Bio
Doke Pauwels is a dancer, dramaturg and choreographer. In 2024, she got noticed with her second piece, If you know what I mean, for which she received the Dans Magazine Award and the price for Best Emerging Choreographer at AmsterDans. At the core of her practice are the invisible forces that shape human behavior: desires, impulses, and ideas that operate beneath conscious control. Rather than illustrating these forces, she works with them physically, allowing the body to become a site where the unseen takes form.
She made her debut as a choreographer in 2021 with The Hatred of Poetry, described by Het Parool as “an exciting short performance.” Doke is a resident artist at Theater Ins Blau, key holder at Frascati's Het Verbond, and she’s involved with the Dance Safe Alliance (Alliantie Dans Veilig). In 2026 she is one of the recipients of the New Makers Subsidy by Fonds Podiumkunsten.
She trained at the Dance Department of the Royal Conservatoire and studied dramaturgy at the University of Amsterdam and directing at The New School in New York City. She has worked for, among others, Internationaal Theater Amsterdam, Toneelschuur Producties, Het Nationale Ballet, mime company Golden Palace, and the Deutsche Oper Berlin, and has collaborated with theater and dance makers such as Jessie L’Herminez, Elisa Zuppini, Peter Leung, and Sofie Kramer. In 2019, she founded the arts initiative Antidote, through which she develops experimental festivals and performance events (such as the dance party Warm Bad), creating unexpected encounters between audiences and artists.