Felix
Mathias
Ott

Les Imprédictibles

Ufer Studios  ·  Berlin  ·  2020

A shared interest in confronting unpredictable situations brought the artists Corbusier and Felix Mathias Ott together. After several meetings in a dance studio during which mutual affection, respect, and artistic exchange developed they decided to create the project Les Imprédictibles. Dependencies, adaptations, and alienations became their source of inspiration.

The attempt to create a moment of truth simultaneously became the piece's guiding ambition. Within this construction, they examine the unpredictability of their collaboration. The unfolding of their relationship becomes a choreographic architecture in which integrity is the sole construction material.

"The idea already expressed in the title Les Imprédictibles — that there are two autonomous beings whose actions are fundamentally unpredictable — is realised here in an incredibly playful and fluid manner. It is a very tender, humorous, and gentle piece, and it is clear that a different performance unfolds every evening. Once again, Felix M. Ott proves himself to be an unusually inquisitive, unconventional, and experimentally driven choreographer." Elisabeth Nehring

Symphonie
des Bauens

Ufer Studios  ·  Berlin  ·  2019

Symphonie des Bauens is a physical and musical exploration of the inner workings of the boiler house at Uferstudios, accompanied by a search for the harmonic, visual, and sonic worlds of construction. Following a probationary period as a construction assistant on the site, Felix M. Ott composed a four-movement symphony in which tools become instruments and construction noises transform into music. In this forceful musical piece, Ott himself becomes both performer and part of the composition.

"In Felix M. Ott's work, emerging visual and sonic worlds merge into a total work of art. He understands not only the worlds of those on stage, but equally those of the people working behind it. Symphonie des Bauens is a homage to those who work in the shadows so that others may stand in the light. Once again, Ott proves himself a master of his craft, creating an enchanting, space-filling choreography of construction." Wolf Dickmann

Klavierstück

Tanzfabrik Berlin  ·  2018

The research began with a decades-old tape recording, long overlooked and accidentally discovered in the estate of Dadaist Richard Huelsenbeck. On the recording, artist Rafael Montañez Ortiz can be heard smashing a piano with an axe. In his duet, Felix M. Ott allows himself to be moved by a piano. By shifting and dismantling the instrument, the possibilities and limits of this relationship are tested. Between intimate confrontation and unsettling embraces, visual and sonic landscapes emerge, revealing the inner workings of both.

"Felix Ott renders the conventional meaning and function of an everyday object absurd and mischievously leads the audience and their expectations by the nose. Piano playing becomes quite literally a play with the piano, a symbol of bourgeois high culture and luxury consumer goods. Although actions are repeatedly initiated but never completed, something nevertheless happens: over the course of the performance, the status object piano is transformed into an art object." Christine Matschke

M.A.R.S.

Tanz im August  ·  Berlin  ·  2017

In M.A.R.S., Felix M. Ott and Bahar Temiz investigate different ways of moving together. Navigating as instruments within an unusual score, they move in intimate complicity from one situation to the next. While operating at the boundaries of intimacy, they establish a playground that allows for total surrender. They merge into a single creature in order to reinvent themselves through their relationship. A disturbing game unfolds, lifting both performers beyond fixed gender roles.

"I saw two acrobats seeking to melt or merge. The ambiguity of their connection in the foreground is disturbing. I enjoyed oscillating between this strange way of being one with everything against the other — hearing and seeing a kind of musical machine or organism inventing other rhythms and relations, ultimately carried away by movements inherited from sexual intercourse. I linger on this sensation before the illusion that two make one dissolves." Xavier Le Roy

An Iliad

Tanzfabrik Berlin  ·  2014

Felix Mathias Ott's AN ILIAD is more than a retelling of Homer's epic. The constructors determine the narrative with archaic force, erecting Trojan spaces. From a choreography of building and destruction emerge evocative visual worlds and an audiovisual space that urges the audience to confront their own desires.

Collage-like, AN ILIAD moves from the contemporary stage to the ancient polis and back again, exposing our present through its invisible games. Two men on stage: heavy bodies, everyday clothing. Workers instead of warriors. Ott presents them in synchrony, laboring against material. In utmost calm and symmetry, they wield axes, cordless drills, and tools of all kinds. Here again, Ott demonstrates his mastery of theatrical means — light, sound, wind — everything precisely calibrated.

"An impressive performance with subtle humour, powerful theatrical effects, and highly precise choreography." Frank Schmidt, Deutschlandradio

Odyssey
Complex

Szene Salzburg  ·  Maison de la Culture Amiens  ·  2012

With this internationally acclaimed production, Felix M. Ott turns the unorthodox research journey into Greek mythology into a true Odyssey. Everyday reality collapses before the audience's eyes, unleashing an inferno. Chapter by chapter, spectators follow a wild journey through primordial forces, gods, sexuality, and cosmic energy, descending into the deepest, unknown corners of the self.

With ironic humour, Ott employs the simplest means and theatrical tricks alongside multimedia techniques, weaving them into an Odyssey between reality and fiction — sensory, poetic, and intellectually precise.

"What begins as a modest stage lecture is moments later flooded by 4,000 litres of water from a rain machine. Ott climbs onto a table, a white flipchart becomes a sail, a mop turns into an oar as he rows from Cyclops to Sirens. Nothing this season was stronger, funnier, or more exhilarating — and that is precisely the problem. Which theatre wants to show something that is truly enjoyable and intelligent at the same time?" Arnd Wesemann