Choreographer, composer, director and teacher, MANFRED FISCHBECK, was born in Tanzania, Africa, and spent his formative years in Stendal, East Germany where he began intensive musical studies at an early age. Upon completion of high school in West Berlin, he attended the Freie University with studies in theater, philosophy and literature. From 1961-65, Manfred was co-director/actor with KARUSSELL, a theater company in Berlin, as well as co-artistic director/leading actor with PROVISORISCHES THEATRE where he was instrumental in lifting the boycott on the works of Bertold Brecht through the premiere of In the Jungle of the City, the first Brecht play since the end of the War in West Berlin. In 1966 he held the leading role in Mord and Totschlag, a major motion picture directed by Volker Schloendorff (director of Tin Drum).

As his interests expanded to include dance, Manfred studied with Brigitta Herrmann and Hellmut Gottschild of Gruppe Motion Berlin, a modern dance company, which evolved from the Mary Wigman School, Berlin. In 1967, he joined forces with Gruppe Motion to create the first Multi Media Dance Theater work “Count Down for Orpheus”. In 1968, the company relocated to Philadelphia, changed its name to Group Motion, and established a new company, theater and workshop. Since 1989, Manfred has served as the sole artistic director of the Group Motion Dance Company.

Manfred has received various grants, fellowships and commissions, among them the National Endowment for the Arts, Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, Pew Charitable Trusts Philadelphia Repertory Development Initiative (PRDI) and Dance Advance. Manfred has served on the Dance Panel of the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts (1976-79), and on the Boards of the Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance and the Philadelphia Dance Alliance (1986-89). In 1996, Manfred initiated the creation of the Kumquat Dance Center, a collective for dance companies and individuals to share administrative, studio, and theater space.

Since 1990, Manfred has toured extensively with the company inside and outside the US. Manfred has been an Artist in Residence at the Ballet Contemporaneo in San Martin, Buenos Aires, and has conducted residencies in Tokyo; Taipei, Taiwan; and Germany. For the past ten years, he and Brigitta Herrmann have toured Group Motion’s highly successful Workshop throughout the US, as well as Bermuda and Barbados. Since 1972, he has been on the faculty at the University of the Arts as Adjunct Associate Professor; and since 1982, has lectured regularly as part of the Theater Arts Department of U Penn.