Christian Michelides (born July 19, 1957) is an Austrian psychotherapist. He is the director of Lighthouse Wien.
Christian Michelides (born July 19, 1957) is an Austrian psychotherapist. He is the director of Lighthouse Wien.
Michelides was born in Graz. In 1973, he started to work as an opera critic of a provincial newspaper called Südost Tagespost. After serving as an assistant director for plays of Eugène Ionesco and Thomas Bernhard in 1975 at Austria's National Theater, the Burgtheater, he achieved his high school diploma in 1978. Thereafter he studied arts, philosophy and history of theatre, as well as directing in Milan, Vienna and New York, while still publishing articles in Austrian and Italian journals.
In the 1980s, Michelides was a collaborator for the newly founded magazine WIENER; he then joined the ad agency GGK Wien and the marketing team of the Swiss watch Swatch in Biel. At the same time, he organized a series of exhibitions in Vienna and published some catalogues. He presented five young American photographic artists (John Dugdale, Marcus Leatherdale, Robert Mapplethorpe, Todd Watts and Joel-Peter Witkin) for the first time in Europe.
In the early 1990s, he served as an investigative journalist for the magazine FORVM and other publications in Austria and Germany. Michelides disclosed the membership of Thomas Bernhard in a conservative party organization called the Bauernbund; [1] [2] he also revealed that Rudolf Augstein had published in the Nazi paper Völkischer Beobachter . Finally he exposed Gertrud Fussenegger, Austria's then most prominent female author, as a former avid Hitler worshipper. [3] Michelides also discovered that the Austrian Academy of Sciences had secretly stopped awarding the Franz-Grillparzer-Preis, a prize for dramatists left in trust for that purpose by Austrian national poet Franz Grillparzer. [4] Furthermore, he researched and documented the expansionistic endeavours of großdeutsch -orientated Alfred Toepfer and his close ties to Joseph Goebbels. [5]
As of 1994, Michelides changed his focus to human rights activism and the defence of minorities. In June 1995 he founded the first International Human Rights Tribunal in Vienna. [6] [7] The tribunal was chaired by human rights activists Freda Meissner-Blau and Gerhard Oberschlick; in this tribunal, Michelides acted as the attorney general. The theme of the tribunal was the discrimination and persecution of lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgender-persons in Austria during the period from 1945 to 1995.
Michelides was the founder of the initiative "Häfn human" that counselled and visited prison inmates; [8] he fought against discrimination of asylum seekers and of people with HIV and AIDS, and he participated in grassroots organisations such as Club Plus, [9] Selfhelp Vienna and Social Work from Underneath. From 1995 to 1997, Michelides chaired the Austrian Lesbian and Gay Forum (ÖLSF) and instigated Austria's first LGBT parade, called Regenbogenparade (rainbow parade). [10] Thereafter he started to work for the homeless.
In 2000, Michelides founded Lighthouse Wien, a shelter for homeless drug addicts with severe traumas, many of them HIV-positive. In 2002, he graduated as a sex and mental health counselor. Since 2009 Michelides has conducted an analytic men's group. In 2010 he completed his studies and graduated as a psychotherapist. Since then he works as a group analyst in private practice while still serving as director of Lighthouse Wien.
As a photographer he is documenting mainly opera, portraits, monuments and demonstrations. [11] [12] [13] His theatre photography is dedicated to the Burgtheater in Vienna and the Scala in Milan, the State opera houses of Vienna, Berlin, Hamburg and Munich, the Semperoper and the Teatro La Fenice as well as the festivals of Bayreuth, Salzburg and Glyndebourne, the opera houses in Brussels, Madrid, London, Paris, Sydney and Tokyo. In the United Kingdom he has also photographed opera productions in Garsington, Grange Park and at The Grange Festival as well as at the Welsh National Opera in Cardiff and at the Edinburgh International Festival.
Together with Francisco Peralta Torrejón he also documents the Stolpersteine collocated by German artist Gunter Demnig all over Europa. [14]
The Burgtheater, originally known as K.K. Theater an der Burg, then until 1918 as the K.K. Hofburgtheater, is the national theater of Austria in Vienna. It is the most important German-language theater and one of the most important theatres in the world. The Burgtheater was opened in 1741 and has become known as "die Burg" by the Viennese population; its theater company has created a traditional style and speech typical of Burgtheater performances.
Josef Weinheber was an Austrian lyric poet, narrative writer and essayist.
Grete Wiesenthal was an Austrian dancer, actor, choreographer, and dance teacher. She transformed the Viennese Waltz from a staple of the ballroom into a wildly ecstatic dance. She was trained at the Vienna Court Opera, but left to develop her own more expressive approach, creating ballets to music by Franz Schreker, Clemens von Franckenstein, and Franz Salmhofer, as well as dancing in her own style to the waltzes of Johann Strauss II. She is considered a leading figure in modern dance in Austria.
Martin Eybl is an Austrian musicologist.
FORVM was an Austrian monthly cultural and political magazine, published in Vienna from 1954 to 1995, founded by Friedrich Hansen-Loeve, Felix Hubalek, Alexander Lernet-Holenia and Friedrich Torberg with the financial and logistical support of the CIA-funded Congress for Cultural Freedom (CCF). Torberg also edited the magazine from its start in 1954 to 1965. In 1965 Günther Nenning took over as editor and in 1986 Gerhard Oberschlick.
Gerhard Fritz Oberschlick is an Austrian essayist. From 1985 to 1995 he was the editor of the political and cultural magazine FORVM. Today he serves as the literary executor of Günther Anders.
The International Human Rights Tribunal (IHRT) was a symbolic tribunal which took place in Vienna, Austria, in June 1995. It was chaired by environmental and human rights activist Freda Meissner-Blau and Gerhard Oberschlick, editor of FORVM, and was dedicated to the persecution of lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgender persons in Austria from 1945 to 1995.
The Austrian Lesbian and Gay Forum (ALGF), in German: Österreichisches Lesben- und Schwulenforum (ÖLSF), was the driving force in Austria's LGBT movement in the 1990s and has founded Austria's only Christopher Street Day (CSD) parade, called Regenbogenparade, on Vienna's Ringstrasse in 1996.
The Franz Grillparzer Prize was a literary award, named after the writer Franz Grillparzer. It was established in 1872, shortly after his death, by his lover, Katharina Fröhlich. After her death in 1879, the award was continued by a donation to the Austrian Academy of Sciences.
Lighthouse Wien is a Vienna, Austria-based non-profit homeless shelter and housing project for homeless persons with substance dependency, HIV/AIDS, hepatitis and/or psychiatric disorders. The project is not subsidized. It was founded in 2003.
Heinrich Lefler was an Austrian painter, graphic artist and stage designer. His father was the painter Franz Lefler.
Alois Machatschek was an Austrian architect, architectural historian, university professor and architectural preservationist.
Schlosstheater Schönbrunn is a stage at Schönbrunn Palace in Vienna which opened in 1747. The Baroque theatre now serves for the training of students of acting and opera of the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna (MDW), and for performances of the Musik Theater Schönbrunn.
Karl Ludwig Costenoble, also Carl Ludwig Costenoble, was a German stage actor, theatre director and writer.
Ludwig Julius Eisenberg was an Austrian writer and encyclopedist. He wrote a lexicon of stage artists, among other publications.
The Nestroy Theatre Prize is an Austrian theatre award named after the poet Johann Nestroy. In 2000, the city of Vienna decided to combine two less noticed theatre awards: the Kainz Medal and the Nestroy Ring for Viennese Satire. The prize honours outstanding achievements at the Viennese and other Austrian theatres. The prize has been awarded annually in eight up to fourteen categories. Its ceremony is held in Vienna and broadcast live on national television.
Gösta Neuwirth is an Austrian musicologist, composer and academic teacher. He studied in Vienna and Berlin, where he wrote a dissertation on harmony in Franz Schreker's Der ferne Klang. He has taught at universities and music schools including the Musikhochschule Graz, University of Graz, Hochschule der Künste Berlin and University of Freiburg. His compositions include a string quartet and a chamber opera.
Clemens Höslinger is an Austrian historian, music journalist and librarian.
Robert Streibel is an Austrian historian, writer and poet.
As part of an anti-communist campaign in Austria against the author Bertolt Brecht, his work was boycotted for ten years. Between 1953 and 1963, no established Viennese theater performed his works. The initiators were the publicists Hans Weigel and Friedrich Torberg as well as the Burgtheater director Ernst Haeussermann.
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