AR/CTIVISM
Art and Activism in the Independent Theatre
16.–19.06., 10:00–17:00 daily, TanzFaktur, Siegburger Straße 233 W, Cologne (The ACADEMY finale on 19.06. will be held in Düsseldorf, the exact location is to be announced)
Languages: German and English
Led by: Natalie Ananda Assmann, Gin Müller

The ACADEMY invites participants to examine more closely the relationship between the independent performing arts and activism: what can art and activism learn from each other to be effective in the struggle to achieve specific objectives and when grappling with utopian forms of solidary co-existence? But also: how activist can politically engaged art be? How activist does it want to be? And how much art can activism take?

Workshop 1: Queer-Feminist and Roma Ar/ctivism
Led by: Sandra Selimović, Zoe Gudović, Carmen Gheorghe
Language: German and English

“Honour” is a powerful concept that the patriarchy employs to restrict the rights of women and queers. As a consequence, more and more Roma women’s activists and queer-feminists and artists in various countries, above all in Eastern Europe, are working on questioning the politics of “honour”. They are creating new narratives around the body, gender identity and sexual orientation and are trying to use political means to change how these are represented in a range of areas of society. The workshop will analyse how this struggle can put the combination of art, theatre and activism to strategic use.

Workshop 2: The Struggle Online
Led by: Arne Vogelgesang
Language: German

This workshop gives an overview of the means and methods with which political battles are being conducted on social media and beyond: by both anti-humanitarian and progressive movements. It will pay particular attention to the question of where activist online practice between identification and anonymity touches on areas of theatre and the performative.

Workshop 3: Black Perspectives on Climate Justice – Performance as a Tool
Led by: Black Earth Collective
Language: German and English

This workshop addresses intersections between colonialism and the climate crisis and uses performance as a tool to embody breaking open the binary oppositions between human and nature, men and women, Black and white. It is concerned with recognising centuries-old anti-colonial struggles, listening to movements and communities that have been silenced, who now stand at the forefront of the climate crisis, and paying attention to prognoses for the coming decades that are currently being ignored.
The Black Earth Collective particularly welcomes BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Colour) and queers to attend this workshop.

Workshop 4: Ar/ctivist Strategies Against Racism and Right-Wing Extremism
Led by: Can Gülcü (CANCELLED)
Language: German

This workshop focuses on the question of how artistic-activist strategies can be used to attack racist normativity and right-wing extremism. How can we change the rules about who can speak and who can be listened to and taken seriously? How can buried and repressed knowledge be disclosed? Art as art and as kanakish, anti-racist, queer-feminist, proletarian, anti-capitalist activism. During the workshop these emancipatory struggles will be discussed and considered together, for example with reference to issues around the NSU.

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