National Dance Company of Ecuador. She knew that she wanted to go abroad after leaving school, and when a dancer told her about the Folkwang University of the Arts in Essen, she applied and at the age of 17 set off into the unknown.
From 1995 to 1999 she studied dance at the Folkwang University of the Arts in Essen. Among her teachers were Jean Cébron, Lutz Förster, Anne Marie Benati, Malou Airaudo, Dominique Mercy and Libbe Nye. She frequently saw performances by the Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch and was excited about how versatile dance can be. The natural next step was for her to audition for Pina Bausch, which she did in Paris. She was invited to dance in The Rite of Spring, initially as a guest dancer. In 2000, she became a permanent member of the ensemble.
Água was her first new production with Pina Bausch. “A difficult time”, she recalls today. “I first had to find my place in the group and learn to open up.” She learnt a lot about herself during this time and eventually grew to love the rehearsal process and the intricate work with Pina Bausch on a solo or a piece. “It was a relationship full of trust." She created roles in many of Pina Bausch’s new pieces and repertoire up until 2009, as well as appearing in the documentary film PINA by Wim Wenders 2011. She has particularly positive memories of working on Full Moon and “…como el musguito en la piedra, ay si, si, si…” (Like Moss on the Stone), Pina Bausch’s final piece. The rehearsals for the restaging of Pina Bausch’s Chile piece in 2019 brought back a lot of memories for her: “It felt as if Pina was there with us.”
In 2011, she had a son, whom she was often able to bring along to rehearsals and on tour. She also developed a professional interest in children, participating in the Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch dance-in-schools project with the Gesamtschule Barmen in 2018.
From 2020 to 2022 she completed her studies at the Folkwang University of the Arts, graduating with an MA in Dance Pedagogy for Artistic Dance, Contemporary Dance. Since 2022, she has been leading daily class at the Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch. And since 2023, she has been working on the revival of Pina Bausch’s piece Carnations, as a rehearsal director.
She likes to share her experience and skills with other professional dancers, dance students and amateurs interested in movement and dance. She leads workshops in Europe and South America and is involved in various projects by the Pina Bausch Foundation, with the goal of teaching and sharing the Pina Bausch repertoire.