Dieter Heitkamp
From Contactencyclopedia
Dieter Heitkamp (born April 20th, 1957 in Lübbecke, NRW, Germany) is a member of Tanzfabrik Berlin since its founding in 1978 and has been one of its artistic directors until 1995.
He has studied Physical Education & Biology at the FU Berlin and Visual Arts at the HdK Berlin. He started his dance education in 1977 with Contact Improvisation, followed by various modern dance techniques, release and alignment techniques and Body-Mind Centering.
He was invited to teach at many State Ballet Schools and universities (Frankfurt, Leipzig, Berlin, Dresden) at the choreography department of the Ernst Busch Theatre University in Berlin and various institutions throughout Europe.
Since 1981 Dieter Heitkamp has created 18 evening-length productions for Tanzfabrik Berlin; he also choreographed for the Frankfurt Ballett (`86), two theatre productions at the Freie Volksbühne Berlin (`88/ Peter Palitzsch and `91), for "The silent scream", a TV documentary series on German Expressionist Dance (`91), for "Kontakt Triptychon", a 16 mm filmdance by filmmaker Lutz Gregor (`92) and for Junge Ballett Company Hessen (`94).
In 1997 he choreographed and made the set design for the ballet "Le Disperazioni del Signor Pulcinella" at the State Opera Unter den Linden in Berlin with music by Hans Werner Henze. This production was filmed for ARTE TV.
From 1988 until 1994 he has been one of the artistic directors of the TanzWerkstatt "Dance in August"-Festival. He has also been a founding member and member of the board of directors (`90 - `92) of "German Forum for Contemporary Dance". He organized various video dance projects at the Summeracademy Film & Media (`90 and `91) and Olympia Werkstatt (`91 and `92).
His choreographies have been presented in many german cities, throughout Europe, Canada, USA, Japan, Hongkong, Brazil, Letvia and Russia.
Since 2001 he is a professor for Contemporary Dance at the Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst and the director of the department for Contemporary and classical dance.
Since 2006, he is part of the directing team of the Tanzlabor_21/Tanzplan Frankfurt Rhein-Main.
