Marko Košnik, Sumi Masayuki, Barbara Thun: OPERABIL KOBE

A module of media opera under construction

European premiere (KiBela Gallery, MMC Kibla, Ul. kneza Koclja 9, 2000 Maribor, Slovenia)- 6th of October 2006 at 9pm

voice: Barbara Thun
dance: Sumi Masayuki
concept, interactive environment: Marko Košnik

Co-producers: Egon March Institute – Ljubljana, Dance Camp/Zoyd project – Kobe, Tesla – Berlin, KID Kibla – Maribor. With the support of Ministry of Culture of Republic of Slovenia.

Operabil Kobe first phase was premiered in Xebec Hall, Kobe, on July 10 2006 (Masayuki, Otani, Tanaka, Košnik). Performance in Kubus Hall, Tesla - Berlin, October 13th, 14th, 8.30pm

Operabil Kobe, a module of media opera under construction, celebrates the project of Euroasian highway, which will connect Europe with China. Barbara Thun (D) is singing the manifesto about the bomb that stopped Sumi Masayuki (JP) (dance, choreography) on his walk from Europe, over Middle East and China, to Japan. Marko Košnik (SLO) (concept, design and manipulation of interactive system) is providing a technological illusion of connecting the two ends of the Silk road (Kobe and Berlin) by covering up the missing element, the bomb. It is the bomb which changed the history of modern world, especially Germany as well as Japan, and is still awaited in some parts of the world that used to be connected by the famous Silk road. Operabil Kobe suggests the bomb is the most important architect of intercultural modernity, of global informational society.

Barbara Thun, singer, performer and composer, studied classical singing at the Academy of Fine Arts in Berlin. Her compositions were performed in Berlin theaters and concert places like Deutsches Theater and BKA, and on several festivals in Germany, Chech Republic and Spain.

Sumi Masayuki, dancer, choerographer, finished his studies in law at Chuo University in Tokio, and turned to dance after attending Brecht Seminar of Drama. He was awarded at Saitama International Creative Dance Competition, for recognition in 1989, and for the best performance (Water dream) in 1991. Since 1990 he is leading Dance Camp Project, his own group and production unit, based in Kobe. In 2005 he started Zoyd opera project with Sumish Dance Company.

Marko Košnik acts as performer, writer, musician, installation arist, organizer, producer and video instrumentalist polymedia artist, started his carrier in 80's as cofounder of Laibach. Since the beginning of his collaborative projects he was producing creative environments, open labs and media platforms. Crossing from acoustic studies of subterranean Karst to prefomances and installations with sonorostatics (electro-acoustic plates) he entered performance with own productions of Egon March Institute, and started building interactive environments.