IRINA  PAULS lives as a freelance choreographer and director in Leipzig. Her work includes around 90 pieces of her own in the field of dance theater, site-specific performance as well as works in music theater and acting. After her first engagement as ballet director at the Landestheater Altenburg, she founded the TanzTheater am Schauspiel Leipzig in 1990 and from 1998 headed the dance division at the Staatstheater Oldenburg, followed by the theaters in Heidelberg and Freiburg. She has made guest appearances at national and international festivals with her changing ensembles. More recently, Pauls, as the artistic director of the Vienna-based artist group “DasCollectif”, has developed productions with the approach of synthesizing body, music and language. Pauls gives dance theater workshops at home and abroad and is a member of the jury for the Saxon Dance Prize. Since 2011 she has been teaching at the Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy University of Music and Theater in Leipzig and at the Mozarteum University in Salzburg. Pauls is a founding member of the Saxon Academy of the Arts and the German Werkbund Sachsen. She was visiting professor at the University of Leipzig / Institute for Theater Studies.