Annabel Arden (UK)

Annabel Arden (born 1959) is a director, actress and co-founder of the company Complicite in 1983. Her career as an independent director encompasses theatre, opera and broadcasting as well as devising new work. She has directed for Opera North, The English National Opera, The Royal National Theatre, Almeida Theatre and BBC. 

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Annette Arlander (FI)

Annette Arlander (born 1956) is a pioneer of Finnish performance art and practice-based artistic research. After working as a director for many years, she now works mainly with research and performance projects of her own. Annette Arlander is Professor of Performance art and Theory at the Theatre Academy in Helsinki. 

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Bojan Jablanovec (SL)

Bojan Jablanovec is dedicated to theatre research. He is interested in theatre as a medium of communication rather than aestheticization. Using reduction as a working method, he focuses on the relationship between the performer and the audience and on the question of the real in this relationship. In 2002 he founded Via Negativa, an international contemporary performing arts project.  

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Catherine Poher (F/DK)

Catherine Poher (born 1953) is a director and visual artist based in Copenhagen. She has directed performances at Theatre Rio Rose, ‘Teatret’ with Hans Rønne and at the Royal Danish Theatre, among others. Her work is mainly driven by a wish to create theatre for children and adults alike. Her performances are characterized by a special focus on the spontaneous, the sensual and the simple, speaking to audiences of all ages. 

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Eugenio Barba (DK)

Eugenio Barba (born 1936) is artistic director and founder of Odin Teatret. During the past y years he has directed more than seventy productions with Odin Teatret and the intercultural teatrum Mundi Ensemble. In 1979 he founded ISTA – International School of theatre Anthropology. His unique work method has been developed from his friend and colleague Jerzy Grotowski’s physical actors’ training and voice work, and together with Odin Teatret he has developed the ‘barter’, a way of exchanging cultural expressions with a community within the structure of a performance. 

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La Fabrique Imaginaire (BE)

Eve Bonfanti and Yves Hunstad are co-founders of the theatre company La Fabrique Imaginaire, sharing the roles of playwrights, actors, directors and stage designers. Their first play, La Tragédie Comique from 1988, was created during 5 years of intensive rehearsal work and has played more than 500 performances around the world, translated into ten different languages.

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Peeping Tom (BE/AR/F)

Peeping Tom is a theatre and dance company based in Brussels and founded in 2000 by Gabriela Carrizo (Argentina) and Franck Chartier (France). Their physical-visual performances take their starting point in people's habits and idiosyncrasies. Peeping Tom has toured extensively in Europe and the rest of the world and has won several awards, among them the French ”Prix du Meilleur Spectacle de Danse de l'année 2005".

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Hans Rønne (DK)

Hans Rønne began his theatre carreer in 1979 as conscientious objector at Kaskadeteatret in Aarhus. In 1989 he founded ”Teatret” together with his wife and collaboration partner, set designer Gitte Baastrup, to work in his very own, personal, physical style. Since then he has created, acted in and directed a great number of performances of which several have been awarded, and many of them have toured all over the world.

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Hans van den Broeck (BE)

Hans van den Broeck's fascination with theatre is a result of his love for film and movement. His style leans heavily on cinematic elements and is characterised by a body of work that oscillates between the boundaries of dance, performance and video. Hans van den Broeck was one of the core members of Les Ballets C de la B for 12 years, and since 2001 he has been the artistic director of his own company SOIT.

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Heiner Goebbels (D)

Heiner Goebbels (born 1952) is a composer and director. His work has toured extensively and has given a new dimension to the concept Gesamtkunstwerk. He presents a number of ingredients and it is up to the spectator to sort them. Heiner Goebbels is professor at the Institute for Applied Theatre Studies at the Justus-Liebig University in Giessen and president of the Theatre Academy Hessen. 

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Helgard Haug (D)

Helgard Haug (born 1969) is director and concept developer in the performance group Rimini Protokoll that creates performances for the stage, the urban space and for radio with the participation of ‘experts’ instead of actors. Besides Helgard Haug, Rimini Protokoll consists of Stefan Kaegi and Daniel Wetzel. e group has been the founder of a new international reality trend, winning a series of international awards. 

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Jan Fabre (BE)

Jan Fabre (born 1958) began his career in 1980 as director and stage designer. He made a clean break with the conventions of contemporary theatre by introducing the concept of real-time performance. The body in all its forms has been the subject of his investigations since the early 1980s. The name of Jan Fabre’s company, Troubleyn, means ‘remaining faithful’. 

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Jean-François Peyret (F)

Jean-Francois Peyret was co-director of Sapajou-Théâtre together with Jean Jourdheuil from 1984-94. Founder of Compagnie tf2. Peyret is the creator of a large number of unusual performances dealing with scientific and philosophical themes. In his artistic work process he mirrors the scientific method that is described in each particular performance.

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Jerome Bel (F)

Jérôme Bel (born 1964) started choreographing in 1994 and has become one of the leading figures in the movement of non-dance. He provokes and entertains audiences with concepts that challenge the conventions of performance. Bel’s performances have toured all over the world. 

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Kaspars Znotins (LV)

Kaspars Znotins (born 1975) is an actor at The New Riga Theatre in Latvia. The theatre's artistic director Alvis Hermanis stages performances where the creative process is centered around the actors' own research and improvisation based on real people and real life stories.

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Kirsten Dehlholm (DK)

Kirsten Dehlholm (born 1945) founded her performance theatre company Hotel Pro Forma in 1985. Originally a visual artist, she takes her starting point in a space or a theme through which she investigates the world. She o en chooses as performers people who have certain characteristics or skills, and she regularly includes objects and actions that are not normally associated with performing arts. Her performances have toured extensively all over the world. 

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Kitte Wagner (DK)

Kitte Wagner has a Master of communication and dramaturgy and is co-founder of Bruthalia Teatret (1994-98). For more than 10 years she worked as dramaturg at Betty Nansen Teatret in Copenhagen, collaborating with director Peter Langdal on a series of modern adaptations of classical plays. She has developed new working methods and performance genres in collaboration with stand-up comedians. Since 2007 she is managing director of Nørrebro Teater.

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Laurent Chétouane (D/F)

Living in Germany, the French director Laurent Chétouane (b. 1973) is a representative of puristic works of theatre with a strong focus on language. One of the most important young directors in Germany, he stages both new and classical drama. In 2010 he directed Ibsen's "A Doll's House" at the Norwegian National Theatre in Oslo.

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Lotte van den Berg (NL)

Lotte van den Berg (b. 1973) creates work that sits between the worlds of mime, dance and theatre, characterised by the wish to create a space without words or rules, where the spectator becomes a participant. Much of her work is created on location, and she chooses to work not only with professional actors, but also with young people and amateurs.

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Maxine Doyle (UK)

Maxine Doyle (born 1970) is associate director and choreographer for Punchdrunk, with whom she has created a number of works since 2003. In Punchdrunk’s performances the audience members are free to roam the performance site, which can be as large as a ve-storey industrial warehouse, and can either follow the performers or simply explore the world of the performance. 

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Palle Granhøj (DK)

Palle Granhøj’s consistent use of his obstruction method and his exploration of the method’s effect on the artistic expression has created the unique aesthetics of Granhøj Dans’ performances since 1989. The company tours extensively all over the world.

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Richard Foreman (USA)

Richard Foreman (born 1937) has written, designed and directed more than fifty performances in New York and internationally. His productions are characterized by a complex interchange between language, visual tableaux and a constant involvement of the audience. Foreman describes his work as ‘total theatre’. In 1968 he founded the Ontological–Hysteric Theatre. 

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Richard Lowdon (UK)

Richard Lowdon (born 1961) has a degree in Theatre Studies from Exeter University, and is a founding member, designer and performer in the experimental theatre company Forced Entertainment, formed in 1984. The award-winning and internationally acclaimed company creates mixed-media contemporary performances, installations, videos and durational performances. 

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Monster Truck (D/DK)

Monster Truck is a young performance company who works with their own radical way of conquering the stage. Their works are apocalyptic theatrical experiences where elements of show, slapstick, stunts and visual art are combined into a whole. Monster Truck is a collective; everybody participates in the development of concepts, staging and performing.

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GOB Squad (GB/D)

Berit Stumpf (born 1969) and Sean Patten (born 1971) are co-founding members of the international performers’ collective Gob Squad, formed in 1994. Gob Squad makes performances, videos, installations and happenings, mixing theatre, performance, film and real life. The group tours worldwide with their works. 

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Signa Sørensen (DK)

Signa Sørensen (born 1975) works internationally with large site-specific fictional works and universes of experiences. Non-actors participate in installations where the audience moves freely and interactively create their own experience. Signa Sørensen has founded the artistic partnership SIGNA with the Austrian performer and media artist Arthur Koestler.

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Soheil Parsa (CAN)

Soheil Parsa (born 1954) was born in Iran and studied acting and theatre at the University of Tehran. After coming to Canada in 1984, he completed a second Bachelor of Arts in Theatre Studies at York University and established Modern Times Stage Company, an experimenting, culturally diverse and award-winning theatre company. 

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Staffan Valdemar Holm (S/DK)

Staffan Valdemar Holm (born 1958) was trained as a director at Statens Teaterskole in Danmark 1988. His raw and physical performances has provoked audiences and his work in general is characterised by being sharp and unsentimental. From 2002-08 Staffan Holm was director of the Swedish National Theatre Dramaten, and from 2011 he is director of Schauspielhaus Düsseldorf. In 2010 he was awarded the Danish theatre award Reumert for performance of the year, for Richard III at the Royal Danish Theatre.

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Stef Lernous (BE)

Stef Lernous studied fine arts at the Hogeschool Sint-Lukas in Brussels. He directed for the De Maan figure theatre. Since 1999 Stef Lernous has been one of the driving forces behind the Abattoir Fermé theatre company in Mechelen. The company's work is often based on outsiders, dissidents, science-fiction writers and voices from the counterculture. Stef Lernous adapts, samples and contextualises stimuli from cinema, documentaries, journalism, psychiatry, art brut, comic books a.o.

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Sue Balint (CAN)

Sue Balint is dramaturg and producer at Modern Times Stage Company in Toronto, Canada, a widely acclaimed company led by Iranian-Canadian director Soheil Parsa and actor Peter Farbridge. Sue Balint also works as a playwright and is a founding member of Theatrefront since 1998, an award-winning and experimenting company that develops and presents new plays.

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Wanda Golonka (D/F)

Wanda Golonka (born 1958) is a French choreographer and director living and working in Germany. Trained in classical ballet and modern dance, she founded and directed the company Neuer Tanz from 1985-95. She was director at Schauspiel Frankfurt from 2001-09. In Wanda Golonka's Gesamtkunstwerke the space is as important as the actors and dancers, as she crosses the borders between dance, performance, music and text.

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Wayn Traub (BE)

Wayn Traub (born 1972) is a director, filmmaker, choreographer and performer. In the late nineties he published his Manifesto for an Animal and Ritual Theatre, and his creative work is characterized by the desire to explore a modern ritual theatre. He uses text, music, narrative, set and film to produce a polyphonic whole. In 2012, Traub stopped making theatre performances and turned his focus to multimedia works. 

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The Essential Condition 1

What is the essential condition for a successful rehearsal process?

Answers by: Kirsten Dehlholm, Soheil Parsa, WT, Bojan Jablanovec, Eve Bonfanti, Yves Hunstad, Sean Patten, Berit Stumpf, Richard Lowdon, Annabel Arden, Kitte Wagner, and Hans van den Broeck.

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The Essential Condition 2

What is the essential condition for a successful rehearsal process?

Answers by: Wanda Golonka, Staffan Valdemar Holm, Heiner Goebbels, Lotte Van Den Berg, Jan Fabre, Stef Lernous, Franck Chartier, Gabriela Carrizo, Eugenio Barba, Signa Sørensen, and Jean Francois Peyret.

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Why Theatre?

Rehearsal Matters interviews with 10 artists about why they chose theatre, performance, or dance.

Artists: Catherine Poher (F/DK), Franck Chartier (F), Stef Lernous (B), Yves Hunstad (B), Eve Bonfanti (B), Jan Fabre (B), Hans Rønne (DK), Kitte Wagner (DK), Jerome Bel (F), Richard Lowdon (UK).

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