Ensemble

Vita

Oliver Proske is a stage designer, industrial designer, producer and managing director. He studied industrial design at the Hochschule für bildende Künste in Hamburg with Dieter Rams and at the Hochschule der Künste Berlin. Together with Nicola Hümpel, he founded the theatre ensemble NICO AND THE NAVIGATORS at the Bauhaus Dessau in 1998, for which he has since designed all 30 stage sets. Oliver Proske is also the managing director of the company, which has been based in Berlin since 1999, and has taken over the technical direction of the more than 220 guest performances in more than 50 cities worldwide to date.

With changing teams of musicians, actors, dancers and singers, the ensemble has become a permanent fixture on the international theatre and festival scene. The focus of their work is now on musical theatre. It has made guest appearances with Nico and the Navigators at the Wiener Festwochen, the Bregenz Festival, the Kunstfest Weimar, the Moscow Dom Musiki, the Korean UIMT Festival, the Paris Opéra-Comique, the Festival Nuits de Fourvière in Lyon, the Opéra Dijon, the Opéra de Rouen, the Grand Théâtre de Luxembourg, the Konzerthaus Berlin or the Hamburg Elbphilharmonie, among others. Productions of Nico and the Navigators have been co-produced or invited by the Wiener Festwochen, the Niedersächsische Musiktage, the Händel-Festspiele Halle, the Kunstfest Weimar, the BOZAR in Brussels and the Schwetzingen SWR Festspiele, among others. 

Furthermore, Oliver Proske developed stage designs for the Anhalt Theatre (The Protagonist – Bajazzo, 2011) and the Puppet Theatre Halle (Concert for a Deaf Soul, 2012), among others. In 2008 he conceived the exhibition « Dinge der Welt » (Things of the World) as part of « Theater der Welt » (Theatre of the World) and in 2012 the sound art installation Cicadas. Furthermore, he gives stage design workshops and lectures. Since 2017, he has been a board member of the Association of Scenographers. In 2011, Oliver Proske received the « George Tabori Prize » together with Nicola Hümpel.

Recent successes include Reigen at the Stuttgart Opera (2017), Die Zukunft von gestern (2018), the Totentanz project Niemand stirbt in der Mitte seines Lebens (No one dies in the middle of their life), which was performed at the Konzerthaus Berlin and the Bozar in Brussels, among others, as well as Verrat der Bilder (Betrayal of Images, 2019) – an augmented reality performance in which 24 augmented reality glasses from Magic Leap were used in an artistic context for the first time in Europe. A work with Kirill Petrenko, the new chief conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, is in the pipeline for 2020. At Hanover Opera, Oliver Proske is responsible for the stage design for the new production of Il barbiere di Siviglia.