In a dance world that seems to seldom bridge the gap between the active performer and the passive viewer, Hellmut Gottschild's performances are staged for audiences. He speaks to them...literally. In his performances, legends, myths and memories of past dances compete for attention with the dancers on stage. Gottschild's choreography is a rich tapestry of language and history; it is not dance in a vacuum. Writing in Applause Magazine, Nora Fitzgerald observes that, "Gottschild is trying to find rather than make dances," Describing his own Looking for Mr. R., Mr. Gottschild describes his willingness to, "employ a range of dramatic expressions in the work: movement, sound, rhythm, voice, language (both prose and verse), dance, and acting." This convergence of forms enriches his dance, appealing to a part of the audience's mind that seeks to see the spaces of a story explored along with the spaces of a bodily existence. "More and more I find myself blurring the lines between dealing with issues of aesthetic values and issues of societal concern," Mr. Gottschild notes and this tendency drives works such as We Liked Your Coat and Undressed You, in which extinction is used as metaphor for political oppression; or The Late, Late Afternoon of a Faun, which deals with modernism, mythology, and aging; or Mary's Ark, Blue Eyes and the Inability to Dissolve, a solo work which overlays personal narrative on the history of the Olympic Games in Germany. After beginning his career as a painter, Mr. Gottschild studied at the College of Fine Arts, Berlin, and also at the Mary Wigman Studio where he eventually became Mary Wigman's teaching assistant. His awards include: The Pennsylvania Governor's Hazlett Memorial Award for outstanding art achievements; Creative Achievement Award, Temple University; Declaration Award, Jefferson Bank, for Cultural Contribution to the City of Philadelphia. He is the co-founder of Gruppe Motion Berlin and Group Motion Theatre in Philadelphia. He was the founder and, until 1993, Artistic Director of the ZeroMoving Dance Company.