After months of hard work, I am happy to share some exciting news. Together with Choreographer Moritz Ostruschnjak, I created a dance and theatre piece for Theater Bielefeld called NOOSTOPIA. We created lots of robots, a crazy stage & lightning design coming straight out of a virtual world, great music and costumes and of course 10 great dancers.

About

NOOSTOPIA Trailer

English Press Text:
“We were here”. There’s no way of denying it. Climate catastrophe, scarcity of resources and genetic control are phenomena of our present time. They were largely caused by those technological innovations through which we actually wanted to improve our lives. And now that things are getting out of hand, the maxim for action is shifting: we were just trying to subjugate the wild and unpredictable nature, but now it is to be protected and preserved. But what do we actually understand by “nature”? Isn’t our mental concept essentially determined by technologies? Where does nature end and where does the technosphere begin?
TANZ Bielefeld embraces the digital: walking robotic branches, pneumatic mushrooms and music robots determine the landscape of Noostopia (noos: “intellect”, “mind”, topia: “place”, “space”) and transform the TOR 6 Theaterhaus into an interdisciplinary experimental field that examines the consequences of the human urge for innovation. At the intersection of contemporary dance and digital media art, choreographer Moritz Ostruschnjak, artist Martin Backes, and stage designer Thilo Ullrich question the connection between what has born from nature and what has been made. What awaits us in the “Next Nature”? How can we encounter it if we haven’t outsourced ourselves beforehand?

Supported by the Ministry of Culture and Science of North Rhine-Westphalia in cooperation with the NRW KULTURsekretariat.

Process and Production

Video Trailer
Here`s the complete ‘Making of NOOSTOPIA’ combined in one single video:

Stage Design
The NOOSTOPIA stage design links the physical to the digital and the digital back into the physical

Robots / Automats
For Noostopia, I created three different robot parts:
1. Kinetic Walkers
2. Pneumatic Chirpers
3. Music Automats

Kinetic Walker (Side View)

Final Pneumatic Chirpers (all together without cables)

Music Automats (On Stage)

Noopstopia Soundtrack / Spotify Playlist

Here`s the official NOOSTOPIA Soundtrack / Spotify playlist. Included are all tracks used in the actual dance piece. We also added a few more tracks which didn’t make it in the end, but were a big part of the process developing NOOSTOPIA. Happy listening.

Brand Identity

For the piece, I also created a fictional visual Brand identity which includes logo, typography and colors.

Costumes

For the costumes, we created a sort of fashion brand which follows the rules of the overall visual brand identity.

Premiere Theatre Poster

Credits

Idea and Concept: Moritz Ostruschnjak, Martin Backes
Staging and Choreography: Moritz Ostruschnjak
Media Art and Robots: Martin Backes
Set and Costume Design: Thilo Ullrich
Music and Sound Design: Martin Backes, Moritz Ostruschnjak
Dramaturgy: Janett Metzger
Choreographic Cooperation and Training Management: Sarah Deltenre
Production Management: Christa Beland
Project Assistance: Cara Marina Quartier
Development and Programming Robot Units: Michael Ang, So Kanno, Ties van Asseldonk, Martin Backes
Dancers: Dhélé Agbetou, Tommaso Balbo, Carla Bonsoms i Barra, Melissa Cosseta, Gyeongjin Lee, Noriko Nishidate, Alexandre Nodari, Adrien Ursulet, Simon Wolant, Elvira Zúñiga Porras

Photos: Joseph Ruben & Martin Backes
Video: Sascha Vredenburg

Blog Entry / More Information

You will find more information and photos about the project right here: Blog Entry and More Information