Johannes Birringer      A German-born performance and media choreographer, Johannes Birringer currently resides in Houston (Texas) and London (UK). He has been working in theatre, dance, performance art and multimedia collaborations on both sides of the Atlantic.

He began directing in the mid-1980s while finishing his PhD at Yale University, and then moved to Dallas and Houston to work in the independent visual art/performance scenes.

After the fall of the Berlin Wall and moving to Chicago in 1990, Johannes developed long-term video and performance projects that involve interactions with other artists and cultural workers in several locations: Havana (Cuba), Ljubljana (Slovenia), Eisenhuettenstadt and Dresden (East Germany), São Paulo (Brazil), while also directing workshops on dance technology both locally and internationally.

Collaborative production led to the formation of AlienNation Co. in 1993. Touring productions of new dance-theatre works, a documentay film ethnography on the border-lands in Germany, and several media and technology projects followed.
After teaching performance studies at Northwestern University, he finished books on "Media and Performance" (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 1998) and on his cross-cultural work, entitled "Performance on the Edge " (London: Continuum, 2000). He previously published "Theatre, Theory, Postmodernism" (Indiana Univ. Press, 1991), and works as contributing editor for "Performing Arts Journal" (New York) and "Performance Research" (London). His most recent book is "Performance, Technology & Science" (2009). In 2011 he co-edited a new volume of critical writing on "Tanz & WahnSinn/Dance and Choreomania."

In 1997 he moved back to Houston, working as an independent choreographer and as curator of Winter Street Art Center. At the end of 1997, AlienNation Co. was formally instituted as a non-profit arts organization in Texas. In 1999 he was invited to build a dance-technology program in the Department of Dance at Ohio State University, where he then taught the annual experimental laboratory "Environments" from 1999-2003.

For information on the Environments Lab and other dance technology research, visit Environments.

In 2003, Johannes founded the Interaktions-Labor in a former Coal Mine in southwest Germany as an international media and interactive technology laboratory; during its ninth installment in 2011, the Lab constituted itself as an independent Performance Academy. It resides in the renovated Mine architectural facilities every summer. He joined Nottingham Trent University's well known School of Art and Design (Live Art) as a principal research fellow. In November 2003 he formed LATela, the Live Art Telematics Lab at Nottingham Trent. He launched the Lab as a node of international cross-cultural research in online performance technologies (ADaPT). In October 2004 Johannes taught a three-week dance media workshop at the Beijing Dance Academy (China); at the end of this residency he premiered "Xu", the prolog to a new opera (Ensaio sobre a cegueïra) created in collaboration with composer Paulo C. Chagas. The intermedia song cycle "Cançoes dos olhos/Augenlieder" premiered in 2005, and was most recently featured in the 2007 spring music series at SARC, Belfast, as well as at the Dança em Foco festival in Rio de Janeiro of the same year. After organizing the international DIGITAL CULTURES LAB in late 2005, he was appointed Professsor of performance technologies at Brunel University in London. There he directs the DAP-Lab, and links performance and digital media projects with AlienNation Co.'s studio based in Houston. AlienNation Co. activities in Texas are also intertwined with the Talento Bilingue de Houston and with Meca. In January 2012 Johannes lectured at the TBC on "theatre histories," and in April 2014 he comoderated a postperformance panel at Meca (LAGARTIJAS TIRADAS AL SOL's "El rumor del incendio", presenrted in collaboration with CounterCurrent of the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center for the Arts, University of Houston). In January 2015 he collaborated on software programming for the premiere of El Entrecejo.


Recent professional work (directed, choreographed, performed) includes:

2014

 

 

 

2012

 

2011

 

 

2010

 

2009

 

2008

 

2007

 

 

 

 

 

 

2006

 

 

2005

 

 

 

 

 

 

2004

 

 

2003

 

2002

 

 

 

for the time being (Victory over the Sun), dance opera, Lilian Baylis Studio, Sadler's Wells, April 3-4, London

Lung Pulmo Pneumo, video installation at Cinedans // Dance on Screen Festival, 12-16 March, 2014, The Eye, Amsterdam
The Netherlands

for the time being, choreosonic performance, Watermans International Digital Arts Festival

Artaud Forum, conference-workhop featuring butoh performances, films, video and photographic exhibitions. Artaud Performance Centre, Brunel University.

bourdon, interactive dance, Interaktionslabor Göttelborn, Germany

UKIYO (Moveable Worlds), choreographic installation, KIBLA media Arts Center, Maribor, Slovenia; Lilian Baylis Studio/Sadlers Wells London

"UKIYO (Moveable World)," mixed reality choreograophic installation, Antonin Artaud Centre, Brunel University, London

"Corpo, Carne e Espírito," digital oratorio, music composed by Paulo C Chagas, premiered at Klauss Vianna Theatre, FIT-BH Festival, Belo Horizonte, Brazil.

"Suna no Onna," interactive dance performance, premiered at Laban Centre, London, December 8. Watermans Art Center, London, March 2008

"Puntos de Fuga," new interactive play written by Angeles Romero, stage reading, Talento Bilingüe, Houston, December 21

"Klüver", diptych video installation, revised version, Prague Quadrennial, Design-in-Motion Festival. First presented at Wearable Futures, Newport, Wales, and subsequently shown at Dartington College of Arts during the 2006 DRHA convention; also selected for the B-Sides Program at Upgrade! International, Oklahoma City, USA, curated in collaboration with New Media Scotland.

"Cançoes dos olhos/Augenlieder", SARC spring concert series in Belfast (Northern Ireland); Dança em Foco, Rio de Janeiro (Brasil).

"See you in Walhalla," coproduced with Amorphy.org at a series of production workshops in Europe, including a summer residency at Interaktionslabor Göttelborn. Premiere on 13-14 September, Athens, Greece.

"Digital Cultures," dance and technology festival, curated at Nottingham Trent University, Powerhouse Theatre and Sandfield Theatre, Nottingham, UK

"Tedr", telematic performance film, exhibited at Wearable Futures, Newport, Wales.

"Cançoes dos olhos/Augenlieder", intermedia song cycle, 5-channel DVD, with Veronica Endo and Paulo C. Chagas. Libretto by Angeles Romero. Premiered at Interaktionslabor, Night of Interactive Media, July 2005, Göttelborn, Germany. Canções dos olhos was screened at SARC's spring concert series in Belfast (Northern Ireland) on February 1, 2007, and also selected for the Brasilian video festival Dança em Foco, Rio de Janeiro, August 2007.

"Xu", film installation, choreography/dance by Wan Su, camera and direction by Johannes Birringer, music by Paulo C. Chagas, soprano voice by Carrie Henneman

"Saira Virous" multi-player online performance environment, LATela Nottingham, ScreenPlay Festival, Broadway Cinema, Nottingham

"Sueño" multimedia theatre play, written and performed by Angeles Romero. Collaborated on direction and videography. Mount Hall, Ohio State University.

"East by West" DEAF/V2 "Data Knitting" Festival, Pakhuis Las Palmas, Rotterdam, The Netherlands

"finally a place..." audiovisual installation, with AlienNation Co. Trans-Site Studio, Houston
"Flying Birdman" polysite telepresence multimedia performance with ADAPT, presented online on November 25

"East by West" interactive telepresence installation, with Sher Doruff and Orm Finnendahl. Festspielhaus Hellerau, Dresden. Recreated for DEAF, Rotterdam (Holland) in February 2003.

"Embers" telepresence dance, Sullivant Theatre, OSU, Columbus, Ohio.

2001
  "ghost island" dance environment, Intermediale Festival, Mainz, Germany.
2001
  "Moving Voices" interactive dance environment with Interface , Sullivant Theatre, Columbus.
2001
  "Irregeleitete Anatomie" digital installation, Kunstfestival Dreieich, Germany.
2001
  "MIRAK" opera recital , Houston Composer Alliance, Shepherd School of Music, Houston.
2000
  "Irregeleitete Anatomie" videodance installation, Festspielhaus Hellerau, Dresden, Germany.
1999
  "MIRAK" new dance opera, DiverseWorks, Houston.
1999
  "Fishgarden digital video installation, Vogelfrei exhibition festival, Darmstadt, Germany
1998
 
MIGBOT, digital-architectonic installation, Winter Street Art Center, Houston
1998
  Parachute Online, webcast
1998
  North by South, dance-film concert, First Annual Fringe Festival of Contemporary Dance and Performance, Diverse Works, Houston
1998
  between the places, dance-film environment, DiverseWorks, Houston
1997
  before nights falls, digital dance work, Goethe Institute Atlanta; Cleveland Performance Art Festival; Deutsches Hygiene Museum Dresden; Barockgarten Grossedlitz, Dresden, Germany
1996
  Lovers Fragments, exhibition performance, Deutsches Hygiene Museum, Dresden, East Germany
1996
  LBLM, performance/digital art workshop production, Split Screen Festival, Chichester, England
1995
  Lovers Fragments, Acts I-IV, film-concert/performance, Cleveland Performance Art Festival, Cleveland; Barber Theatre, Northwestern University; Blue Rider Theatre Festival, Chicago; Casa de las Americas, Havana, Cuba.
1995
  Parsifal, opera installation, Festspielhaus Hellerau-Dresden, East Germany.
1995
  Closed Spaces, urban art performance, Eisenhuettenstadt, East Germany.
1994
  AlienNation, dance-theatre performance, European tour (Germany, France, Holland, Slovenia); Cleveland Performance Art Festival, Cleveland; Gran Teatro de Habana, Cuba.
1993
  AlienNation, dance-theatre performance, Blue Rider Theatre Festival, Chicago
1993
  From the Border, cross-cultural performance-exhibition festival, Josephine Louis Theatre/Block Gallery/Annie May Swift Auditorium, Northwestern University.
1992
  Orpheus and Eurydike, multi-media dance-opera, Josephine Louis Theatre, Northwestern University.
1990
  AD MORTEM, film-dance-music concert, DiverseWorks and Lawndale Art Center, Houston.
1989
  Invisible Cities, A performance-exhibition, Lawndale Art Center, Houston.
1988
 

Description of a Landscape, A performance-exhibition, Lawndale Art Center, Houston.

 

Video/Radio work :


 

2014

 

 

2013

 

 

2012

 

2009

 

 

 

2008

 

 

2006

 

2000-01

 

Design and Performance Lab's wearable designs, created by Michèle Danjoux, featured on BBC World Service, in a special edition of the programme “Click” from the BBC’s radio theatre live on 25 February. This was hour long programme looking at aspects of wearable technology, including DAP-Lab, Atau Tanaka, CuteCircuit, Google, etc. … the podcast is here

RedMicroDress in the 10th Country, interactive dance, Interaktionslabor Göttelborn, Germany


TatlinTower, performance and film, KINETICA Art Fair, London

Lung Pulmo Pneumo, dance film, featuring Aggeliki Margeti

Leben in seiner Wunde, film, Kafka's Wound collaboration, The Space/BBC

Open Score. Keynote Film Lecture for kedja Festival:


Interview on dance tech net: http://www.dance-tech.net/video/interview-with-johannes-1
Interview on dance tech net: http://www.dance-tech.net/video/1462368:Video:21268

Ming Yi (Die Verfinsterung des Lichts), digital film

Suna no Onna, Dance-Tech. Net, http://dancetech.ning.com/video

Intimate Klüver, design performance video

Klüver 2, design performance video

Vespucci film installation, University of Brasilia Art Gallery, Brasilia (Brazil); Media Center, Graduate School of Semiotics and Communication-PUC-University (Performance Art School), SÜo Paulo (Brazil); Performance 2000 Platform, Dartington (England); Performance Studies International, ISA, Arizona State University; 1999: Winter Street Art Center, Houston, and ACA Gallery, Artplex Austin

1999
  Trails film short, Aurora Picture Show, Houston.
1996
  bewegungen in der mitte der dritten stadt (ort 1), dance film, Berlin, Germany
1996
  Lovers Fragments, dancevideo, International DanceScreen Festival, Lyon, France
1995
  The Obscene/Off-Scene Body, video installation, Montreal, Canada
1994
  AlienNation, videodance, International DanceScreen Festival, Lyon, France
1994
  Observations, dialogue with the Egon March Institute, Radio Student, Ljubljana, Slovenia
1993
  Cross-cultural Radio Workshop/Production of 15 PSAs, with Guillermo Gomez-Pena and other artists, Experimental Sound Studio, Chicago. Public Installation at Chicago Cultural Center, June 1993.
1993
  The Making of 'From the Border', videodocumentary, International Film & TV School, Havana, Cuba.
1993
  Orpheus and Eurydike, videodance, International DanceScreen Festival, Alte Oper, Frankfurt, Germany.
1991
  After the Revolution, video documentary, Loews Theatre, Festival of Nations, Houston.
1990
  Border-Land, video documentary, exhibited at: Greenway 3 Plaza Theatre, Houston; Studio 71, New York; Hallwalls Gallery, Buffalo; Houston International Film Festival, Houston; Universidad Nacional, Madrid; Chicago Filmmakers, Chicago; Saarländisches Konstlerhaus, Saarbrücken, Germany; Grenzland-Festival, Kultur Zentrum, Eisenhüttenstadt.
1990
  Memories of a Revolution, documentary, Rice Media Center, Houston.


Johannes can be reached via email at orpheus at rice.edu in the USA, and at johannes.birringer at brunel.ac.uk in the UK


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