Jo Fabian, author, director, stage designer, choreographer and composer, was born in Berlin in 1960, studied acting in Rostock and is the founder and artistic director of the theatre group known today as DEPARTMENT/fabian.dept. Jo Fabian has been active as an independent director and choreographer since 1987 and has created more than 40 stage productions for theaters throughout Germany. In 1989 he worked closely with the Bauhaus in Dessau and founded the independent project group ›example dept.‹. This group worked together in Berlin under his direction for six years. His unusual theater of images suspends the borderlines between theater, dance, performance, concerts and installation and typically combines polished artificial aesthetics with precision, humor and subtle irony. In 1999 he was awarded the German Producers' Prize for Choreography. From 2003 Jo Fabian’s work has focused on surrealism and Dali’s understanding of Spectral Surrealism as well as Virtual Reality and Second Life. Following a long production break, he premiered his latest stage work ›Independent Swan‹ in 2009.