Paula Pau

Paula pau (Penang, MY) is a Malaysian a dancer and performer, of Chinese descent, based in Düsseldorf, Germany. Her current practice spans movement, voice, and text — rooted in Southeast Asian performance traditions yet constantly in conversation with the shifting landscape of contemporary dance.

Paula began her artistic formation in theater performance in Malaysia before moving into contemporary dance, and joined Euphoria Dance Ensemble under the direction of Aida Redza, where she also trained in Malaysian traditional dance forms. She completed her dance education at the Folkwang University of the Arts in Essen in 2020, and joined the Ben J. Riepe Company, collaborating as performer and co-creator across multiple productions (2020–2023). Since 2023, she maintains an ongoing working relationship with choreographer Raymond Liew Jin Pin and has collaborated with choreographers such as Reut Shemesh and Marie Lena Kaiser. She is currently engaged as a performer in a production at the Volksbühne Berlin with River Roux, and is working with Cocoon Dance Company for a performance premiering in 2027. Since 2023, she is also an active member of the German ballroom scene.

Her artistic practice navigates her post-migrant reality in Germany, drawing on her personal dance history as a way of moving away from a purely Western-centric view of dance. As a trans woman, a Malaysian of Chinese descent, and an immigrant on the European stage, Paula’s work confronts the gaze, the objectification, and the expectations automatically placed on her body in Western contexts. She is interested in challenging the power dynamics between performer and spectator — questioning the formality of performance and the role of the performer on stage — and works towards decolonizing inherited notions of dance and presence, bringing Southeast Asian, diasporic, and queer perspectives into dialogue with the European contemporary stage.

In parallel, Paula develops her own choreographic work in collaboration with artist Andras. Their duo Imminent Arrival was awarded the Sprungbrett Tanzrecherche NRW stipendium (2021) and presented at the Now & Next program at tanzhaus nrw Düsseldorf (2021). Her solo work PANDORA, developed through a residency at Asian Performing Artists Lab and presented as a work-in-progress at PACT Atelier No. 69 (2024), is currently in co-production with tanzhaus nrw.