Kirsten Seeligmüller from Hamburg is a typesetter and repro photographer and trained as a dancer and dance teacher with Erika Klütz (Wigman student and expressive dancer).
Until 1991 in Hamburg and from 1991 in East Berlin she worked in parallel as a typesetter and graphic designer for publishers and agencies (Szene Hamburg, Callas) and as a dancer, choreographer and dance teacher in studios (Triade, Probebühne) and at performances (Kampnagel, Heynstraße, etc.) and in Berlin in projects in the party and performance scene of the 1990s.
In 1993 she founded the dance company ‘Chaos und Zufall’, which performed the piece ‘Spiegel’ at Pfefferberg in 1993 and ‘Underdocks’ at the Kulturbrauerei in 1995.
In 1994 she founded the dance school DOCK 11 in Prenzlauer Berg. In 1995 she expanded DOCK 11 with hall 2, in 1996 with the theatre hall, in 2015 with hall 3 and in 2022 with hall 4. Today DOCK 11 is a place for production, presentation and education with a focus on dance on 1100 square metres.
Her children were born in 1995 and 1997.
In 1999 she brought Wibke Janssen to DOCK 11, who had been working as a freelancer since 1994.
In 2005, Wibke Janssen and Kirsten Seeligmüller received the Berlin Academy of the Arts Award for Performing Arts.
In 2006, Kirsten Seeligmüller was involved in the development of the ‘Inter-University Centre for Dance - Pilot Project Tanzplan Berlin’ as well as in two laboratories that took place as part of the concept development. ‘In principle dance technique’.
Wibke Janssen and Kirsten Seeligmüller developed EDEN***** in Berlin-Pankow with a leasehold contract with the city of Berlin for the former Erich Weinert cultural centre and funding from the German Class Lottery Foundation. This second location with production studios with five studios, a café, studios and an artists' guesthouse and a large garden opened in 2009.
From 1994 until today, Kirsten Seeligmüller has developed numerous projects together with schools, choreographers and dance teachers, children, teenagers and adult dancers as well as amateurs, such as ‘Amphibia und Amphibius’, ‘Schulkinder im Weltall’, ‘Parade’, ‘Atem und Herz’, etc.
The project ‘Verzweigungen - erlebbare Tanzgeschichte’, which she realised in 2015, was the first in a series of dance history projects that shed light on modern dance at the beginning of the 19th century in Europe. A particular focus is on the emigration and flight of German expressionist dancers.
In 2015, together with Wibke Janssen, she bought the studios in DOCK 11 in Prenzlauer Berg with a total of 911 square metres.
In 2017, together with friends (who do not wish to be named), she developed the EDEN garden project in Pankow, where a near-natural garden modelled on the New German Style and Pit Oudolf was created, the development of which will never be completed.
Since 2020, DOCK 11 has received concept funding from the Berlin Senate.
It founded DOCKdigital in 2021. This network supports artists conceptually and in the realisation of projects at the interface of the body and digital art.
The festival HUMANDROID Space for physical and immersive Experiences presented works created in the DOCKdigital network on 1300 sqm (5 studios and 1 theatre).
DOCKdigital offers expertise and equipment in motion capture, multichannel installation
with 10 65‘’ screens, 8Souround sound system, Kinec, Caracter Creater, AR, VR, AI. The
system designers Varya Rybakova, Irina Shutova, Baris Pekcagliyan and Beka Tcharbadze realise the projects
realise the projects at the highest level. Kirsten Seeligmüller is responsible for DOCKdigital.
Many digital projects were created, which can be seen here: dock11-berlin.de/digital
In 2022, Kirsten Seeligmüller left the DOCK Theatre as artistic director to devote herself entirely to DOCKdigital, archive work and her own projects alongside her work as managing director of DOCK 11 GmbH.
In 2022, together with Yeri Anarika and Suzy Österreicher, she developed an operator concept for various properties in the Uckermark for a community centre with a focus on dance as part of STADT LAND MENSCH (process funding, Fonds Soziokultur) in the context of think tanks together with many stakeholders.
2024 / 2025 Kirsten Seeligmüller is working with Headliners and DOCKdigital on JIVELabs, a ‘laboratory for new worlds of thought’ at the interface of journalism, performing arts and digital art. https://www.jive.de/jive-labs
2024 / 2025 Craft Coding Dance is the research by Kirsten Seeligmüller with the question ‘Is it possible to reduce dance to so few principles that they fit on an A4 page?’
Overview of the DOCKdigital_Projects
dock11-berlin.de/digital/programm/projekte