ABOUT US
At The Limelight Collective we want to create a place where people find a home.
We are artists and art enthusiasts whose vision is to build community in an anonymous city like Berlin. We bring together high-quality art with Christian spirituality and so enrich the lives of the individual and the community.
The Limelight Collective was founded in 2016 by Shaw and Katharina Coleman as a Salvation Army project in Berlin's trendy Prenzlauer Berg district. Our premises in Kastanienallee have had an eventful history: The 19th century industrial building was converted into a Salvation Army homeless shelter in the 1920s. In Socialist East Germany the building was forcibly taken by the government and after German reunification squatters lived here. Kastanienallee has now become one of Berlin's main artistic hubs and we feel like we are at the right place at the right time.
We express ourselves through dance, theater, film, live music, installations and numerous other art forms. We regularly perform on the streets of our neighborhood or in nearby Mauerpark and we can also be seen on stages all across Berlin. During our regular Community Days we strengthen our already existing community but every newcomer is also very welcome. The best introduction to The Limelight Collective are our weekly artistic mediation Soul Space and our Celtic prayer rhythm Matins.
We look forward to having you as part of our community!
The people who work for The Limelight Collective:
SHAW
Artistic director
Shaw graduated from the Australian National Theater Ballet School in 2006 before performing as a soloist with various ballet companies across Europe. After getting married in 2011 he danced at the Singapore Dance Theater where he had the honor of performing for the King and Queen of Malaysia. After settling in Germany in 2013 Shaw worked as a freelance dancer, choreographer and music theater actor, amongst other things in a European production of Dirty Dancing. For most of his life Shaw has volunteered for the Salvation Army and in 2016 he founded The Limelight Collective. Since then he has been creating his own works, for example for the Performing Arts Festival Berlin, and he has been passing on his experience to young artists. Outside of The Limelight Collective his expertise is requested as well; he was an advisor for cultural matters at the Ökumenischer Kirchentag 2021 and is a regular guest trainer at the ballet of the renowned Friedrichstadtpalast Berlin.
KATHARINA
Project advisor
Katharina has a Bachelor's degree in International Business from the University of Alberta in Canada and an MBA from INSEAD in Singapore. With her passion for entrepreneurship and her international experience spanning across three continents her core competencies are business development and strategy. Katharina founded The Limelight Collective with Shaw and supports the arts collective as a freelance consultant while she also continues her management career.
ALMUT
Artist and architect
After working as an architect in the Stuttgart area for several years Almut decided to use her expertise in Africa and the Middle East. There she learned to appreciate the value of intercultural encounters. She moved to Berlin in 2017 to broaden her professional and personal horizons. She completed a master's degree in Media Design in 2019 while focussing for her thesis specifically on the subject of the creation of (social) space according to Henri Levebvre. The title of her thesis was "The Significance of Icons in the Production of Space". Why and how artists influence developments in society is a fascinating subject for her. Almut contributes to the team on a freelance basis.
RONJA
Dance teacher and social worker
After her dance training in Munich and her studies of music and movement-oriented social work (BA) in Regensburg Ronja moved to Berlin to work in the field of cultural education. Through her bachelor thesis "Sustainable cultural education - 'Claiming the right to be unhappy'" she dealt with questions such as: "What is sustainable art and culture? How do cultural educational projects truly create cultural participation? What is a 'good life' ?" Ronja would like to empower people by creating aesthetic spaces where they can find freedom through art. She contributes to the team on a freelance basis.
DIANA
Dance teacher
As a teenager Diana discovered dance by performing in various musicals. After studying Political Science and French she worked in International Development for a few years. Diana came back to her first love in 2018 and moved to Berlin to study Contemporary Dance. She has been teaching dance for adults and children since 2014. She is competent in jazz, modern, contemporary and urban dance as well as improvisation. Dance is a way for her to express herself as a Christian and to bring hope to others.