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The Post Confinement Travelogue(2023)
Rewind Song (2021)
Rolling (2019)
The Umbrellas of Phnom Penh(2017 / 2018)
Fassbinder, Faust and the Animists (2017)
Dance Portraits - Cambodia (2016)
Asutorito Endoruwaitowith Astrid Endruweit(2016)
Galaxy Khmer / Portrait Series Battambangwith The Cambodian Space Project(2014)
Portrait Series Battambang - Installment 1 (2012)
Burgportraits Vienna(2011)
Portrait Series Rotterdam(2010)
Portrait Series Istanbul(2010)
Death, Dance and Some Talk(2010)
Portrait Series Berlin (2007)
The Biography Remix with Marina Abramovic (2004)
Portrait Series. Alone / Gregoire(2004)
The H.C. Andersen Project – Tales and Costumes (2003)
Portraits 360 Sek (2002)
Total Masala Slammer – Heartbreak No. 5 (2001)
pigg in hell (2000)
Out of Sorts (1999)
Frankula (1998)
Planet Lulu (1997)
Solo with Charlotte Engelkes (1995)
Daniel and the Dancers (1994)
Rough (1994)
Jack’s Travelogue / La Prison des Femmes (1992)
Fast Forward /Bad Air und so…(1991)
Rewind Song (1989)
Pressure (1987)
Return of Sensation (1984)
White Out (1982)
Snapping, Computing and Performing (1981)
Maniac Productions(1975–1979)
 
 
 
 
 

About Michael Laub and Remote Control Productions

© Georg Hochmuth
© Georg Hochmuth, APA

Founded in 1981 by director-choreographer Michael Laub, Remote Control Productions emerged from the Performance Art group Maniac Productions (1975–79). The company has presented works in different forms, genres and sub-genres ranging from intimate, low-tech solo pieces to large-scale biographies, deconstructed soap-opera/musical, and literature-based pieces (Planet Lulu: Wedekind; Frankula: Shelley/Stoker/de Sade). Remote Control performances make use of influences derived from various media – video, visual arts, and especially cinema – all generally approached from a minimalist perspective. Material created during rehearsals is often incorporated within a preconceived fictional framework.

The casts assembled in various locations by Remote Control Productions frequently include professional dancers/performers as well as nonprofessionals making their first appearance on the stage.
Since the sci-fi inspired choreography of Daniel and the Dancers (1994), Laub has increasingly made use of dance, enhancing the rhythmic nature of his productions while attempting to place on an equal footing the formal elements deployed (text, dance, set design, video, music, lights).
Although Laub is noted for his extreme cut-up technique (Return of Sensation, Rewind Song), some of his more recent productions have taken a more linear direction. In 2002, he began adapting portraiture to the stage, using no narrative pretext other than his subject. The Portrait Series project was initiated by Tom Stromberg, then director of the Hamburg Schauspielhaus, who was struck by the portrait-like qualities of Laub’s earlier solo works and decided to commission a series of six-minute pieces (Portraits 360 Sek) presenting Schauspielhaus actors and employees (an usher, a cleaning woman, a chauffeur, extras). For the Roma Europa Festival in 2004, Laub created a portrait of Performance artist Marina Abramovic and her work (The Biography Remix). This production was followed by portraits of company members Astrid Endruweit and Greg Zuccolo (Portrait Series Alone/Gregoire). The pieces contained both highly artificial and radically realistic material ranging from intimate, sometimes poetic, diary excerpts to trashy home movies. The images projected in these portraits reflect aspects of who the performers are or would like to be. As of 2007, the concept was broadened by auditioning casts in various cities, leading to Portrait Series Berlin (2007), Portrait Series Istanbul (2010), Portrait Series Rotterdam (2010), Burgportraits Vienna (2011) and Portrait Series Battambang (2012-2014).
Regular collaborators of the company have included composer Larry Steinbacheck (1960-2016), whose soundscapes were integral components of most Remote Control pieces from 1989 until 2010. Current members include dancer-choreographer Greg Zuccolo, lighting designer Nigel Edwards and technical director Bodo Gottschalk.
In 2013 Laub began collaborating with Phnom Penh based rock band The Cambodian Space Project and film-maker Marc Eberle on ‘Galaxy Khmer'
which premiered at HAU Berlin in 2014 as part of Staging Cambodia. 2016 saw the opening of the solo Asutorito Endoruwaito with Astrid Endruweit in Berlin's HAU Hebbel am Ufer, which was followed by Dance Portraits - Cambodia, a ten screen video installation during [Trans] Asia Portraits at the 21er Haus in Vienna, presented by ImPulsTanz Festival and the Weltmuseum Vienna. In 2017, following the world premier of Fassbinder, Faust and the Animists at HAU Hebbel am Ufer Berlin, the piece opened the ImPulsTanz Festival in Vienna.
With his latest work 'Rolling' Laub continued the disposition of intertwining film and theater on stage and conceived a play that was entirely composed out of over 200 film excerpts staged in a roughly two-hour piece. In 2019, it premiered at HAU Hebbel am Ufer Berlin and toured ImPulsTanz Festival in Vienna the same year.
Michael Laub is founder and artistic director of the artist in residency programme The Umbrellas of Phnom Penh. From 2017-18 TUOPP was a unique structure in Phnom Penh that accommodated residencies for international artists and local creatives from different fields of practice including visual artists, video / film makers, dancers, choreographers, sound artists / designers.
http://www.theumbrellasofphnompenh.com

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