| music theater | film | dance |
| dance | music theater | film |
| film | dance | music theater |
Selcuk Cara is known for his multisensory installations that make historical and societal themes experientially tangible through space, sound, and movement. Projects such as Ai Weiwei as a Dead Man on the Beach, a critical engagement with media representations and political activism,
as well as his concept for the monumental installation on the former Nazi Party Rally Grounds in Nuremberg – developed as part of the city’s bid for the European Capital of Culture 2025 – demonstrate his ability to use art as a tool for ethical and emotional reflection. These works embody Cara’s theoretical framework, the Contextual Authenticity Research Analysis (CARA), a theory Selcuk Cara has developed over 15 years, which views historical sites not as passive relics, but as active matrices of experience, in which emotional, moral, and ethical layers of history are sedimented. Cara’s installations capture the affective and cognitive responses of participants, creating a new form of historical evidence that bridges the past and the present. His works have been internationally recognized, presented at prestigious festivals, and have sparked profound discourse around memory, history, and societal responsibility.
Currently, Selcuk Cara is developing interdisciplinary projects that explore the intersections of technology, AI, collective memory, and perception. These new works aim to expand his theoretical approach by integrating empirical data with emotional and ethical resonance. At the same time, he is working on an arthouse film that has qualified for the 98th Academy Awards (Oscars 2026). His artistic practice combines innovation with deep philosophical inquiry, creating multisensory pathways to engage with historical and societal discourses, while offering new ways of perceiving the world through an ethically resonant lens.
Selcuk Cara - Multisensory Installation of Interdisciplinary Cultural Convergence and Ethical Reflection
World premiere in the context of the application for the title European Capital of Culture 2025
on the former Reichsparteitagsgelände Nuremberg
Reviews - Stage Production
"Selcuk Cara:= Between genius and madness - Fabulous egomaniac"
SZ-Süddeutsche Zeitung / South German Newspaper
Reviews - Film Production
1. Hollywood New Director
2. International Independent Film Festival Philadelphia ("Official Selection")
3. Chicago International Arthouse Film Festival (Semifinal)
4. Rhode Island International Film Festival
"RIIFF has been a qualifying festival for the Academy Awards since 2002. It is my pleasure to inform you that your film "THE MASTERSINGERS OF NUREMBERG" has been selected. The festival is in collaboration with Roger Williams University in Bristol, Rhode Island."
(Selcuk Cara: concept, editing, spoken text, stage-director, set design, costume design, lighting design, film-director, screenplay, film editing, production management)
Selcuk Cara
Multisensory Installation of Interdisciplinary Cultural Convergence and Ethical Reflection
World premiere Prague State Theatre
German premiere Internationale Maifestspiele Wiesbaden
Leipzig Opera House/Gewandhaus Orchestra
Reviews - Stage Production
"The program booklet is right: It really is a "Gesamtkunstwerk" (universal artwork) what the director and former opera singer Selcuk Cara has tailored to the heroic tenor Andreas Schager with "Fascination Wagner". The applause for the scenes and the bursting bravos want to take no end. Schager himself has to brake the audience to be able to continue at all."
LEIPZIGER VOLKSZEITUNG
Reviews - Stage Production
"Fabulous, the production is beautiful."
"This performance is fantastic. Truly an experience."
ARD - Studio Prague
An incredibly coherent, highly emotional production that deserves every form of superlative.
History was made with this Richard Wagner opera premiere.
Opera Magazine
(Selcuk Cara: concept, editing, stage-director, set design, costume design, lighting design, film-director, script, film editing, production management)
Selcuk Cara
Multisensory Installation of Interdisciplinary Cultural Convergence and Ethical Reflection
Opening Brahms Festival
Reviews - Stage Production
"Poignant, dense, dramatic! ... Plays and sings as if in a trance."
NDR Culture
"For Selcuk Cara: reduction is one of the most powerful stylistic devices the opera world has to offer."
Hamburger Abendblatt
"Thus began a production of Udo Zimmermann's "White Rose" that impressed all the senses. If Zimmermann's examination of the resistance against Hitler's Germany is in itself a moving, even oppressive work, the impression is reinforced by Selcuk Cara's staging."
nmz - Neue Musikzeitung
(Selcuk Cara: concept, editing, spoken text, stage-director, set design, costume, lighting design, production management)
Selcuk Cara
Multisensory Installation of Interdisciplinary Cultural Convergence and Ethical Reflection
Opening Brecht Festival
Review - Stage Production
"Easy answers? Not with Selcuk Cara: - he makes exciting, rousing theater!
Brecht would have liked that!"
ARD German Television
"To open a Brecht festival in an unusual place so brilliantly,
is an outstanding achievement."
Brecht Research /International Brecht Society
(Selcuk Cara: concept, editing, spoken text, stage-director, set, costume, lighting design)
Selcuk Cara: TRANSFORMING
