Zerjon Abebe

“I work with people; dance is just my vehicle to achieve that.”

Zerjon Abebe is a dancer, a choreographer, and one of the founders of the Gothenburg-based international dance company Twisted Feet and the Twisted Feet Dance Academy. The company has been around since 2003, and the school opened in 2008. Both institutions have broken new ground with their celebrated performances and ambitious youth programmes. In 2022, a new phase in Zerjon Abebe’s artistic career began, when he and fellow dancer Nina Kolbrunner established a new platform, a creative space/meeting place with the working name Zeni Studio.

Motivation:
Zerjon Abebe has been a vital force on the Gothenburg dance scene for two decades. A dancer and choreographer, he is and one of the founders of Twisted Feet, both the company and the school, a popular academy attended by young people from all over the greater Gothenburg region.

With performances such as Wall Street at the Gothenburg Opera, and Five Degrees at Stora Teatern, Zerjon Abebe and Twisted Feet have brought street dance to our cultural institutions. Always open to discover new ground, he explores salsa and tango and establishes new creative platforms.

For his pioneering efforts in contemporary dance in Gothenburg, his open mind and creative entrepreneurship, driven by the desire to give more young people access to both a toolkit and opportunities for artistic expression, Zerjon Abebe is awarded the 2022 Culture Scholarship from the Sten A Olsson Foundation for Research and Culture.