visible music – audible dance
With her own distinctive sound, Pia Neises is one of the masters of her field. She is a musician as well as a dancer, at home in jazz venues as well as on the great stages of classical orchestras. Her jazz trio comprieses the most sought-after instrumentalists in Germany and Europe (Martin Sasse, Martin Gjakonovski & Marcus Rieck).
In January 2017, Pia Neises accepted Corrina Rottschy’s invitation to perform the “Morton Gould Tapdance Concerto” with the WDR Funkhaus Orchestra (Conductor: Eckehard Stier) in the Cologne Philharmonie. She performed the same three times in December 2018 with the Bremer Philharmonics (GMD Marko Letonja) at Die Glocke, the Bremen concert house. Pia danced Duke Ellington’s “Sacred Concert” at the Festwochen Klassische Musik Oppenau 2017. She performed her current production “Pia Neises featuring Martin Sasse & Trio” at the renown “Alte Pfandhaus” in Cologne, at the 6th Winterjazz Festival Cologne 2017 and the Hildener Jazz Tage 2018. This production, featuring celebrated musicians at the top of their game, provides an experience of musical communication at the highest level: playful, authentic, refreshing – and with a hell of a lot of groove!
In 2012, she danced for the ARD production “Himmel über Berlin” to the music of the Max Raabe Orchestra.
As a choreographer, in 2018 Pia acted as Jürgen Vogel’s tap dance consultant for the cinema production “Die drei!!!”
As a soloist, at the turn of the millennium, she performed in the Dortmund Opera to the music of Westside Story, accompanied by the Symphony Orchestra Dortmund. In 2001, in Thomas Marek’s “Funked Up!” she executed a “… virtuoso solo with bassist Kurt Holzkämper”, (Ballet and Dance). With Marek’s “about_tap vol 2”, in 2007 and 2008, she performed with Brenda Bufalino, Josh Hilberman, Sarah Petronio and Leela Petronio on Kampnagel in Hamburg and Stuttgart.
The highlight of her New York concerts is undoubtedly the New York City Tap Festival Hoofer Award 2001, starring Brenda Bufalino’s American Tap Dance Orchestra, one of the most reputed tap dance ensembles in the US, with which she danced in honor of Gregory Hines. Pia is a member of Brenda Bufalino’s “International Tap Dance Orchestra”, “Barbara Duffy and Company” (NY) and Sarah Petronio’s “Monk in Motion”.