About us
Petr Hastik and Montserrat Gardó Castillo have been working together since 2013. Both are graduates of the conservatories in Barcelona and Prague and studied at the Folkwang University of the Arts in Essen. Montserrat Gardó Castillo also has a degree in journalism and is currently studying for a master’s degree in humanities and contemporary art, while Petr Hastik has a degree in dance pedagogy. As performers, they have collaborated with NEUER TANZ/VA Wölfl, Heiner Goebbels, Tino Sehgal, Gintersdorfer/Klaßen, Ben J. Riepe, Alexander Giesche, Costa Compagnie, Ted Gaier, Alexandra Pirici, Cielaroque/Helene Weinzierl, Reut Shemesh and SEE! among others. They have been guests at the Münchner Kammerspiele and have performed at festivals and theatres such as Tanzplattform, Tanztheater International, Favoriten, Tanzmesse, Ruhrtriennale, Manchester International Festival, Venice Biennale, Skulptur Projekte Münster, Julidans, Tanz im August, Kunstfest Weimar, The Armory (New York), Théâtre de la Ville (Paris), Beursschouwburg (Brussels), Stedelijk Museum (Amsterdam), HAU Berlin, Festival Ciudad de México, Festival Montpellier Danse, Teatro Maria Matos (Lisbon), Théâtre National de Bretagne and Pavillon Noir in Aix-en-Provence.
In 2026 they were nominated for the Kulturpreis der Stadt Düsseldorf. Their most recent production, DETROIT, premiered at FFT Düsseldorf in September 2026. Previous works include The Fall of Sleep (2025) and No Man’s Sky (2024), both in collaboration with FFT Düsseldorf. They developed the series BRUTOLOGY. A sacred space is never empty, BRUTOLOGY. The built, the unbuilt and the unbuildable (2022) and BRUTOLOGY. An online Roadmovie (2021), in co‑production with Emscherkunstweg/Urbane Künste Ruhr and FFT Düsseldorf, and the online trilogy Ruin Lust (2021), about brutalism, hauntology and nostalgia. In the same year, they presented The Future Concert in collaboration with the musician Nicolás Kretz (tanz.tausch festival). In 2020, they produced the video Borrowed Nostalgia, presented at the symposium ON/LIVE, at FFT Düsseldorf and on Terrarista TV. In 2019 and 2020, they developed Make us great again, a research project on collective memory in collaboration with Nicolás Kretz, supported by the Goethe‑Institut, the NRW Kultursekretariat and FFT Düsseldorf.
In 2018, they produced The Future was us in co-production with the FFT Düsseldorf. They were granted a Dance Research Residency by the Goethe Institute in Seattle (USA) that same year. In addition, they created The Pumping Piece (Tanzhaus NRW and tanz.tausch Köln) and the video #BODY (2016), awarded by the Kulturrat-NRW and presented at the SIMULTAN Festival 2019, Tanzplattform Essen, Tanzmesse NRW 2018, Festival Move!, or Hungry Eyes Festival (2018), amongst others. In 2015 they presented the site-specific: The Fantastic 2 (Essen) and in 2014 the video Volvo-rine (in Sofia, Bulgaria), in collaboration with Blanca Noguerol (Tanztheater Wuppertal). Before working together, they created separate pieces presented at the Certamen Coreográfico de Madrid, PACT Zollverein, and in Barcelona, Tilburg, Wuppertal and various Czech dance festivals.
In the 2021-22 season, Montserrat Gardó Castillo has been curating the series: Politics of Invitation at FFT Düsseldorf together with Monika Gintersdorfer and Annick Choco. In 2017, she was selected for the Choreographic Dialogues of Pact Zollverein. Petr Hastik was guest choreographer at the 2020 edition of “4 + 4 days in Motion” in Prague. With the support of the Instituto Cervantes and the Goethe-Institut, they were both guest artists at the “180°-Festival – Laboratory for Innovative Art” in Sofia (2019 and 2020).
Our Work
Our work addresses invisible choreographies through impersonation and the presentation of ready-mades. We use reenactment and documentary methods to question how truths, myths and collective perceptions are constructed.
In 1982, Michel Foucault wrote that the struggles of his time against institutional, economic and ideological power all revolved around one question: “Who are we?” Our practice starts there, with close observation and an intensive examination of the subject.
We are interested in biographical and collective memory, and in how it is shaped by media and transformed through repetition. Reenactment lets us test this on stage and in our own bodies.
We both grew up in front of the TV in the 1990s and see pop culture as an important signifier for understanding how reality and identity are represented and produced. Andrew Ross described camp as a rediscovery of history’s waste. We share that attention to what culture discards, and to how it unsettles accepted ideas of beauty, value and taste.
Participation and technology have become part of how we think dramaturgically: scenic devices that carry meaning in themselves.
Montserrat Gardó Castillo is a choreographer, dancer and performer from Barcelona. She studied dance at the Institut del Teatre in Barcelona and at Folkwang Universität der Künste in Essen, and completed a degree in Journalism at URL/Barcelona. She is currently finishing a Master’s degree in Humanities and Contemporary Art at UOC/Barcelona. She was nominated for the Performing Arts Award of the City of Düsseldorf (now Kulturpreis der Stadt Düsseldorf) in 2013 and 2014, and again in 2026 together with Petr Hastik. She also received the Ground Support Award from the NRW Kultursekretariat. In the 2021/22 season, she curated the series Politics of Invitation at FFT Düsseldorf together with Monika Gintersdorfer and Annick Choco.
After graduating in 2009, she worked as a dancer, performer and assistant in all productions of NEUER TANZ/VA Wölfl until 2017, including von mit nach t: No 2, CHOR(E)OGRAPHIE/JOURNALISMUS: kurze stücke, Ich sah: Das Lamm auf dem Berg Zion, Offb. 14,1 and SACRE DU PRINTEMPS+&DU. From 2018 to 2025 she performed in Heiner Goebbels’ Everything that happened and would happen, at venues including the Manchester International Festival, Park Avenue Armory, Ruhrtriennale, Salzburger Festspiele and Grande Halle de la Villette. She has also performed in New Beginnings by Alexander Giesche (Münchner Kammerspiele), Kiss and This youiiyou by Tino Sehgal, Fight for Independence by Costa Compagnie, Leaking Territories and Monument to Work by Alexandra Pirici, Superversammlung by SEE!, A Concert by Luisa Saraiva and Lea Letzel, and Homesick Festival by Michikazu Matsune.
Since 2017 she has been working regularly with Gintersdorfer/Klaßen and La Fleur on productions such as La langue de Molière, Das Phantom der Operette, Kiss me, Judas!, Konami, Las Noches de las Reinas, Kabuki Noir, Nana ou est-ce que tu connais le bara?, The Institute for Unforeseen Collaboration, Weimar Cabaret, Die Zerlegung der Körper and Erniedrigung ist nicht das Ende der Welt. She was also a member of the group 1pp1, with whom she presented Bao Hau Si at the Bauhaus-Archiv Berlin (2025).
As a journalist, she occasionally writes about dance, theatre and performance for publications in Spain and Germany.
Petr Hastik is a choreographer, performer and dance educator from the Czech Republic. He studied dance theatre and dance education at the Duncan Centre Conservatory in Prague and at Folkwang Universität der Künste in Essen. From the age of four and for more than fifteen years, he was part of the Czech folk dance ensemble Hradišťan.
From 2011 to 2017, he was a member of NEUER TANZ/VA Wölfl in Düsseldorf, performing regularly in Germany (Mousonturm, Kampnagel, Düsseldorf) as well as in France (Théâtre de la Ville, Théâtre National de Bretagne, Pavillon Noir in Aix-en-Provence), Mexico and Portugal.
He has been working with Tino Sehgal since 2014 and was a guest artist at the Münchner Kammerspiele with Alexander Giesche. He has collaborated with numerous artists and companies in Düsseldorf and across NRW, including Ben J. Riepe, Subbotnik, Philine Velhagen, Tatraum Projekte Schmidt, Morgan Nardi, Marlin de Haan, SEE!, Reut Shemesh, Cie Laroque, Enis Turan, Julia Riera and Jan Möllmer, and has taken part in productions by Gintersdorfer/Klaßen and La Fleur.
He is active as a choreographer in both the German and Czech scenes. He was guest choreographer at 4 + 4 Days in Motion (2020) and at the Gay Pride Festival (2021), both in Prague.