Foto © Otfried Lieberknecht

“The extreme freedom inherent in dance shows in this performance with fascinating power.”
Birgit Kirchner, Kölner Stadtanzeiger

Britta Lieberknecht is rooted in the avantgarde of the 80s and has made important contributions to develop the genre of crossover dance performance in Germany. Her continuous and still ongoing working process, has led to ingenious pieces of high quality showing depth and humor, independently from trends.

Presently: Britta Lieberknecht & Company”- dance and music

2013 Britta founded this company to focus on the choreographic interpretation of music. With 4-6 dancers she choreographed two pieces to baroque music and 2016 one to Modern Music including choroegraphies to the Solo Sonatas of Bernd Alois Zimmermann for the festival ACHT BRÜCKEN. With the support of Laurenz Gemmer, pianist and teacher at the University of Music, Köln, she developed systems to lead a precise dialogue with the music and keeps inventing new approaches. Supported by a big effort of researching on dance and music she approaches this relationship in many ways. Precise imitation, contrast of dynamics and mood, transfer of the structure of a 5 -voice fugue of J.S. Bach to 5 dancers moving vacuume cleaners are some examples. With great freedom amd great respect she creates abstract works. She refines continuously her complex and innovative movement language. In her collaboration with the dancers she focuses on the naturalness, precision and musicality of the movements. She develops the communicativity of the group with every project further.

 

New: solo performance and drawings

Seperate media internally connected. Britta presents drawings made from moving with the drawing materials together with a dance solo (related to this process) since 2016 in group exhibitions.

 

Britta Lieberknecht & Technicians: dance and objects- a radical relationship.

1989 she founded together with Reinhard Gerum (physical actor) the group “Britta Lieberknecht & Technicians”.
As well on stage as outdoors the pieces of Britta Lieberknecht and Reinhard Gerum were so radically bound to the installations that those were not a stage decor but a functioning part of a poetic Gesamtkunstwerk. E.g. in TREMBLING/ VIBRATO the soloist moved thoroughly connected with her body to a table. In „RIVER -TV“ the performers danced live for three hours on 70 TVs forming a circular land art sculpture. In „IRXSPROCKS HORIZON“ the dance was not related to an object but a geometric scoreMotive formed the choreography of the dance like an invisible skeleton.
The destruction of chairs and the tearing of clothes became important motives of her work.
The intensity of the confrontation of the body with the objects lead to a clear aesthetic response: wild or meditative, with technical or with simple devices. Often the collision of the archaic with contemporary western civilization was the resulting theme- always in a deep and humorous way.
2003 Reinhard Gerum left the stage, returning 2010-2011 for new versions of early performances.

 

Collaboration with live musicians

Britta Lieberknecht collaborated with musicians, mostly staging them as interacting performance partners, especially trombonist Paul Hubweber, jazz drummer Christoph Hillmann and violinist Toshiko Takada. With Paul Hubweber, who is musician and performer with his instrument, she developes the physical interaction of musician and dancer in extraordinary ways since 20 years.

 

Children Theatre and Theatre for Young Audiences

From 2007 - 2015 she worked for the “Theater Monteure” in 5 productions with different functions: as co- director, co- choreographer and dancer.

 

presentation at int. festivals:

a.o. documenta IX, Festival X94 Academy of Arts Berlin, Tanzfabrik Berlin, Int. Tanztage Potsdam, Int. Theaterfestival Freiburg, Theaterzwang NRW, Staatstheater Kassel, Skulpturenmuseum Glaskasten Marl, Unikum Klagenfurt (A), Kunsthaus Aarau, VIPER Luzern (CH), Charleroi Danse (B), Le Botanique Brüssel (B), Opéra de Lille (F), The Place Theater London (GB), Phoenix Arts Space Bristol (GB), Video Dansa Barcelona (ESP), Dies de Dansa Barcelona 09 etc.

Exhibitions:

Skultpurenmuseum Marl, Brotfabrik Bonn, Pact Zollverein Essen, Städtische Galerie Neuss.

Awards:

2009 Cologne Dance Theatre Award and Cologne Children- and Youth Theatre Award.