dancer, choreographer, teacher and sworn improviser, based in Amsterdam. Her work is rooted in Body Weather, which is a comprehensive training and performance practice that investigates the intersections of bodies and their environments. Body Weather was founded by dancer Min Tanaka and further developed with his Maijuku Performance Company in Japan. Bakatsaki was a full time member of the company from 1986 till 1993.
Since 1996, together with dancer/choreographer Frank van de Ven, she leads Body Weather Amsterdam, a platform for Training and Performance.
She expands her pedagogy, vision and practice of dance / improvisation teaching worldwide. She is also regular teacher at the faculty of Theatre and Education of Utrecht School of the Arts and frequent guest teacher at the School for New Dance Development in Amsterdam.
Her approach to training and performance is currently focused on the immersion of the dancing / performing body in the quotidian. This spring 2008 she received a grant from the Amsterdam Fund of the Arts to develop another series of ‘Something Here that is not There’, a project of "invisible interventions of great velocity", situating her work in homes for the elderly and guest houses for homeless and drug addicts.
She works with equal artistic determination with professional dancers, actors and musicians as with people of all experiences, ages and paths of life