PAN.OPTIKUM

Last updated

PAN.OPTIKUM Action Theatre is a theatre ensemble based in Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany.

Contents

History

The PAN.OPTIKUM group was founded in Berlin in 1982 by Nesa Gschwend and Frank Niemöller who were interested in putting on performances in public venues. The name PAN.OPTIKUM comes from the original Panoptikum from the 1920s, quite near the site of its birth, whose performances included exhibiting and exposing people without their consent. Right from the start PAN.OPTIKUM exhibited human sculptures and itself respectively at various festivals and galleries. In 1983, following a longer stay in Indonesia, Nesa Gschwend and Frank Niemöller completed their first large-scale installation at the City Hall Market in Hamburg. This installation also marked the beginning of Nesa Gschwend’s large wind figures, which were to be a trademark of PAN.OPTIKUM for a longer period of time. In 1986 Nesa Gschwend left the group and returned to Switzerland where she dedicated herself to her own solo performances and art projects.

In the 1960s and 1970s many free theatre groups positioned themselves as an antithesis to the prevailing city theatre culture, after which the beginning of the 80s witnessed a further wave of new theatre and street theatre in Europe. For example, the "La Fura dels Baus" group was founded in Spain, the "Royal de Luxe" ensemble in France, and "Dogtroep" in Amsterdam.

When Sigrun Fritsch and Ralf Buron joined the ensemble in 1988 and 1989 respectively, the group's focus shifted to performances in public venues. These performances used ideas from Bauhaus in Dessau from the 20s and were based on connecting architecture, i.e. installation, and the performing arts.

It was at this time that the first large-scale productions were created, e.g. on the subject of Max Ernst, which earned PAN.OPTIKUM an invitation to the WorldFest in Atlanta. The theatre group moved to Freiburg im Breisgau at the beginning of the 90s. It was there that productions such as Liebe und Tod (Love and Death), a performance of two baroque operas with the Freiburger Barockorchester, and Bach's Christmas Oratorium served as a basis for further concept development.

In 1999 the ensemble joined forces with "Nachtwerk" from Stuttgart, a group of pyrotechnicans led by Karl Rechtenbacher, and went on to create the street production of Prometheus during the Year of Goethe. Together with new ensemble member Matthias Rettner, productions for audiences of several thousand people were created and performed. With these productions the ensemble, now comprising close to 40 people, has been giving guest performances in Europe and South America since 2003 at major theatre festivals including the Sziget Festival in Budapest, the Glastonbury Festival in England, and the Tárrega Festival in Spain as well as in Caracas, Santiago de Chile, Bogotá, the Festival Internacional Cervantino in Guanajuato and Guadalajara in México.

Productions

Awards

Sources and references

Related Research Articles

Johannes Birringer is an independent media choreographer and artistic director of AlienNation Co., a multimedia ensemble that has collaborated on various site-specific and cross-cultural performance and installation projects since 1993. He lives and works in Houston and London.

Südwestrundfunk, shortened to SWR, is a regional public broadcasting corporation serving the southwest of Germany, specifically the federal states of Baden-Württemberg and Rhineland-Palatinate. The corporation has main offices in three cities: Stuttgart, Baden-Baden and Mainz, with the director's office being in Stuttgart. It is a part of the ARD consortium.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Donaueschingen</span> Town in Schwarzwald-Baar, Baden-Württemberg, Germany

Donaueschingen is a German town in the Black Forest in the southwest of the federal state of Baden-Württemberg in the Schwarzwald-Baar Kreis. It stands near the confluence of the two sources of the river Danube.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ensemble Modern</span>

Ensemble Modern is an international ensemble dedicated to performing and promoting the music of modern composers. Formed in 1980, the group is based in Frankfurt, Germany, and made up variously of about twenty members from numerous countries.

Big Art Group is a New York City-based experimental performance ensemble that uses language and media to push formal boundaries of theatre, film and visual arts to create culturally transgressive works. It has publicly declared its goal as the desire to develop innovative performances using original text, technology, and experimental methods of communication.

<i>Prometeo</i> Opera by Luigi Nono

Prometeo (Prometheus) is an "opera" by Luigi Nono, written between 1981 and 1984 and revised in 1985. Here the word "opera" carries the generic Italian meaning of "works", as in work of art, and not its usual meaning in English. Indeed, Nono scornfully labels Prometeo a "tragedia dell'ascolto", a tragedy of listening. Objectively it can be considered a sequence of nine cantatas, the longest lasting 23 minutes. The Italian libretto, by Massimo Cacciari, selects from texts by such varied authors as Aeschylus, Walter Benjamin and Rainer Maria Rilke and presents the different versions of the myth of Prometheus without telling any version literally.

Johannes Wolfgang Zender was a German conductor and composer. He was the chief conductor of several opera houses, and his compositions, many of them vocal music, have been performed at international festivals.

<i>Festival Internacional Cervantino</i> Annual festival in Guanajuato, Mexico

The Festival Internacional Cervantino (FIC), popularly known as El Cervantino, is a festival which takes place each fall in the city of Guanajuato, located in central Mexico. The festival originates from the mid 20th century, when short plays by Miguel de Cervantes called entremeses were performed in the city's plazas. Guanajuato is a small colonial-era city with a rich cultural history..

Matthias Rettner is a German culture manager and theatre maker.

Alan Lyddiard is a theatre and film director, best known as an advocate of community arts and the ensemble theatre model in the UK. Lyddiard was Artistic Director of Northern Stage, Newcastle upon Tyne (1992–2005), Artistic Director of TAG Theatre Company, Glasgow (1988–1992) and Associate Director at Dundee Rep (1984–1988).

International Sabancı Theater Festival or International Adana Theater Festival, more precisely State Theater-Sabancı International Adana Theater Festival, is a theatre festival held every year in Adana since 1999. It is a joint organization of Turkish State Theatres, the Ministry of Tourism and Culture and the Sabancı Foundation. Many national and international theater groups perform their plays during the festival.

Meno Fortas is a theatrical production facility and theater group in Vilnius formed and directed by Lithuanian Eimuntas Nekrošius since 1998. It was specifically created for the production of works under this director, but is also active in the formation of young theater arts professionals and the promotion of Lithuanian theatre tradition both at home and abroad. The institution does not have its own theater and performs heavily abroad at theatre festivals. The institution is known for its streamlined stagings, heavy on metaphor, with most of its stories based on known plays, including major works by Shakespeare, Anton Chekov and Fyodor Dostoyevsky. These productions are an extension of Nekrošius's directing career which began in the 1970s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Theater Freiburg</span>

Theater Freiburg is a theatre in Baden-Württemberg, Germany.

Kulturpreis Baden-Württemberg is an award given in the German state of Baden-Württemberg.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Matthias Rexroth</span> German countertenor and voice teacher (born 1970)

Matthias Rexroth is a German countertenor and voice teacher. Winning 1st prizes at the Francisco-Viñas in Barcelona and the 'Belvedere Competition' in Vienna in 2000, preceded an extensive international performing and teaching career.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mundenhof</span> Stadtteil of Freiburg im Breisgau in Baden-Württemberg, Germany

The Mundenhof is located on the western edge of Freiburg im Breisgau, and is the smallest district in Freiburg, with only 46 residents. The zoo on the grounds of the Mundenhof is well-visited. The municipal garden center is also located on the grounds. The Mundenhof is one of many Green Spaces in Freiburg, which present a major factor in its reputation as a green city.

Felix Krieger is a German conductor.

Trond Reinholdtsen is a Norwegian contemporary composer and vocalist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gastón Iungman</span> Musical artist

Gastón Iungman is an Argentine musician, songwriter and musical producer, known for being one of the founders of the experimental rock group Duchamp Pilot. Iungman was also one of the creators of the theater and visual arts companies Puja! and Voalá, with which he has performed at important festivals and other events around the world. His most remarkable show is Muaré, a mixture of detailed aerial choreographies and rock music that has achieved international success since 2010.

Martin Egel is a German bass-baritone in opera and concert, who made an international career. He appeared at the Bayreuth Festival from 1975 to 1986. He is also a speaker for television and recordings.