About Me

David Lakein (Chicago/Berlin)

Director, Choreographer, Performer, Writer, Facilitator...

Studied Philosophy, Literature, and Theater at Wesleyan University, USA.

Trained in Composition, Release-Technique, Improvisation, Contact, Body-Mind-Centering, and Acting & Directing in Berlin, San Francisco, and at the School for New Dance Development in Amsterdam. Received Masters of Fine Arts from The School of The Art Institute of Chicago.

Other strong influences include Aikido, Alexander Technique, Physical Theater, Butoh, Stand-Up, and Books & Bars.

Artistic Work: covers a broad spectrum of approaches, forms, and situations. Whether completely set or entirely improvised, a solo performance or community gathering, on stage or in the back bushes, the work embraces and confronts the edge between the profoundly serious and ridiculously silly. It often includes a significant (potential) degree of interactivity, inviting and eliciting participation from the viewing-listening-reading audience.

Theater Making: is at its core an interdisciplinary practice, inhabiting the border areas between theater, dance, cabaret, and performance art. Main aspects include locating and developing a specific intention and physical attitude, using costume, objects, text, and video to create narrative context. Lakein believes deeply in the collaborative process, and works extensively with other artists, a.o. the composer Toek Numan (NL), musicians Richard Scott (GB) and Dirk Bruinsma (NL), performer Eric Zobel (F), and light designers Jeroen Maasland (NL) and Nils-R. Schultze (D).

Performs in venues and festivals across Europe and in the United States.
Current projects include:

RuckuSpace – a multi-faceted hybrid art project committed to responsible subversion and playful mayhem while creating a community oriented collaborative empowerment zone.

The Breath Series – an improvisational solo about {abandoning} responsibility, {embracing} failure, and {muddling} meaning & mystery.

Café Urgency – a salon happening about the of Urgency in people’s lives.

Planet Hope – an ongoing research-, performance-, and documentation-laboratory about the role of hope/Hope in various facets of personal and collective living.


Teaches improvisation, image-making/composition, performance presence skills, and contact improvisation in studios, schools and festivals, including in Arts en Scéne (Lyon), Danshögskolan (Stockholm), Studio Seven (Amsterdam), tanzfabrik & k77 (Berlin), and the Easter Impro Festival (Göttingen), International Contact Festival (Freiburg), International Festival of Contemporary Dance (Kalisz, Poland), Leaving the Route 2: The Role of the Audience in Theater (Frankfurt), and the Ponderosa TanzLand Festival (Stolzenhagen).


Organizes and facilitates festivals, labs and discussions, MAD Improvisation Festival (Amsterdam), and “HereNow&Again” Improvisation Laboratory (Berlin).

2002-2008, he was part of the organizational team of the Ponderosa Dance Festival & Artist Retreat Center outside Berlin.

In 2008, he founded the international artistic platform Paradox Bay, which supports exchanges about how artists approach their work, nurture collaborations, interact with audiences, and connect with social activism efforts.