During this interview we discussed ideas around embodiment, re-embodiment, kimospheres, atmospheres, technology and issues related to the practice of Johannes Birringer as a choreographer, director and professor of performance technologies. His publications have taken up important issues surrounding the body and technologies, theatre, dance, and choreography. Birringer underlines the pivotal moment when he attended a Pina Bausch performance, as a young student, and how it affected and redirected his career. Other figures like Stelarc haunt this discussion. With the DAP-Lab he has created numerous stage works, installations and short films. Recent research, conducted in Texas in 2019, explores underground space and caves and how they are linked to deep listening methodologies proposed by Pauline Oliveros.

Johannes Birringer is a choreographer/media artist and co-director of DAP-Lab at Brunel University where he is a Professor of Performance Technologies. He also directs the Houston-based AlienNation Co. and is the founder of the Interaktionslabor (http://interaktionslabor.de). He has created numerous dance-theatre works, films and video installations that have been shown in Europe, the Americas, China, and Japan. DAP-Lab’s “Suna no Onna” was featured at festivals in London; the mixed-reality installation “UKIYO” went on European tour in 2010. The dance opera “for the time being [Victory over the Sun]” premiered at Sadler’s Wells (2014). DAP-Lab’s most recent dance installations, “kimospheres” III-VI (2016-2019) explore the convergence of physical-sensory and augmented VR spaces, and were shown in Madrid, Paris, London and Durban, SA. The dance performance “Mourning for a dead moon” (December 2019) addresses the climate crisis. His books include “Media and Performance,” “Performance on the Edge,” “Performance, Technology & Science,” “Dance and ChoreoMania,” “Tanz der Dinge/Things that Dance,” and a new book, “Kinetic Atmospheres: Performance and Immersion” (Routledge) that probes the implications of environmental immersion and mixed reality digital architectures.