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Sabine Harbeke gained first the gymnastics and sports teacher diploma II at the ETH Zurich before

1991 until 1995 and then of Visual Communication at the University of Art and Design in Lucerne
studied. From 1996 to 2002 she lived in New York, where she worked in the independent film scene,
documentary and fictional short films shot and at the School of Visual Arts graduated in 1998 in Film
Directing with the Bachelor ended of Fine Arts with honors. Since then she has worked as a
filmmaker, playwright and director and the first performances of their plays staged mostly self. Her
first stage text god exists led them in 1999 for the "Hope-and-Glory Festival" in Zurich. Sabine
Harbeke lives in Zurich; she wrote and directed, inter alia, for the Theater am Neumarkt
Zurich, the Theater Basel, the Thalia Theater (Hamburg) and the Theater Kiel. She teaches at
the State University of Music and Performing Arts Stuttgart, the University of Music and Theatre in
Hamburg and at the Hochschule Luzern - Design & Art. Since 2009 she has been Director of the
Bachelor of theater directing at theZrcher Hochschule der Knste.
While the topics revolve around general problems in Harbekes stage plays, characters and language
are shaped by the respective origination and performance space, where they find the initial impetus
for the dramatic text with search. Their texts are characterized mainly by their linguistic precision and
rhythm: everyday language increases by compressing and rhythm into the absurd. The dialogues
are characterized by a distrust of the language.
My German-English piece and now / and now deals with the loss of reliability in a world after
the 11th September. Harbeke studied it together with American and German actors in 2004 at
Hamburg's Thalia Theater a. It tells "... stories that sound like babble and in a U-turn reveal their hell
depth. [...] The Dramatic stories is playable because Sabine Harbeke a purist's [...] Nothing will seem
more than it is, nothing more mean than it seems ", says the world [1] and the Hamburger
Abendblattwrote:" Harbeke tells harrowing unpretentious everyday things [...] It is about guilt and lies
and the effort to maintain a daily routine. Ground-Zero-day ". [2]
Built in 2004, the theater Gessnerallee premiered drama only today is subtitled a play by short
stories by Raymond Carver.In the short stories based also made in 1993, the episodic film Short
Cuts by Robert Altman. Harbekes play tells several independent stories of brief encounters between
average people who have come through their everyday problems out of balance, and so fall into
downright bizarre situations. The theme of "love" keeps these separate stories in which the
characters talk about their situations, together. Formal links are the scenes by the characters who
like to Artur Schnitzler'sReigen replace.
In drama anyway, a commissioned work for the Schauspielhaus Bochum, numerous small life
disasters are told. The author had researched for this piece in Bochum city milieu. "Life finds its way"
it provides as a motto above her stage text. The people who have dropped out of their native life are
not displayed at his home, but the scenes are always in public places, for them there is no retreat
into a protected private atmosphere more. Harbekes topic in anyway is the arduous struggle for the

daily life and the insanity of human relationships. About the "lovingly ausgepinselten episodes" but
noted critically: "Despite the variety of the scenes but one misses the depth of field."

[3]

closed season, in 2006 as a commissioned work for the theater Kiel emerged, showing figures that
are at a turning point in their lives. "At Gisela snack on the Baltic coast, you can rest for a while, sort
yourself before everything changes forever: The concise rhythmic characteristic style of language
creates Harbekes Norse Drgheit a frame; [...] Disturbingly, melancholic, funny are the fragile
images, always giving the feeling: It could have to go different. A small cosmos of futility, in the
Sabine Harbeke again proves theatrical fine illustrator, perceives a, the slightest in fragile mood
braid swings and dissected ". [4] In the dance at night it's different (Mannheim National
Theatre, 2006) it comes to re- the loss of reliability. At night, says the author, shifts the known order,
"far from bright everyday other encounters, surprises and confrontations are possible. Some
drowsiness or exhaustion does, so that you do not see as accurately or as wide-awake state's
looking and things a slip ". [5]
Your piece mouthguard (Theater Basel, 2008) deals with experiences of violence in everyday
life. The focus is on the characters who tell their stories in competition and struggle for
recognition. The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung found the stories to be constructed and criticized
that the author "can mostly tell experiences of violence and hardly occur interrelated their
characters". [6]

Spectacles and performances [Edit]

mouthguard. UA Theater Basel, directed by: Sabine Harbeke, Basel 2008

anyway. UA Schauspielhaus Bochum, Director: Sabine Harbeke, Bochum, 2007

closed season. UA Theater Kiel, directed by: Sabine Harbeke, Kiel, 2006

at night it's different. a dance. UA Mannheim National Theatre, directed by: Christine
Schneider, Mannheim, 2006

only today. a play by short stories by Raymond Carver. UA Theater Gessnerallee, Director:
Barbara David Bresch, Zurich, 2004

. and now / and now Thalia Theater, directed by: Sabine Harbeke, Hamburg, 2004

Lustgarten. UA Theater Neumarkt, directed by: Sabine Harbeke, Zurich, 2003

The sky is white. UA Theater Neumarkt, directed by: Sabine Harbeke, Zurich, 2003

Snow in April. Neumarkt Theatre, directed by: Sabine Harbeke, Zurich, 2001

want help. UA Theater Neumarkt, directed by: Sabine Harbeke, Zurich, 2000

god exists. Theaterhaus Gessnerallee, directed by: Sabine Harbeke, Zurich 1999

Film, television and radio plays [Edit]

1997: New York, early in the morning (film)

1998: June (film)

1999: Seefeld (film). Swiss television TV3

2003: Snow in April (radio play). Saarland Radio

2004: Lustgarten (radio play). Swiss Radio DRS 2

Born in 1965, she is an author as well as theatre and film director. She studied Visual
Communication in Luzern/Switzerland and Film Direction in New York. From 2000 to 2003
Harbeke staged four world premieres of her own plays at the Theater Neumarkt in
Zurich: wnschen hilft, schnee im april, der himmel ist weiss und lustgarten. In 2004 she
directed her German-English play und jetzt/and now at the Thalia Theater in Hamburg. Her
play nachts ist es anders, written for the festival Frankfurter Positionen, received three
productions in the season of 2006/2007 at the Nationaltheater Mannheim, the civic theatres
of Bern and Basel in Switzerland. Theater Basel commissioned her to write two plays in the
following seasons:mundschutz was premiered in April 2008, jetzt und alles in April 2009. For
the Theater Kiel she wrote and directed two plays: schonzeit in 2006 and 11 windstill in
2009. Since 2009 she has been head of the directors class at the Zurich University of the
Arts.

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