Glen Sheppard. Works.
I am an artist working with performance, film / video and installation based in Berlin. My work explores experiences through an awareness of ritual and time, often responding to musical source texts and other dramaturgical inputs, creating psychological choreographies and documents thereof. I am interested in what I call a 'queer eternal', a response to the contemporary practice of performative queer futurity and its opposition or exception from the present, favouring an awareness of the persistence of the antique and ur-religious impulses that embrace a radical now.
Recent works include UNE MYSTIFICATION, based on Debussy's Les Chansons de Bilitis with poetry from CP Cavafy and Frank O’Hara, presented by BAM! Berliner Festival für aktuelles Musiktheater in April 2022. A response to Strauss's SALOME, AUSSER SICH, was presented at ORi Berlin in September 2019. In May 2019 I presented A L E X A N D R I A, a ‘correction’ of Händel’s oratorio Il trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno at Vierte Welt in Kreuzberg. In December 2018 and May 2019 I presented Y IS A QUESTION I KEEP ASKING at HB55 in Berlin.
A TALE, produced by me with director Katrin Thomas, won the Grand Prix du Court-Métrage at Entrevues Belfort. Films I have made with my partner Fritz Polzer have screened internationally and won multiple awards.
I also work regularly as a revival, associate and assistant director of opera, with numerous credits at English National Opera and the Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe, Danish National Opera, Bard Summerscape, assisting, amongst others, Christopher Alden, William Kentridge, Daniel Kramer and Netia Jones. In February 2020, I directed the revival of Anthony Minghella's production of MADAMA BUTTERFLY at the English National Opera. Most recently I was Director's Collaborator to Netia Jones on her new production of LE NOZZE DI FIGARO at the Opéra National de Paris at Palais Garnier.
On 26 and 28 May, Glen's performance UNTIL THE WATERS FOAM UP, a durational, dusk-dawn response to Dvorak's RUSALKA, will be presented at Reinbeckhallen in Berlin-Schöneweide, with support from the Fonds Darstellende Künste and in cooperation with Stiftung Reinbeckhallen. On 1-3 September, Glen's performance I FURIOSI, adapted from the three mid-1730s Händel operas based on Ludovico Ariosto's Rennaissance epic 'Orlando Furioso' will be presented at Uferstudios in Berlin-Wedding.
Born and raised in London, Canada, I trained as an actor at Ryerson Theatre School in Toronto, graduating with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 2003.
gtsheppard@gmail.com
Digital portfolio
Recent works include UNE MYSTIFICATION, based on Debussy's Les Chansons de Bilitis with poetry from CP Cavafy and Frank O’Hara, presented by BAM! Berliner Festival für aktuelles Musiktheater in April 2022. A response to Strauss's SALOME, AUSSER SICH, was presented at ORi Berlin in September 2019. In May 2019 I presented A L E X A N D R I A, a ‘correction’ of Händel’s oratorio Il trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno at Vierte Welt in Kreuzberg. In December 2018 and May 2019 I presented Y IS A QUESTION I KEEP ASKING at HB55 in Berlin.
A TALE, produced by me with director Katrin Thomas, won the Grand Prix du Court-Métrage at Entrevues Belfort. Films I have made with my partner Fritz Polzer have screened internationally and won multiple awards.
I also work regularly as a revival, associate and assistant director of opera, with numerous credits at English National Opera and the Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe, Danish National Opera, Bard Summerscape, assisting, amongst others, Christopher Alden, William Kentridge, Daniel Kramer and Netia Jones. In February 2020, I directed the revival of Anthony Minghella's production of MADAMA BUTTERFLY at the English National Opera. Most recently I was Director's Collaborator to Netia Jones on her new production of LE NOZZE DI FIGARO at the Opéra National de Paris at Palais Garnier.
On 26 and 28 May, Glen's performance UNTIL THE WATERS FOAM UP, a durational, dusk-dawn response to Dvorak's RUSALKA, will be presented at Reinbeckhallen in Berlin-Schöneweide, with support from the Fonds Darstellende Künste and in cooperation with Stiftung Reinbeckhallen. On 1-3 September, Glen's performance I FURIOSI, adapted from the three mid-1730s Händel operas based on Ludovico Ariosto's Rennaissance epic 'Orlando Furioso' will be presented at Uferstudios in Berlin-Wedding.
Born and raised in London, Canada, I trained as an actor at Ryerson Theatre School in Toronto, graduating with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 2003.
gtsheppard@gmail.com
Digital portfolio
