© Dieter Hartwig
Riki von Falken works with the dramaturge Katja Kettner, the video artist Oscar Loeser, with Ralf Grüneberg as musician, sound and lighting designer, with the costume designer Heather Mc Crimmon and with the set designer Clemens Kowalski in a permanent artistic team.
Their work is based on a joint process of developing ideas, concepts and pieces. In the process, we have repeatedly questioned and readjusted our form of collaboration in recent years. Our roles have changed and we have moved from an initial solo work, to which all the other artists in the team contribute, to a collective process. Last year we expressed this for the first time in the production. All the artists worked together live on stage in “The Architecture of a Line”, influenced each other, developed independent material, took over impulses live and opened up the working process on stage to the audience.
For more than 15 years now, we have been exploring the spectrum of our means together, guided by a clear and formally reduced seeming movement. Starting from this point, we move into the space and question it with contemporary means.
Guest performances and new productions have taken the Berlin-based group to Brazil, Malaysia, Cameroon, Romania, Vietnam, the Philippines and New Zealand.
KATJA KETTNER studied dance, theatre and literature. She has been working in intensive artistic dialogue with Riki von Falken for more than 10 years. As a dramaturge, she not only accompanies the choreographic process, but also gives important impulses to the development of the pieces and drives them forward conceptually and in artistic expression through intensive reflection on the artistic means and the development process. She also accompanies many artists and companies as a dramaturge, project manager, in press and public relations work and as a project coach. She is an expert in international dance and theatre projects.
OSCAR LOESER was born in Potsdam in 1979. After studying philosophy, he completed his academic career as a graduate editor at the Film University “Konrad Wolf”. His final project was shown in Japan and Brazil, among other places. As a visual artist, he develops concepts for the visualisation of dance and theatre pieces and their implementation in the stage space. He has worked with Riki von Falken, Patrick Scully and Martine Pisani, among others, whose pieces have toured internationally (USA, FR, BR, ML). In the collective AVK4 he created the installation “Kapsel” (Berlin, Kuala Lumpur) as well as the Loopstation (VJ Tool). As a director, he created the documentary installation “Grenzverläufe”, the HIPHOP documentary “Impuls- Pottporus Chroniken”, as well as “Staging the Mouth” in collaboration with the vocal artist Alex Nowitz. As an editor he works in documentary film for Cyprien Delmas (FR) (Boy of Wars), Claudia von Aleman (D) (Die Frau mit der Kamera) and Ebadur Rahman “Lost in Love” (BD), among others. As a cinematographer he created trailers for M. Airoudou, H.Horn, S.Linke J.Iglesias and Robozee.
RALF GRÜNEBERG has worked as a freelance musician and composer in various projects since 1992. Through regular concert tours he travelled the country and abroad. He has been involved in audio conception and production, sound design and sound direction since 1998 and has worked with the Brandenburg Philharmonic Orchestra, Zoviet France, fabrikcompany/DO Theater, Jess Curtis/Gravity, among others. Since 2000 he has been exploring the theme of eye/light/movement and has worked as a lighting designer with Christof Winkler, Kammerakademie-Potsdam, Helmut Oehring, Riki von Falken, among others.
CLEMENS KOWALSKI, who grew up in Potsdam, is a stage designer and visual artist. He works, often together with Oscar Loeser, on the integration of video material/design/ideas into theatrical contexts for theatre projects. In doing so, he always seeks an intensive confrontation and a creative relationship with the artists on stage. After studying at the Kunsthochschule Weißensee, he gathered a wide variety of perspectives during international tours, which he in turn incorporates into his artistic approach for his stage and video works.
Selection of productions:
THE ARCHITECTURE OF A LINE, 2021 & 2019 funded by the Hauptstadtkulturfonds.
LAUNDRIES IN HANOI, 2016, funded by the Hauptstadtkulturfonds in cooperation with the Goethe Institut Hanoi
ECHO IT’S JUST A TEMPORARY THING, 2012, supported by the Hauptstadtkulturfonds in cooperation with Goethe Malaysia and ITI
SONGBOOKS, 2011, Academy of the Arts