Cooperation with school in Leonberg

From April 14 until May 7, Akademie Schloss Solitude and the Kunststiftung Baden-Württemberg are cooperating for the first time with the Ostertag Secondary School in Leonberg, bringing fellows together with pupils. During the three-week workshop, 26 students will develop a performance with the promising title »Panoptikum der IRRSINIG KEITEN« (panopticon of insanities) in and around the Akademie Schloss Solitude together with Chris Heenan (sound), Stefanie Oberhoff (performing arts), and Fine Kwiatkowski (dance/choreography).

The artists leading the workshop, Chris Heenan, Fine Kwiatkowski and Stefanie Oberhoff, first work in separate groups and later together for a collective artwork at the end of the workshop. The three artists share international experience in working with children and teenagers as well as in the practice of their own art. The pupils involved are encouraged to learn or deepen a range of technical, physical and musical skills, enabling them to experience new spaces for imagination and creativity. The work method is based on incitement and improvisation; the pupils’ own skills of expression and active participation are called for in order to enjoy the collaborative work process.

In this case, Panopticon entails the compilation of body, voice, nature, sounds, paper, color, etc., intertwined with time and space. According to the artists, the final performance »Panoptikum der IRRSINIG KEITEN« will »guide the audience through a labyrinth of visual and acoustic insanities and absorb them into a magic world of lunacies …«

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Fine Kwiatkowski has been committed to body work since she was four years old. Improvisation is central to her approach, often in collaboration with artists from the spheres of improvised and new music, performing arts, film, and drama. Fine Kwiatkowski has staged and produced her own dance theatre plays and performance projects regularly at various playhouses in Germany since 1988.

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Chris Heenan is an improvising musician who lives in Berlin. He plays alto saxophone, bass clarinet, contrabass clarinet, and analog synthesizer. Some of his current projects are »Team Up,« a trio with guitarist Jeremy Drake and changing drummers, an acoustic duo with Berlin-based drummer and light artist Michael Vorfeld, and an electronic duo with New York guitarist Chris Forsyth. He was a Solitude fellow in 2005/2006.

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Stefanie Oberhoff works in Stuttgart as a stage designer, puppeteer, and director. Since 2004 she has organized various international cultural projects, among others »Das Dorf auf dem Hügel – ein Spiel um Macht, Magie und Manipulation« (The village on the hill – a game about power, magic and manipulation), FITZ Figurentheaterzentrum Stuttgart (2007), »puppet in a box,« laboratory and exhibition for artists from Europe, Asia and Africa at the Kunststiftung Baden-Württemberg for the Theater der Welt Festival (2005). Stefanie Oberhoff was a Solitude fellow 2003/2004 and a Kunststiftung Baden-Württemberg fellow in 2000.

The event takes place in cooperation with Netzwerk Süd and with kind support of the city of Leonberg.