Hubert Lepka

Hubert Lepka (born 1958 in Ried / Innkreis, Austria), choreographer, director. In 1992 he founded the artists' network lawine torrèn.

Lepka lives and works at Passauergut, near Salzburg. He studied classical music (opera) and contemporary dance at the Salzburg Mozarteum and law at the University of Salzburg. As an artist and with his company lawine torrèn, he became known especially for his grand-scale open-air performances at unusual places.

The artistic approach typical for lawine torrèn focuses on landscape, architecture, (local) history and mythology of the actual place or setting. The artistic work usually consists in a fusion of film, new media and performance by dancers, actors and also machines. Locations such as the river Danube and its banks (as in "Division at Banks" for Klangwolke Linz 2005, and "Leviathan" in Mautern / Krems upon Danube), a glacier ("mars : 2068" and "Hannibal" on the Rettenbach Glacier in Soelden), and an Airport ("Taurus Rubens") have been serving as a stage.

Since their founding in 1992, lawine torrèn have been dealing with the confrontation of arts and economy. Looking for new and unconventional modes of communication, market-oriented companies (industry, tourism, architecture, commerce) have decided to co-operate with the artists' network. At the same time, director Hubert Lepka, together with actors, dancers, media artists and performing machines, is creating pieces to be staged at theatres and (performance) festivals. In November 2004, Lepka was asked for a contribution to the European Forum Alpbach, the topic being "Arts and Economy". His essay for this conference was called "The irrational calculus of the superfluous", German "Das irrationale Kalkül des Überflüssigen".

The philosophy of the lawine torrèn's mastermind is that choreography cannot be constricted; moreover, it is all about the feeling of how movement is perceived, every movement. It was due to our sense for kinaesthesia and our ability for being empathetic that we fully understood our teddy bears - today, we admire the elegance of a crane. The increased upright - the genuine axis of the wish for elevation in dance - forms the basis for "artful elevation". Conducted by humans, cars, diggers, cranes, aeroplanes, snow cats, ships, whichever vehicles, become the electric amplifier of a dance that erupts like rock 'n' roll from the stifling air of the theatre, its space self-referential and formatted too tightly. Drama is understood as an evolutionary creature; art works on the basis of memetic processes: copy, variation and selection form the algorithm of the system called art, which unremittingly saves beauty anew, without signification and orientation. Lawine torrèn sees itself as an attention-industrial formation that functions as a catalyst in and of global economy, steering processes instead of destructing them.

• 2006 Leviathan Mautern/Krems a.d. Donau
• 2006 mars : 2068: a real time science fiction Rettenbachgletscher, Sölden
• 2005 Teilung am Fluss (Division at Banks) Klangwolke Linz
• 2004 Skyhook
• 2003 Taurus Rubens Hangar 7 Salzburg Airport
• 2002 Love Turn: Miniature Theatre after Leo Tolstoi
• 2002 Repair
• 2001 Hannibal: A Glacial Theatre Rettenbachgletscher, Sölden (2001 - 2007)
• 2001 Wildnis Luft Military Airfield Zeltweg
• 1999 Leopardenfell der Traktorendichte Festival der Regionen, Upper Austria
• 1999 Hearing Monkeys Ars Electronica, Posthof Linz
• 1997 Der halbe Horizont (Half the Horizon) Red Bull Airshow
• 1997 Die Entführung aus dem Serail (Abduction from the Seraglio) Sommerszene Salzburg
• 1996 Blaustahl Industrial Area Völklinger Hütte (Saarland)
• 1996 Kalkstadt Cement Factory Leube
• 1995 Die Kraft aus dem Norden Opening of Heizkraftwerk Nord Salzburg
• 1994 1161 - Panzerknacker a Dance Thriller in the Depot of Stiegel Brewery
• 1992 Newton
• 1993 Zorn of God
• 1989 108 EB - Chambermusic for 4 engines and personnel