Wild and Lively
29 January 2013
Christopher Dell got bitten by the jazz bug as a young teenager, and went on to study at conservatories in Germany, Holland, and eventually the renowned Berklee School of Music in Boston (where he graduated magna cum laude). Since 2002, he has led the Institute for Improvisation Technology in Berlin. Dell has always been fascinated by the Kottbusser Tor (known locally as “Kotti”), a subway stop and roundabout in the Berlin neighborhood of Kreuzberg. Beginning in the 1950s, many avant-garde artists who couldn’t afford living in the western part of the city settled there, which earned Kottbusser Tor the nickname “Kreuzberg’s Montmartre.” Today, the area is an ambiguous mix of low-level drug hustling, panhandlers, produce vendors, Brutalist housing complexes, immigrant Turkish families, and some of Berlin’s best nightlife spots. “The densification of urban life as well as the extreme ability to transform make the Kotti a place for a new form of avant-garde,” Dell explains, “an avant-garde without a manifest.”
Learn more about Christopher Dell HERE.
Editorial Lead by Romy Uebel / Production, Filming & Editing by Oddiseefilms / Sound by Brian Cares / Music by Christopher Dell & Bunnystripes / Thanks to Novemberfilms for the historical footage "Schade das Beton nicht brennt” / Special Thanks to Sebastian Bührig
