Tijen is a professional dancer, performer and teacher based in Belgium. She was born in 1972 to a Turkish mother and British father. She began her dance studies while living in İstanbul, later continued at The Arts Educational School London, The Place London and The Juilliard School New York. She has danced with Pierre Droulers, Thierry De Mey, Caterina & Carlotta Sagna, Mauro Paccagnella & Wooshing Machine, Harold Henning, Erika Zueneli, Inaki Azpillaga & Rodrigo Fuentealba and Manngold, Karlien De Savoye & Quan Bui Ngoc. In 1998 Tijen became a longtime member of Needcompany, directed by Jan Lauwers and Grace Ellen Barkley. As a teacher, creator and coach Tijen works in professional, educational and social artistic fields throughout Europe. She is a regular guest teacher at the Royal Conservatoire in Antwerp. Resently she collaborated as a performer with Mokhallad Rasem, Claudio Bernardo and Mauro Paccagnella & Whooshing Machine. Tijen creates and performs her own solo work through investigating and challenging her body as an archive, a communicative vessel. By questioning the internal limit of thinking, her work aspires to look deeper into the purity and complexity of the body and the ‘life’ it lives.
Function: Contemporary dance, Inclusive dance