After The Sandman, Jungle Book and Dorian, Robert Wilson’s fourth production at the Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus, Moby Dick, is a take on yet another piece of world literature; “Moby-Dick; or, The Whale” by American writer Herman Melville.

 

For the first time, Wilson’s Moby Dick is being shown in China.

 

 

 

 

by Anna Calvi and Robert Wilson, based on the eponymous novel by Herman Melville

Costumes by Julia von Leliwa; Dramaturgy by Robert Koall

 

Première on September 7, 2024 at the Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus, Germany

 

 

 

ROBERT WILSON
(1941 – 2025)
The New York Times described Robert Wilson as “a towering figure in the world of experimental theater and an explorer in the uses of time and space on stage,” an artist who transcends convention by weaving performance, visual art, and design into immersive tapestries of image and sound. For Susan Sontag, his work bears “the signature of a major artistic creation,” unmatched in scale or influence.

 

Born in Waco, Texas, Wilson studied at the University of Texas and at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, where architecture and design became formative influences. He later studied painting with George McNeil in Paris and worked with architect Paolo Soleri in Arizona. After moving to New York City in the mid-1960s, he immersed himself in the work of pioneering choreographers George Balanchine, Merce Cunningham, and Martha Graham. In 1968 he founded The Byrd Hoffman School of Byrds, an experimental collective based in an industrial loft at 147 Spring Street in lower Manhattan, where he began shaping a radically original theatrical language.