Biography
Michal Caban has worked as choreographer for operas and staged concerts with "Arbos" - an Austrian musical-theatrical society for new music, sharing in the productions Später Nachmittag im Paradies (1992), Die Versunkene Welt, O.T., Der Kaiser von Atlantis (1993), and KAR (1994), which have been presented in the Austrian cities of Klagenfurt and Salzburg as well as in Germany, Switzerland, and Prague. The Cabans have had the greatest success when creating their own musical-dance productions. Their most recent original film, KusPoKusu (PieceByPiece, 1998), composed of seven visions of staging and motion, won the Special Jury Prize at the Golden Prague International Television Festival in 1998 and the same honor at the IMZ Dance Screen Television Festival in 1999 in Cologne, Germany. In 1995 the Cabans realized an original project - a non-traditional fashion show titled Fešnšou ze sekndhendu (Fashion Show of Used Clothes) - presented with members of the Prague Five and other popular actors and singers. In the last decade the Cabans and their collaborators have become a sought-after team for creating atypical one-time firm presentations and celebratory events that are distinguished by originality, live stage action, and masterful professional execution. In the second half of the 1990s Michal worked as choreographer and Šimon as motion coordinator in musical programs of Czech Television directed by Jiří Nekvasil. Šimon Caban returned to theatrical set design with the operas Braniboři v Čechách (The Brandenburgers in Bohemia) for the National Theater in 1997 and Nerone (Nero) for the Prague State Opera in 1998. He and costume designer Simona Rybáková were commissioners for the Czech national exhibit in the 1999 Prague Quadrennial International Set Design Exposition, in which this exhibit won the highest honor - the Golden Chariot - for the Czech Republic for the first time in history.