Sigrun Fritsch

After studying politics and art with a focus on performance and dance in Kassel, Sigrun Fritsch joined the Berlin-based action theater ensemble PAN.OPTIKUM in 1988 and took over the artistic direction of the ensemble the following year.
At the beginning of the 1990s, she moved the theater group to Freiburg im Breisgau. The focus of her work lies in the creation of large-scale performances in public spaces, for which she consciously transcends the genre boundaries of individual traditions. She develops her own productions from a deep psychological perspective. She also applies this interpretative approach to her music theater performances. 
The director of the RuhrTriennale, Gerard Mortier, commissioned her to stage her own production of the Orpheus myth for the opening of the 2004 season of this important festival.
With the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra she staged Monteverdi's “Il ballo delle ingrate” (1998), Schubert's “Winterreise” (2000), with the Deutsche Oper am Rhein and Theater Freiburg “The Civil Wars” by Ph. Glass (2004, 2007), with Theater Basel “Carmina Burana” (2008) and for the Tallinn Philharmonic Orchestra Gluck's “Orpheus” (2010) together with Georg Rootering.
In August 2011, together with choreographer Wayne McGregor (Royal Ballet House London), she staged an urban production in Margate, UK, for the British Arts Council.

In 2012, she developed a production of Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet together with young rappers and hip-hop dancers for the symphony orchestra of the Südwestdeutscher Rundfunk Baden-Baden and Freiburg under the direction of François Xavier Roth. This project was shown on various German television programs.
Her work was awarded the Cultural Prize of the State of Baden-Württemberg (2005) and the Federal Ministry for Family and Youth (2008).
From 2015-2018 she was the artistic director of the large-scale cooperation project: Power of Diversity, with 9 partners in 8 European countries, the overall organization was at the action theater PAN.OPTIKUM.
She was also selected by the EU Commission for a major cooperation project from 2020-2024. 
The People Power Partnership project will take her to a total of 14 partner cities in 11 EU countries. She is directing 27 productions with 104 teenagers and young adults. The premiere was in Freiburg in September 2022.
Also in 2022, she staged Stravinsky's Sacre du Printemps in the Lokhalle Freiburg in cooperation with the orchestra of the Freiburg University of Music with 16 young dancers from the international Pan.Optikum ensemble.