The Academy

At the crossroads of practices

Urban Move Academy is devoted to the search for new ways of presenting the living arts, and to bringing the spotlight on youth and urban cultures in their performative forms. Carried by the strength of the collective and of the multicultural, it reinvents the gesture at the crossroads of practices rather than within each one: the ground, the wall, the ramp, the built space are not sets, but working partners.

Born from the vision of Nicolas Musin, a dancer and choreographer who settled in Geneva after an international career, Urban Move Academy came to life in September 2022. From its very beginnings it has invited artists and athletes of international renown, Caryl Cordt-Moller, Lilou Ruel, Joe Scandrett, Hazal Nehir, Sebastian Dratva, Kevin Fránzen, Dominik Walker, Big Mijo, Brandon Masele aka Miel, Mufasa, Johanna Faye, Link Berthomieux, Mr Kriss, Doyah N*13, Lali Ayguadé, and quickly established itself as a landmark of Geneva's educational and artistic landscape.

A complete offer

The academy offers two paths: Total Move, the professional training for multidisciplinary performers, and Move, the leisure courses open to all.

Total Move is built around mornings devoted to technical classes and afternoons dedicated to workshops, creative journeys and individual practice. To support this curriculum, a complete framework, theatre, physical preparation and physiotherapy, and throughout the year, guest teachers who pass on the tools of an assumed multidisciplinarity.

Move takes the form of workshops for beginners or for those seeking to deepen our historic practices, Parkour, Skateboard, Breaking and Popping. Three disciplines make their entrance in 2026, Krump, Électro and Scooter.

See the agenda

Pedagogy

A plural approach

The approach of Urban Move Academy rests on the values that ground urban cultures: freedom, exploration, risk-taking, the crossing of the unknown, transformation and sharing. To experience these notions with guidance, and to discover at the same time what they produce once carried onto the stage and before an audience, this is the heart of the teaching.

The goal holds in one word: multidisciplinarity. Developing the technical and artistic tools of each discipline, then setting them in dialogue until they cease to belong to any single one. For our students, this is where a personal language, an artistic signature, takes shape.

The teaching reveals singularities without dissolving the collective. Each person moves at their own pace, finds their own expression, and gains at the same time the fundamentals of life in a company.

Access to culture

Art as a necessity

Urban Move Academy gives a particular place to artistic and cultural education, a vehicle for equal opportunity and integration.

Art opens us to ourselves and to others, and this opening should depend neither on background nor on origins. To give the young generation the space and the means to flourish is also to allow them to build a civic conscience, a taste for initiative, a sense of the collective.

This commitment takes many forms throughout the year: workshops, sessions, battles, encounters and performances open to all, initiations in local schools, regular meetings with the public, within our walls and beyond them.

Team

Our mission

The teams at Urban Move Academy are united by a shared mission: to build a new space of work between the different practices of movement, and to question together the place of the performer today. Learning, exchange, creation: a form of transmission that seeks its shapes beyond languages and borders, as close as possible to the youth of its time.

Direction

Nicolas Musin, Director and Founder

A dancer and choreographer and the founder of Urban Move Academy, Nicolas Musin settled in Geneva after an international career. He began at the Paris Opera Ballet, before joining the Ballets de Monte-Carlo and John Neumeier’s Hamburg Ballet as a principal soloist. He performed works by Nijinsky, Balanchine, Robbins, Béjart, Van Manen, Kylián, Forsythe, Mats Ek and Ohad Naharin, while creating numerous pieces produced around the world. In 2000, he founded his own company in Vienna, which he directed for more than ten years, while exploring the fields of fashion, design and architecture.

In Geneva, he collaborated with the Flux Laboratory and the HEAD, then cofounded La Compagnie Urbaine in 2014. His show ZUP, a first encounter between urban arts and urban sports, premiered in 2017 on the Plainpalais skatepark, and led to creations for the Lausanne 2020 Youth Olympic Games and the Théâtre National Populaire in Villeurbanne in 2021.

Convinced that the choreographic field reaches beyond dance alone, he makes multidisciplinarity the heart of his teaching projects as well as his shows. In 2022, he founded Urban Move Academy.

Ghislain de La Chaise, Manager

Ghislain de La Chaise is the founder of Pavillon Noir, the communications agency he launched in 2014 across Paris, Saint-Ouen and Geneva. There he designs and produces campaigns and content for international brands, among them Adidas, Meta, Ray-Ban, Salomon, Spotify and Tissot.

An entrepreneur who moves from one world to another, he also initiates several artistic projects and has invested in NESO, the Paris Michelin-starred restaurant of chef Guillaume Sanchez.

One conviction runs through all his work: culture is not a backdrop to communication, it is its core. Rather than following the formulas and the influencers everyone chases, he champions a form of communication that creates culture and helps the communities it reaches to grow. It is this vision that met that of Nicolas Musin. As a coproducer of the show Ollie, Ghislain de La Chaise formed on this occasion the link with Urban Move Academy, whose management and development he now oversees.

Gábor Varga, Deputy Director

A dancer, choreographer and cultural producer of Hungarian origin, Gábor Varga settled in Geneva in 2009. Trained at P.A.R.T.S. in Brussels, he danced for many renowned choreographers, among them Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, Thomas Hauert, Mette Ingvartsen and Gilles Jobin. With József Trefeli, he created two works, JINX 103 and Creature, which earned them the 2017 Swiss Dance Award.

His path then turned towards production and touring. After the Antigel Festival and the Philippe Saire Company, he founded his own touring office, BravoBravo, in 2016, supporting Swiss and international artists, and designed the touring strategy of the Swiss Selection in Avignon. From 2021 to 2026, he was artistic collaborator at the Antigel Festival, where he curated the performing arts programme. He now joins the direction of Urban Move Academy.

The management team is completed by Amanda Winnemuller, coordinator, Rémy Nieroz, executive secretary, Cassia Kaiser, head of Move courses and events, Emmanuel Guillod, technical manager, and Noah Harnie, in charge of digital communications.

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Teaching team

Maxime Renaud, Parkour

A Swiss Parkour athlete very active on the national scene, Maxime Renaud combines performance, creation and transmission. He collaborates with Nicolas Musin on multidisciplinary creations. In 2024, he took part in the opening ceremony of the Paris Games as a masked torchbearer, embodying Parkour at the heart of a global event.

Kevin Bringolf, Parkour

A tracer and Parkour coach in French-speaking Switzerland, Kevin Bringolf works on the academy’s Parkour activities.

Charles Luong, Parkour and Physical preparation

A free-runner from La Chaux-de-Fonds, Charles Luong made his mark early on the international freerunning scene, reaching eleventh place at the World Championships, which places him among the elite of competitive Parkour.

The Parkour teaching team is completed by Jolan Jornod and Noé Lüthi.

Chany Jeanguenin, Skateboard, Physical preparation and Martial arts

A professional skateboarder, master coach and judge at international competitions, Chany Jeanguenin is also a Kung-fu and Tai-Chi master. His career has taken him to more than thirty countries, in demonstrations and competitions, and featured him in the major skate media, from Thrasher to Transworld Skateboarding. His record includes many titles, among them a finalist place at the Tampa Pro best trick contest and several Swiss half-pipe championship titles.

Daniel Navarro, Skateboard

A skater and instructor based in Geneva, Daniel Navarro has been committed for several years to teaching Skateboard to young people.

The Skateboard teaching team is completed by Eileen Sfreddo and Mae Colom.

Rayan Jimenez, Scooter

A Scooter rider from Rolle, Rayan Jimenez discovered the discipline at thirteen on his hometown skatepark and quickly stood out. Ranked among the best European riders, he carries into the air an ease and a taste for risk that make his signature, between height, fluidity and sense of the gesture.

Degen Tesfaldet aka Blood, Krump

Degen Tesfaldet discovered Krump at 14 in the streets of Geneva, alongside the Warriorz, founders of the movement in Switzerland. He learned its codes and vocabulary, joined the Warriorz Fam and measured himself against some of the best krumpers in Europe. Recognised for his technique and creativity, he develops a personal style that he never stops deepening.

Lorenzo Vayssière aka Sweet, Groundwork

A dancer and performer born in the Val-d’Oise, Lorenzo Vayssière draws from B-boying a striking dance, carried by the quality of execution and the art of letting movement breathe. A member of the group Bad Trip since 2007, then of Sans Limite, he joined the Black Sheep company of Saïdo “Darwin” Lehlouh and Johanna Faye in 2013. In 2019, he cofounded Selected View, a platform for B-boys. Based in Geneva since 2020, he taught B-boying there before joining the teaching team of Urban Move Academy in September 2022.

Nicolas Gonthier aka Tyler, Popping

Born in Annecy, raised on Funk and Hip Hop, Tyler fell in love with Popping and its battle culture. Self-taught, he honed his craft in the art of movement and learned from his great inspirations, from Mr. Wiggles to Popin Pete. In 2012, he met Dickson Mbi and Brooke Milliner, who became his mentors, and joined their London group Fiya-House. His competition path has taken him around the world, from Paris to Hong Kong.

Emmanuel Mendy aka Namu, Hip-Hop

From Cergy, Emmanuel Mendy, alias Namu Serpentard, is a multidisciplinary artist, dancer, DJ and composer.

Hugo Flé, Movement technique

A dancer rooted in urban cultures, Hugo Flé develops a work blending energy, musicality and stage presence, between artistic projects and transmission.

Fernanda Diniz, Classical dance

Trained in classical dance in Belo Horizonte, Fernanda Diniz revealed herself very early as one of Brazil’s great talents, awarded at the international competitions of Varna, Osaka and Jackson. This recognition led her to Paris, then to a performing career between Europe and Brazil, notably with the Ballet of the Municipal Theatre of Rio. In 1997, her meeting with Nicolas Musin gave rise to Bakerfix, a work inspired by Joséphine Baker, created at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées. From this lasting collaboration was born the company ABCDcompany, in Austria, where Nicolas Musin created for her Carmen, Tristan and Isolde and Concerto Barocco.

Cassia Kaiser, Pilates

Brazilian and based in Geneva, Cassia Kaiser first trained in classical, jazz and afro dance, before making the body and fitness her specialty. A graduate of the Lausanne sports university, a Pilates and Zumba instructor, she brings to the academy a long experience of physical preparation and movement.

Melinda Erbüke, Physiotherapist

A sports physiotherapist trained at the Geneva School of Health Sciences, Melinda Erbüke supports dancers and stage artists through a global approach, between rehabilitation, physical preparation and functional movement. Certified in many complementary disciplines, from Yoga to Pilates, she works to prevent injury and optimise performance, so that every body moves better, recovers faster and stays in full health.

The teaching team is completed by Julie Levrat, trained in contemporary circus, and Alexis Reynaud, physical trainer.

Facilities

A unique place in Geneva

Urban Move Academy has made its home in Vernier – Geneva, in a space designed in the image of its project. A contemporary interior architecture conceived for practice, creation, the breaking down of boundaries between disciplines, and sharing, served by public transport. A modular centre that brings together everything the academy's activities require. A space that allows a direct interface between disciplines.

Urban sports practice

The space dedicated to Parkour was custom-built by professional tracers, to cover the full range of movements and ensure safety from the age of 6. The academy also has a ramp and Skateboard modules suited to the other riding disciplines, BMX, roller and Scooter, designed and built by Hurricane Parks, provider for the Paris 2024 Games.

Choreographic arts practice

Two equipped and light-filled studios, suited to a plural dance, from Breaking to contemporary, as well as to creations, workshops, sessions and battles.

Outdoor practice

An open-air space and its modules, for Parkour and Skateboard.