Alex Franz Zehetbauer (Vienna)

Picture shows Alex Franz Zehetbauer
Foto: Claudia Lomoschitz
Picture shows Alex Franz Zehetbauer
Foto: Claudia Lomoschitz

Biography:

Alex Franz Zehetbauer, born in Brooklyn in 1990, is a sound choreographer, performance artist and singer. Critics have called him an angel, a swamp monster and a red-eyed demon. He studied at the Experimental Theater Wing at NYU Tisch School of the Arts and at the International Theater Workshop in Amsterdam.

His most recent works include: “Brunnentroll” (2021), a concert performance in public fountains funded by KÖR Kunst im Öffentlichen Raum; ‘wet dreaming at 52Hz’ (2019), ‘AyH’ (2021), and “hearing the wild heart” (2022).

Freischwimmen project:

involuntary musical imagery (working title) is a project swimming in the amniotic fluid of:  a desire to explore the choreographic potential of the song. An interest in using the voice to bring things into existence. Song and sounding as a means of creating worlds that aren’t physically in the room but rather brought into existence through guiding the imaginations of the audience with sung text, the sounding body, melody, and emotion. A wish to investigate the cultural impact of songs themselves and the way singing contaminates. A desire to explore earworms as a way to infect a group of people with ideas, words, thoughts.

Statement:

FREISCHWIMMEN has given me the opportunity for a luscious and long research and working period for my production. The network has supported me in building international connections and opened up new scenes and spaces for me to share my work within. I am very grateful to the platform for the relationships I have fostered through it, with venues, with dramaturges, with artists, with local scenes. It has been a pleasure.

Weblinks:

Performances:

Invitations and residencies:

Invitaions

2023 brut, Vienna
2023 Les Urbaines, Renens/Lausanne
2023 FFT, Düsseldorf

Residencies

2023 LOFFT – DAS THEATER, Leipzig
2023 Gessnerallee, Zurich

Freischwimmen is currently supported by the network funding of the Fonds Darstellende Künste.

Freischwimmen was funded in 2020-23 by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media via the "Promoting Connections" program of the Bundesverband Freie Darstellende Künste e.V.

Freischwimmen was also supported by Pro Helvetia, the Swiss Arts Council.