The documentary "Ostravaganza – Discovery of East German Avant-Garde" is ready for viewing! Director Martin Miotk accompanies culture journalist Marion Christen at her search for traces of the true origin of avant-garde music.

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The story: Six East German artists didn’t only give rise to the most important innovations of New Music, they also still indulge experimental music in a subversive cultural underground in senior residencies and cultural centers. The sprightly pensioners officially personate as schlager- and entertainment stars and disguise their performances as nostalgic shows and tea dances, where they already had to hide their avant-gardist artistic work under dictation of the GDR regime. These pioneers of the radical modernism now push into the public to present their “Ostravaganza” to a broad audience. The musical avant-garde was originated in the East, was betrayed, dispossessed, forgotten and finally shall be rehabilitated. Including coming-outs, nervous break-downs, confession orgys and emotional minefields…

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A film by Martin Miotk and Opera Lab Berlin

Supported by "Initiative New Music Berlin e.V"

inspired by "Aisteach" by Jennifer Walshe

Executive Producer: Martin Miotk and Evan Gardner

Director of Photography: Andrea Bonetti and Evan Gardner

Production Designer: Martin Miotk

Edited by Andrea Bonetti and Meika Dresenkamp ( Dr. Gabi Thöns)

Soundtrack by Giovanni Zaniol

Costume Designer / Costume Maker: Hair and Make up: Andy Besuch

Costume making for Pitti, Frau Elster, Schnatti and Herr Fuchs: Andy Besuch

Wigs for Desirée Nick: Brigitte Frank (Kammerspiele Munich)

Wig for Marion Christen: Paula Cara (Maxim Gorki Theatre)

Starring: Bob Schneider, Desirée Nick, Giso Weissbach, Dagmar Gelbke, Sabine Denkinger, Barbara Alphen and Dr. Gabriele Thöns

Casting by Martin Miotk

Final sound mixing and mastering: Tad Klimp

Colorgrader: Juán Ramirez

Props/Special Effects: Christina Lelli

3D Animation "Swanlake: Michael von zur Mühlen

Costume assistance: Sophie Peters

Production assistance: Marta Blazanovic-Drefers and Julie Kurzke

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Just a suitcase remains for the Salesman. Our story picks up where Arthur Miller's "Death of a Salesman" left off: between the suicidal car crash and subsequent funeral, everyone is still out to make money. This version of purgatory is all about selling, as now death becomes part of the inexorable economic chain: a marketplace where man has been transformed and purified into a commodity, rummaging through his stories, relationships, and memories, all there to be bought and sold.

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Composer: Evan Gardner

Director: Daniel Brunet

Stage-design & Costumes: Isabelle Kaiser

Video: Samuel Puccini

Sound: Tadklimp

Makeup: Martin Rink

Communication and Production: Kirsten Voss Petersen

Soprano: Gina May Walter / Counter Tenor: Georg Bochow

Tenor Saxophone: Inés González  

Paetzold Recorder: Marita Gehrer

Trombone and Tuba: Jack Adler Mckean

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Manos Tsangaris’ "Love & Diversity" takes the aesthetic form of a speed date. Seven musicians and one actress, positioned in their own distinct performance station, inhabit the theatrical space. Meanwhile, small groups of three audience members move from station to station until they have experienced all eight performances. These dates develop a rich web of instrumental music, spoken text, video and light interactions, where the instrumentalists themselves are the actors.

Composer: Manos Tsangaris

Director: Michael Höppner

Stage-design: Martin Miotk & Cristina Lelli

Costume-design: Andy Besuch & Cristina Lelli

Production Management & Communication: Kirsten Voss Petersen

Artistic Director: Evan Gardner

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With support from Fonds Darstellende Künste, we are now re-introducing our 2022 show HUM-AN Orchestra. Mauricio Kagel’s "Zwei Mann Orchestra" visualises the upheavals of the Industrial Revolution, which has left us in a world designed by and for the white male. The complex process of machines is externalised into a giant multi-layered sculpture made of ropes, wires and pulleys. Opera Lab Berlin brings this piece into the 21st century and beyond, to a future where the Digital Revolution is completed, and humanity has to seek to overcome bias and prejudices that echo from the past. Wires become wireless connections, ropes become digital networks, the transfer of energy becomes transfer of information and - and this is truly revolutionary - humans are no longer in a mere external controlling function, but integrated seamlessly into the digital machine. The processes are internalised. Human interactions become data transfer. Bodies are extended into the digital. Clouds of soot become an omnipotent digital cloud. Join us on our journey up and beyond, into the uncertain.

Compostition: Mauricio Kagel  
Staging: Gina May Walter
Musical director/version: Francesca Verga
Choreography: Ruben Nsue
Stage design: Isabelle Kaiser
Costume design: Cristina Lelli
Video: Samuel Chalela Puccini
Lightdesign & Technical director: Max Rux
Live electronic pictures: Simon Walker
Sound design: tadklimp
Instrument design: Stefan Roszak
Communications design: Sophie Pischel
Artistic director: Evan Gardner
Photographer: Sophie Pischell

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‍Voice: Nina Guo
Viola: Amanda Bailey
Violin: Davis West
Cello: Guilherme Rodrigues
Akkordeon: Franka Herwig
Piano: Alba Gentili-Tedeschi
Synthesizer: Francesca Verga
Dance: Ruben Nsue