Christoph Dreher
Encyclopedia
Christoph Dreher is a German
filmmaker, musician and scriptwriter. Since 2000, he has been a professor of audiovisual media.
After studying political science and philosophy at the Free University of Berlin
, he studied filmmaking at DFFB
(Deutsche Film- und Fernsehakademie in Berlin) between 1978 and 1983.
In 1980, Christoph Dreher founded the post-punk – post-rock band Die Haut
(the first line-up consisted of, in addition to Dreher, Martin Peter, Thomas Wydler
and Remo Park). The name of the band was inspired by the book of the same title by German–Italian author Curcio Malaparte. With Dreher as the only permanent member, the band had changing line-ups (one of the longest lasting having consisted of Dreher, Thomas Wydler, Rainer Lingk and Jochen Arbeit
) until its breakup in 2000. Originally an instrumental group with the classical instrumentation of guitars, bass and drums, for their numerous records as well as for live gigs Die Haut frequently collaborated with likeminded international singers such as Lydia Lunch
, Nick Cave
, Jeffrey Lee Pierce
or Debbie Harry
.
As filmmaker–director, Christoph Dreher has been creating audiovisual works since 1979. While still a student, he made several music videos, either for Die Haut ("Der Karibische Western") or for Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds ("Tupelo", "The Singer" and "Mercy Seat"). With Heiner Mühlenbrock, he made the feature-length film OK OK – Der Moderne Tanz.
In numerous documentary films and series, Dreher dealt with issues from the area of popular culture. For example, in the 18-part series Lost in Music, in cooperation with, amongst others, Rolf S. Wolkenstein, Ellen El Malki and Rotraut Pape, Dreher covered contemporary musical genres and their associated cultures and (life-) styles. The innovative style of his films received recognition with the Adolf Grimme Award (in 1994, for Lost in Music) and other awards.
Since 2000, Christoph Dreher has taught audiovisual media at Merz Akademie for Design in Stuttgart
.
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
filmmaker, musician and scriptwriter. Since 2000, he has been a professor of audiovisual media.
After studying political science and philosophy at the Free University of Berlin
Free University of Berlin
Freie Universität Berlin is one of the leading and most prestigious research universities in Germany and continental Europe. It distinguishes itself through its modern and international character. It is the largest of the four universities in Berlin. Research at the university is focused on the...
, he studied filmmaking at DFFB
DFFB
-Further reading:...
(Deutsche Film- und Fernsehakademie in Berlin) between 1978 and 1983.
In 1980, Christoph Dreher founded the post-punk – post-rock band Die Haut
Die haut
Die Haut were an experimental German post-punk post-rock band, who enjoyed some local success in the Berlin of the 1980s and 1990s, with one record where Nick Cave was involved in the mixdown, Burnin' The Ice...
(the first line-up consisted of, in addition to Dreher, Martin Peter, Thomas Wydler
Thomas Wydler
Thomas Wydler , is a Swiss musician best known for being a core member of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, of which he has been a drummer since 1985. Prior to joining them, he was a member of the experimental German band Die Haut. Wydler has been present on almost every Bad Seeds album, making his...
and Remo Park). The name of the band was inspired by the book of the same title by German–Italian author Curcio Malaparte. With Dreher as the only permanent member, the band had changing line-ups (one of the longest lasting having consisted of Dreher, Thomas Wydler, Rainer Lingk and Jochen Arbeit
Jochen Arbeit
Jochen Arbeit is a German guitarist. He is a member of the band Einstürzende Neubauten and was a long-time-member of Die Haut , which also included Einstürzende Neubauten percussionist Rudi Moser and Thomas Wydler, drummer of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds.Since 2008 he is also working with Gerd...
) until its breakup in 2000. Originally an instrumental group with the classical instrumentation of guitars, bass and drums, for their numerous records as well as for live gigs Die Haut frequently collaborated with likeminded international singers such as Lydia Lunch
Lydia Lunch
Lydia Lunch is an American singer, poet, writer, and actress whose career was spawned by the New York No Wave scene...
, Nick Cave
Nick Cave
Nicholas Edward "Nick" Cave is an Australian musician, songwriter, author, screenwriter, and occasional film actor.He is best known for his work as a frontman of the critically acclaimed rock band Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, established in 1984, a group known for its eclectic influences and...
, Jeffrey Lee Pierce
Jeffrey Lee Pierce
Jeffrey Lee Pierce was an American singer, songwriter and guitarist. He was one of the founding members of the 1980s punk band The Gun Club...
or Debbie Harry
Debbie Harry
Deborah Ann "Debbie" Harry is an American singer-songwriter and actress, best known for being the lead singer of the punk rock and new wave band Blondie. She has also had success as a solo artist, and in the mid-1990s she performed and recorded as part of The Jazz Passengers...
.
As filmmaker–director, Christoph Dreher has been creating audiovisual works since 1979. While still a student, he made several music videos, either for Die Haut ("Der Karibische Western") or for Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds ("Tupelo", "The Singer" and "Mercy Seat"). With Heiner Mühlenbrock, he made the feature-length film OK OK – Der Moderne Tanz.
In numerous documentary films and series, Dreher dealt with issues from the area of popular culture. For example, in the 18-part series Lost in Music, in cooperation with, amongst others, Rolf S. Wolkenstein, Ellen El Malki and Rotraut Pape, Dreher covered contemporary musical genres and their associated cultures and (life-) styles. The innovative style of his films received recognition with the Adolf Grimme Award (in 1994, for Lost in Music) and other awards.
Since 2000, Christoph Dreher has taught audiovisual media at Merz Akademie for Design in Stuttgart
Stuttgart
Stuttgart is the capital of the state of Baden-Württemberg in southern Germany. The sixth-largest city in Germany, Stuttgart has a population of 600,038 while the metropolitan area has a population of 5.3 million ....
.
Publications
- 2010 (Editor) Autorenserien: die Neuerfindung des Fernsehens / Auteur Series: The Re-invention of Television. Stuttgart: Merz & Solitude. ISBN 9783937982298
Documentaries and TV programmes
- 1992 Die HautDie hautDie Haut were an experimental German post-punk post-rock band, who enjoyed some local success in the Berlin of the 1980s and 1990s, with one record where Nick Cave was involved in the mixdown, Burnin' The Ice...
live: Sweat (Co-Writer, Co-Director, with Rotraut Pape and Rolf S. Wolkenstein, 60 min.) - 1993-98 Lost in Music (Writer/Director, ZDFZDFZweites Deutsches Fernsehen , ZDF, is a public-service German television broadcaster based in Mainz . It is run as an independent non-profit institution, which was founded by the German federal states . The ZDF is financed by television licence fees called GEZ and advertising revenues...
/3sat3sat3sat is the name of a public, advertising-free, television network in Central Europe. The programming is in German and is broadcast primarily within Germany, Austria and Switzerland .3sat was established for cultural...
/ARTEArteArte is a Franco-German TV network. It is a European culture channel and aims to promote quality programming especially in areas of culture and the arts...
, 18 episodes between 42 and 60 min.) - 1993 TechnoTechnoTechno is a form of electronic dance music that emerged in Detroit, Michigan in the United States during the mid to late 1980s. The first recorded use of the word techno, in reference to a genre of music, was in 1988...
Trance (Co-Writer, Co-Director, 42 min., added 10 min. in 1995) - 1994 MetalHeavy metal musicHeavy metal is a genre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s, largely in the Midlands of the United Kingdom and the United States...
Mania (Co-Writer / Co-Director, with Rolf S. Wolkenstein, 42 min.) - 1995 ReggaeReggaeReggae is a music genre first developed in Jamaica in the late 1960s. While sometimes used in a broader sense to refer to most types of Jamaican music, the term reggae more properly denotes a particular music style that originated following on the development of ska and rocksteady.Reggae is based...
Revolution (Writer/Director, 60 min.) - 1995 Hoch über Hamburg (Writer/Director, 52 min.)
- 1995 Hip HopHip hopHip hop is a form of musical expression and artistic culture that originated in African-American and Latino communities during the 1970s in New York City, specifically the Bronx. DJ Afrika Bambaataa outlined the four pillars of hip hop culture: MCing, DJing, breaking and graffiti writing...
Hooray (Writer/Director, 42 min.) - 1996 Deep into DubDub musicDub is a genre of music which grew out of reggae music in the 1960s, and is commonly considered a subgenre, though it has developed to extend beyond the scope of reggae...
(Writer/Director, 60 min.) - 1996 Electronic Jam (Writer/Director, 60 min.)
- 1996 Chicago Connections (Writer/Director, 60 min.)
- 1995-98 Freestyle Series (Studio production, Co-Concept, Co-Director, Co-Producer, VIVA TV, 105 episodes of 60 min.)
- 1995 Streetfashion (Writer/Director, ARTE, 190 min.)
- 1997 Pop Odyssee - The Beach Boys and Satan (Writer/Director 3sat/ZDF, 60 min)
- 1997 Digital Spirit (Writer/Director, ARTE, 190 min.)
- 1998 Pop Odyssee - House of the Rising Punk (Writer–director, 3sat/ZDF, 60 min.)
- 2000 Silver Rockets/Kool Things - 20 Years of Sonic Youth (Writer/Director, ARTE, 60 min.)
- 2000 Fantastic Voyages (Writer/Director, 3sat/ZDF, 7 episodes of 60 min.)
- "Introducing: The Cosmology of the Music Video"
- "Nightmares"
- "Body Rock"
- "Short Stories"
- "Liberated Images"
- "Wonderful Worlds"
- "Space is the place"
- 2001 BeckBeckBeck Hansen is an American musician, singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, known by the stage name Beck...
- Permanent Mutations (Writer/Director, 60 min.) - 2002 Superhuman (Writer/Director, 58 min.)
- 2003 Dance the Voodoo – The Cosmos of Koffi Kôkô (Writer/Director (with Rotraut Pape), 45 min.)
- 2005 Youthquake '65 – The London Pop Explosion (Writer/Director, 60 min.)
- 2007 Psychedelic Revolution '67 (Writer/Director, 77 min.)
- 2008 No Wave - Underground '80 Berlin-New York (Writer/Director (with Ellen El Malki), 52 min.)
Music clips and performances
- 1982 Die HautDie hautDie Haut were an experimental German post-punk post-rock band, who enjoyed some local success in the Berlin of the 1980s and 1990s, with one record where Nick Cave was involved in the mixdown, Burnin' The Ice...
: Der Karibische Western (Writer/Director) - 1983 Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds: Tupelo (Writer/Director)
- 1984 Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds: The Singer (Writer/Director)
- 1985 Nick CaveNick CaveNicholas Edward "Nick" Cave is an Australian musician, songwriter, author, screenwriter, and occasional film actor.He is best known for his work as a frontman of the critically acclaimed rock band Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, established in 1984, a group known for its eclectic influences and...
& The Bad Seeds: Mercy Seat (Writer/Director) - 1994 GentlemanGentlemanThe term gentleman , in its original and strict signification, denoted a well-educated man of good family and distinction, analogous to the Latin generosus...
: When The Sunshine Go Down (Writer/Director) - 1995 Advanced ChemistryAdvanced ChemistryAdvanced Chemistry is a German hip hop group from Heidelberg, a scenic city in Baden-Württemberg, South Germany. Advanced Chemistry was founded in 1987 by Toni L, Linguist, Gee-One, DJ Mike MD and MC Torch...
: Fremd Im Eigenen Land (Co-Writer/Co-Director) - 1996 BlumfeldBlumfeldBlumfeld was an indie-pop band from Hamburg, Germany, formed by singer and songwriter Jochen Distelmeyer. The name of the band was coined by the main character of the short story "Blumfeld, ein älterer Junggeselle" by Franz Kafka...
: Verstärker (Writer/Director) - 1996 Jever Mountain Boys: Alone and Forsaken (Writer/Director)
Art film and video projects
- 2004 Voodoo Transformations (Co-Writer/Co-Director, with Rotraut Pape), ZDF/Theaterkanal, 27 min.)
- 1985 Die Legionäre (Co-Writer/Co-Director, with Ellen El Malki, ZDF, 30 min.)
- 1981 Commercial – 40 One-Minute-Adventures in the World of TV (Writer/Director, with Gusztav Hamos, 41min.)
- 1980 Ok Ok – Der Moderne Tanz (Co-Writer/Co-Director, with Heiner Mühlenbrock, 90 min.)
Multimedia projects
- 1980–1995 Participation in numerous artistic interactive TV- and radio projects by UNIVERSCITY TV and VAN GOGH TV (Ars ElectronicaArs ElectronicaArs Electronica is an organization based in Linz, Austria, founded in 1979 around a festival for art, technology and society that was part of the International Bruckner Festival. Herbert W. Franke is one of its founders. It became its own festival and a yearly event in 1986. Its director until 1995...
(Linz), DocumentaDocumentadocumenta is an exhibition of modern and contemporary art which takes place every five years in Kassel, Germany. It was founded by artist, teacher and curator Arnold Bode in 1955 as part of the Bundesgartenschau which took place in Kassel at that time...
(Kassel), European Media Art Festival (Osnabrück), etc., aired by 3Sat, local TV and radio stations, pirate radioPirate radioPirate radio is illegal or unregulated radio transmission. The term is most commonly used to describe illegal broadcasting for entertainment or political purposes, but is also sometimes used for illegal two-way radio operation...
, etc.
Recordings
- 1982 Burnin' the Ice (with Nick CaveNick CaveNicholas Edward "Nick" Cave is an Australian musician, songwriter, author, screenwriter, and occasional film actor.He is best known for his work as a frontman of the critically acclaimed rock band Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, established in 1984, a group known for its eclectic influences and...
) - 1987 Headless Body in Topless Bar (with among others Nick CaveNick CaveNicholas Edward "Nick" Cave is an Australian musician, songwriter, author, screenwriter, and occasional film actor.He is best known for his work as a frontman of the critically acclaimed rock band Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, established in 1984, a group known for its eclectic influences and...
, Anita LaneAnita LaneAnita Lane is an Australian singer and songwriter who directly influenced the early 1980s European post-punk landscape.-Birthday Party:Lane was born in Melbourne, Australia in the late 1950s. Lane began singing and writing songs at age 16. She was a classmate with Rowland S. Howard who would...
and Kid Congo PowersKid Congo PowersKid Congo Powers is the stage name of Brian Tristan , an American rock guitarist and singer, best known as a member of The Gun Club, The Cramps and Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds.-Biography:...
) - 1990 Die Hard (with Arto LindsayArto LindsayArthur Morgan Lindsay is an American guitarist, singer, record producer and experimental composer. He is a 1974 graduate of Eckerd College in St. Petersburg, Florida....
) - 1992 Head On (with among others Debbie HarryDebbie HarryDeborah Ann "Debbie" Harry is an American singer-songwriter and actress, best known for being the lead singer of the punk rock and new wave band Blondie. She has also had success as a solo artist, and in the mid-1990s she performed and recorded as part of The Jazz Passengers...
, Jeffrey Lee PierceJeffrey Lee PierceJeffrey Lee Pierce was an American singer, songwriter and guitarist. He was one of the founding members of the 1980s punk band The Gun Club...
, Alan VegaAlan VegaAlan Vega For several years other sources stated that he was born in 1948 – see 'Myth' section is an American vocalist, primarily known for his work with electronic protopunk duo, Suicide...
, Lydia LunchLydia LunchLydia Lunch is an American singer, poet, writer, and actress whose career was spawned by the New York No Wave scene...
) - 1993–94 Sweat (Live album, with among others Nick Cave, Alexander HackeAlexander HackeAlexander Hacke is a guitarist, bass guitarist, singer, experimental / industrial / electronic musician from Germany....
, Blixa BargeldBlixa BargeldBlixa Bargeld is a composer, author, actor, singer, musician, performer and lecturer in a number of artistic fields...
) - 1998 Spring
- 1999 Springer (Spring remixes by among others Atom Heart, OvalOvalAn oval is any curve resembling an egg or an ellipse, such as a Cassini oval. The term does not have a precise mathematical definition except in one area oval , but it may also refer to:* A sporting arena of oval shape** a cricket field...
, Jim O´RourkeJim O'Rourke (musician)Jim O'Rourke is an Irish-American musician and record producer. He was long associated with the Chicago experimental and improv scene...
, ScannerRobin RimbaudRobin Rimbaud is an electronic musician who works under the name Scanner due to his use of cell phone and police scanners in live performance...
, Mad ProfessorMad ProfessorMad Professor is a dub music producer and engineer known for his original productions and remix work. He is considered one of the leading producers of dub music’s second generation and was instrumental in transitioning dub into the digital age. He is a prolific producer, contributing to or...
) - 2004 Re-Issue of Burnin' the Ice (with Nick Cave) (remastered)
External links
- Christoph Dreher portfolio
- Christoph Dreher at IMDb
- Christoph Dreher at Merz Academy
- Die Haut Discography
- Berlin Portraits: Christoph Dreher at Robert Carrithers.com
- Dreher, Christoph at Institute of Documentary Film