Open Space Performunion (Berlin)

"The Field of Freedom is Shrinking and Freedom Needs a Field" -Paul Virillo

The Open Space Performunion was founded by Michael Steger in 2005 in response to an invitation to tour as a performance group at the Diverse Universe Festival, organized by NON GRATA in Estonia. A steadfast ensemble had already been creating diverse performance events together in different constellations within the circles of Open Space, which was founded in 1998 with the aim of collectively transforming any time and space; the public space, the museum, commercial space, and theatre space into real time live art happening. The process of becoming a performance art collective was a simple and organic response to that which was already existent in the Open Space artistic community, for the interest and feeling of necessity for expressing ourselves through the medium of Performance Art had united us.

The members of this nomadically changing group, (Philip Brehse, Lars Crosby, Amy J. Klement, Alfredo Sciuto, Luz Scherwinski, Andreas Stadler, Michael Steger, as well as short termed collaborators, Berlin based and also International Performance artists such as Kim Baek-ki, Franziska Bosse, Im Malys, Jessica Slote and Nicholas Vargelis, to name a few), are rather extreme in their differences, backgrounds and approaches to performance, and that is possibly the essence of what is unique about us, and that which keeps our works fresh and unexpected. The Performunion has performed at numerous locations in Berlin, (Theatres, Galleries, shopping malls, clubs, U and S-Bahn, parks, nomans land, beaches and in street intersections), and toured abroad extensively at International Festivals in Estonia, Finland, Denmark, France, Italy, South Korea, Toronto, Canada and N.Y.C.