Alexandra Bachzetsis (born 1974 in Zurich) is an artist, performer and choreographer based in Zurich. Her professional background includes a wide range of disciplines: theatre, dance and visual arts. She studied at the Zürcher Kunstgymnasium (CH), the Dimitrischule in 
Verscio (CH) and the Performance Education Program at the STUK arts centre in 
Leuven (BE). She then continued to post-graduate level at Das Arts, the Advanced Research in Theatre and 
Dance Studies centre in Amsterdam (NL). During her training years, she began to work as a dancer in contemporary dance and performance 
context, collaborating among others with Sasha Waltz & Guests in Berlin (D) and 
with Les Ballets C. de la B. in Gent (BE), where she worked with Christine 
De Smedt and Koen Augustijnen. Since 2001, she has been working independently, producing and presenting her own work in theatres and contemporary art venues.

Her work constitutes an inquiry into genres of performing arts, techniques of choreography and forms of scenic behaviour. Bachzetsis’ main interest lies in codes that govern gestures, both in everyday life and on stage. Her choreography scrutinises the mutual influence between the use of gesture and movement in the ‘low’, ‘commercial’ genres – such as romantic comedy, TV soap, or hip-hop video-clip – and in ‘arts’, such as ballet, modern dance and performance. Bachzetsis arrives at new ideas in dance performance inducing a productive crossing and translation between the hitherto isolated or even mutually exclusive cultural fields. In her performances, Bachzetsis takes on stereotyped modes of representation of female body in contemporary popular culture, show business and sex industry. She diverts clichés of commodified femininity and idolized masculinity to use them as building blocks in a new, consistent formal language that becomes tool of self-reflection and means to empowerment.

www.alexandrabachzetsis.com