Zino Schat
Zino Schat (1989) is a Dutch dancer, choreographer and sound designer. He is the founder of Fractal Collective. Zino honed his skills as a street-performer and toured the world with his crew SkillDealers. His professional dance career started when he joined dance company AYA and Solid Ground Movement, which also led to him choreographing as well. So far, he has worked with De Nationale Opera and Nederlands Blazers Ensemble. Since 2019, Zino is one of the in-house makers supported by Korzo.
Zino is always looking to bridge the gap between contemporary dance and urban dance, by utilizing complementary techniques, telling tales and conveying emotions. He likes to explore every situation from every conceivable side in his creative process. An intuitive maker and dancer, who keeps coming up with unique moves.
Due to his experience as a dancer, guitarist and sound designer, Zino acquired a multidisciplinary approach to choreographing. His experience as a street performer and the interaction with an audience are valuable experiences for him. Zino investigates manners and how different identities in society come together, and how they are expressed at various stages and various forms. His Dutch-Maluku ancestry and learnings in the urban culture lend him a variety of viewpoints on current affairs and social trends. This backtrack facilitates critical perspective in sharing and creating.
Zino displaces the traditional hip hop dance from its native environment and contextualizes it with themes that are current and affect everyone. He finds that hip hop offers a fruitful foundation for narrating tales and conveying feelings. Zino is skilled at bridging the gaps between different dance languages, as his art features recognizable human themes that speak to individuals.
Zino’s multidisciplinary approach has blossomed over the years in the work of Fractal, a collective that he founded. His hunger for new perspectives led him to a wide range of fascinating collaborations. In 2018 Zino created One Blood (2018) with spoken word artist Sjaan Flikweert. In 2020, Zino worked with Japanese artist Daijiro Hama and dancer Justin de Jager on And the rest is noise (2020), a piece which Zino directed and created choreography for.
Zino’s work Sonatinas 4 Feet (2021), meanwhile, explored new grounds in a collaboration with choreographer and puppeteer Duda Païva and choreographer and dancer Constantin Trommlitz. This show premiered at CaDance Festival to wide acclaim. Another recent highlight is Chasing the [Blank] (2022), a performance about the pressure of always searching. Recently Zino created Soma (2023) under the wings of DANSLOKAAL; he toured the Netherlands extensively with this succesful production.
Currently, Zino is working on a brand new creation called Whispering a Prayer, a coproduction between Fractal, Nederlands Dans Theater and Korzo. For this piece he is once again teaming up with Japanese artist Daijiro Hama. Whispering a Prayer will have its world premiere at Korzo, Friday the 13th of September.
"The tight-knit male quartet that performs Soma by hip-hop choreographer Zino Schat is really impressive."
— De Volkskrant
