Miriam Rose Gronwald was born in Heidelberg 1991 with German/American nationality, and now works and lives in Berlin. Trained as a professional dancer, she completed her studies at the Academy of Dance, Mannheim and the Frankfurt University of Music and Performing Arts. During her studies she received the EHF 2010 scholarship from the Konrad-Adenauer Foundation and the Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes. In 2012 she joined the Gauthier Dance Company at Theaterhaus Stuttgart where she danced in pieces by Mauro Bigonzetti, Christian Spuck, Jiří Kylián, Stephan Thoss and Nanine Linning among others. In 2016 she continued dancing in France with the CCN – Ballet de Lorraine while working closely with choreographers such as Marie Chouinard, Jan Martens, Deborah Hay and Rashid Ouramdane.
In 2017, during a 6-month journey to Southeast Asia, Miriam became fascinated by the textiles of the Lao-Tai minorities. This led to an internship with Prof. Patricia Cheeseman, founder of Studio Naenna, in Chiang Mai, Thailand. In 2018 Miriam moved to Berlin to continue in the field of performance and textile art. On her return to Germany, she collaborated with several visual artists before enrolling in the 4-year program at Werkhof Kukate in Germany to develop her skills as a weaver. In 2022 together with Julia Buntzel, she co-founded Studio JUMI – an artist-duo working at the interface of art, craft and design.
Miriam Rose Gronwald: I think I wasn’t really finding what I was looking for in dance companies, and I became disappointed by how much the dance world operates within a closed circle system. At that point, I was at the Ballet de Lorraine in Nancy, and I decided to resign and freelance instead of leaving dance completely, but that was just the first move. There was a five-year period between leaving that last company and founding my weaving studio, during which I did a lot of performance work.
I started working with different artists, including visual artists, which I really enjoyed because I saw a niche for dancers in terms of having more time for creativity and collaboration. However, freelancing became frustrating as I constantly had to search for projects, and even when I secured them, they weren’t always fulfilling. That dependency on finding projects and having to invest so much time in that life made me realise that I wasn’t doing what I truly wanted. It was a process of sorting out what I could handle and what I didn’t want to continue doing.
When I quit dance, I didn’t want to abandon my creativity; I wanted to channel it into a different form, to be able to take my own time and have my own say.
Miriam: Textiles as an art form has always been a part of my upbringing so when I was in Thailand and Laos, I was fascinated by the local textiles and saw that there are all these stories in them. But it was hard to find someone who spoke English who could tell me what they meant. After I took a basic weaving class in Laos, I found a book on local textiles by a woman living in Thailand. When it was time to go home, I thought, “Wait, there is something here that I want to discover.” I wanted to do more than just backpack through these countries; I wanted to understand a part of its history of what these textiles were part of. I contacted the author of the book, who is also a professor at the university in Chiang Mai and runs a weaving studio that works with the Hmong minorities. Luckily, she wrote back, saying that she was preparing an exhibition and needed help, so I stayed in Chiang Mai for two months and learnt how to weave on a simple backstrap loom. She taught me about the symbols and how these communities use their craft to interpret their world through symbols.
Like dance, weaving is also a very visual language, and it resonated with my love for storytelling. It also comes back to that way of expressing something that isn’t written. It was also lovely to witness this community of women weavers working together, and I thought, “I would love to work in this kind of community.” I also came to appreciate how craft has the ability to teach you how to really take the time to learn.
I came back to Berlin after that experience, and found a place in Germany that still teaches professional hand weaving. It is a craft-oriented program, which really focuses on technique.
Miriam: It wasn’t a formal study program but more of an apprenticeship education, so I financed it by working various jobs during my five-year transition period, including working at a wool blanket shop and a market. The studies are designed to be a secondary commitment with only six in-person visits required per year, rather than full-time attendance.
Miriam: My connection with the two art forms is less about what I express with them and more about how I move with them and how I engage creatively. When I quit dance, I didn’t want to abandon my creativity; I wanted to channel it into a different form, to be able to take my own time and have my own say. Weaving challenges you to concentrate and take time in what you do. It’s a long process. I think weaving is a bit like classical ballet, as it requires a lot of technique and discipline. I like that, and I think that basis is your anchor to go wherever you want to go, which is what fascinates me. It has this integrity about it, just like dance has.
Miriam: It’s different, but I’ve gotten used to it. I do like that it gives you the chance to reflect more on your work - you can step away and come back to it later. However, in terms of physicality, it's interesting to see that weaving actually records your movements; depending on how hard or loose you beat, you will see it in the weaving. You could say that the loom is recording your movements.
Miriam: My five years of performance work brought me closer to the visual art world and helped me understand what is possible there. It definitely helped me carry my soul to the next place where it could be taken care of. It also solidified that there’s so much more to dance than just the functionality and physicality of the body.
Dancers fully commit to whatever they do, which is a unique quality that I think we don’t appreciate enough.
Miriam: It taught me that I knew nothing about the business side beforehand - you don’t learn about this in school! There’s a lot of responsibility, from navigating the German tax system to managing a freelance business. You pick out the information that you need and then build upon it.
In terms of the studio, we made sure to set it up in a way that ensures we're not only dependent on arts funding. As weaving is also a craft, we often don't fit into certain funding parameters, and a lot of grants aren’t available to us. So we set up our business to be less dependent on them, focusing on commissions, art sales, and workshops.
Miriam: When I was still doing performance work and starting with textile art, it was hard to explain to others what I was doing, especially in the visual art world where people expect quick, clear, “business talk” answers. The way people communicate in order to network and present themselves is different. In dance, your presence and work speak for themselves, but in art, this kind of self-presentation requires new skills. It took time to learn that and to adapt to these different signals, which I didn’t expect.
Miriam: It’s really about discipline. Dancers have learned how to work really hard over a long period of time. Dancers fully commit to whatever they do, which is a unique quality that I think we don’t appreciate enough.
Miriam: Dancers are so special. This ability to concentrate and work creatively for long periods is becoming rarer in today’s world. Through running our workshops, I’ve realised that concentration is dying out. So dancers should trust that discipline, and believe that it can serve you well in any career transition.
Top image by Sainte Anne Gallery Paris
