Boris Nikitin

Boris Nikitin, born the son of Ukranian-Slovakian-French-Jewish immigrants in Basel, is a theatre director and author. His productions, texts and happenings have grappled with the presentation and creation of identity and reality since 2007. They hug the border between illusory-theatre and performance, between documentary and propaganda. Nikitin’s works are raw, frontal and constantly searching for the limits and breaking points of the aesthetic. «In a way that few can match, Boris Nikitin takes the theatre to a critical juncture», wrote the «Theater heute» journal. In his most recent plays and texts, Nikitin has increasingly focused on the relationship between illness and art. In recognition of his body of work, Nikitin was awarded with the J.M.R. Lenz-Dramatikpreis from the city of Jena in 2017. In 2020 he received Schweizer Theaterpreis. His play Erste Staffel. 20 Jahre Big Brother was invited to the Mülheimer Theatertage and Heidelberger Stückemarkt festivals in 2021. His works have been featured at the independent festival Impulse multiple times. From 2018-2019, Boris Nikitin was the Christoph Schlingensief visiting professor at the Universität Bochum. In addition, he teaches at the Universität Frankfurt and the Hochschule der Künste/Zürich. In 2023 Nikitin presented his work The Last Reality Show in the Museum Tinguely in Basel. The work presents a reconstruction of the living space used in the first season of the German Big Brother from the year 2000 – an essay-like commentary on the political-medial developments of the past 24 years. At the Maxim Gorki Theatre, Nikitin and Sebastian Nübling are developing – building on their collaboration at Theater Basel – the production Dämonen (Berlin) for the 23/24 season.