Programme

Concept, Performance: Gin Müller
Performance: Edwarda Gurrola, Mariama Nzinga Diallo, Sandra Selimović
Dramaturgy, Direction: Gin Müller, Natalie Ananda Assmann, Selina Shirin Stritzel, Andreas Fleck
Visuals: Sabine Marte
Sound/Music: Lisa Kortschak
Social Media: Hicran Ergen
Assistant: Ines Kaiser
Video Patches: Oliver Stotz
Stage Design: Rupert Müller
Costume Design: Noushin Redjaian
Graphic Design: Georg Starzner
Photos/Video Documentation: Magdalena Fischer
Sound Technician: Lisa-Maria Hollaus

A co-production between the Verein zur Förderung der Bewegungsfreiheit and brut Wien. With kind support from the City of Vienna Department of Cultural Affairs.

Natalie Ananda Assmann (*1988, she/her), is a freelance artist, director, curator and performer. Her works operate in the crossover between theatrical interventions in public spaces and the production of queer-feminist, anti-fascist images. From 2019 to 2020 she was a member of the Artistic Leadership Team for the Wienwoche – Festival for Art & Activism in Vienna. She produced her most recent work together with Nora Aaron Scherer, Janoushka Kamin and Magdalena Fischer for the Britney X Festival at Schauspiel Köln. Her last major directing work was ‘City of Whores’ as part of Red Rules Vienna at F23 in Vienna, a collaboration with Red Edition – Migrant Sex Workers Group. Together with Marlene Engel, Bahar Kaygusuz and Leonard Neumann she created ‘NONBINARY – A Tribute to Genesis P-Orridge’ last year at the Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz in Berlin. Further projects have been seen at the Spectrum Festival and the Impulse Theater Festival. In 2022 she curated the Impulse ACADEMY ‘Ar/ctivism – Art and Activism in the Independent Theatre’ in Cologne together with Gin Müller. She lives with her partner and her dog in Berlin and Vienna.

Mariama Nzinga Diallo is a migrant, an activist and a Pan-African. As an artist, photographer and performer, she studied Contextual Panting at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. Born in Guinea, she works in visual arts and transformation and her art is political in origin. She is currently working at the University of Vienna and is part of the collective Schwabinggrad Ballet & Arrivati in Hamburg.

Andreas Fleck, born in Graz in 1985, studied Theatre, Film and Media Studies at the University of Vienna and Comparative Dramaturgy and Performance Research at the Goethe University Frankfurt and the Université libre de Bruxelles. He has worked as a Production Manager and Dramaturg for a variety of theatre institutions (including brut Wien, workspacebrussels, Schauspielhaus Vienna) and independent theatre companies (including Nesterval and Gin Müller). He is the leader of the male* cheerleading group Fearleaders Vienna, with whom he collectively devises party events, choreographies and workshops. He will be Artistic Director of WUK performing arts from May 2023.

Edwarda Gurrola (*1979 in Mexico) began working professionally for theatre, film and television in 1987. She has worked together with a number of acclaimed Mexican film and theatre directors. She has performed regularly at brut in Vienna in productions by Gin Müller since 2009. She is currently preparing a variety of projects in Mexico and Austria.

Ines Kaiser was born in Linz in 1998 und studied Theatre, Film and Media Studies at the University of Vienna. She worked as a Project Assistant at the Vienna Volkstheater in the 2019/20 season, where she ran the acting club ‘Ministerium für schlüpfrige Angelegenheiten’. Since 2020 she has worked as an Assistant Director, primarily in the independent sector at venues including Werk X. She has also been Production Manager of the frame[o]ut Open Air Cinema in Vienna’s Museumsquartier since 2021. As a performer, she has already been seen in ‘Cumernustag’ (Wienwoche 2021), works by Claudia Bosse (‘Thyestes Brüder! Kapital’ and ‘Oracle And Sacrifice in the Woods’) and at LOT Vienna. She also develops her own artistic works, partly as part of the Raw Matters Tender Steps Residency (January 2021).

Lisa Kortschak lives and works as a transmedia artist specialising in video, video installation and performance in Vienna. Sound and sounds play a major role in all her works. She is active as a musician and singer in bands such as Half Darling and In The Hills, The Cities. She has composed sound or music for her own live and video projects and together with Elise Mory for theatre productions by Lisa Hinterreithner.

Sabine Marte is a video artist, performer and musician. In her video works, in which she often appears herself as a performer, a significant role is played by perceptions of the self and others. Marte uses the camera to focus on herself and her immediate surroundings. In her existential confrontations, she places the self-observing subject in relation to her immediate environment by integrating the real and filmic space. Language – her voice often provides off-camera commentary – and music are central elements of her work. They provide its rhythm or reflect what is shown. In addition, Sabine Marte distorts and deconstructs her video images or generates them from unconventional recording angles. Once they are reassembled, this creates a special and at times trashy visual aesthetic that is both confusing and attractive while having a liberating effect.

Gin Müller is a dramaturg and ar/ctivist who works in the field of Theatre/Performance/Queer Studies. He is a Lecturer at the University of Vienna (Theatre, Film and Media Studies). At the same time, he creates his own theatre and performance works in Vienna (brut) and Mexico City, including: ‘Fantomas Monster’ (2016/17), ‘TransGenderMoves’ (2014/15), ‘Melodrom/Rebelodrom – NoborderZone’ (2012/13), ‘the que_ring drama project’ (2018/19) and ‘Sodom Vienna’ (2020/21). He also co-founded the noborder VolxTheaterKarawane (2001–2004) and the band SV Damenkraft (2003–2008). He has been actively engaged in ‘Refugee Protest Vienna’ (2012/13) and ‘Queer Base’.

Noushin Redjaian was born in 1988 and studied Design/Fashion with Prof. Bernhard Wilhelm and Prof. Hussein Chalayan at the University of Applied Arts Vienna from 2010–2017. From 2012–2015 she also studied Graphic Design and Graphic Printing with Prof. Jan Svenungsson, and in 2015–2016 Transmedia Art with Prof. Brigitte Kowanz. She lives and works as an artist and fashion designer in Vienna. In her art, Noushin Redjaian engages with the transcendent nature of symbolic language and its conservation. Inspired by cultural history and poetry, she forms objects and sculptures that are confronted with their past and future.

Sandra Selimović is an actor, director, rapper and activist. Born in Zaječar, Serbia in 1981, she first appeared on stage in 1994. She is currently appearing at the Burgtheater Vienna in ‘The Doctor’ by Robert Icke and at the Maxim Gorki Theater Berlin in ‘Roma Armee’ directed by Yael Ronen. She has worked as a freelance actor and director at the Volkstheater Vienna, Schauspiel Essen, Staatstheater Kassel and in the independent theatre sector in Austria, Germany and Romania. She acted in her first television series for ORF, ‘Operation Dunarea’, at the age of 12. Together with Tina Leisch, she co-directed her first documentary film ‘Gangster Girls’ in Schwarzau women’s prison, which was screened at the Viennale and the Munich Documentary Festival. In 2010 she founded the first ever feminist Roma theatre organisation Romano Svato together with her sister Simonida Selimović – at the same time the two of them started making music as the rap duo Mindj Panther. Their productions examine racism, sexism, identity, feminism and exclusion while shattering stereotypical images and clichés of the Roma as an ethnic group. As a self-aware and queer romni, Sandra Selimović is both a pioneer of women’s rights within the Roma community and also an activist against discrimination against gypsies. In 2013 her debut work as a director at the Vienna Akademietheater won her the Junger Burg’s audience award.

Selina Shirin Stritzel is a freelance theatre-maker, political education worker, cultural scholar and transmedia artist. She is studying for a Masters in Critical Studies at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna with a thesis on ‘Post-migrant Identities – the things we do for love.’ She is a co-founder of the association Vielmehr für Alle! and the project PROSA-Projekt Schule für Alle!. From 2014 to 2017 she worked at Ballhaus Naunynstraße Berlin in a range of capacities including Assistant Director, Dramaturg, Co-Director and Head of the ‘akademie der autodidakten’. In 2018 and 2019 she worked with Gin Müller and Radostina Patulova at brut Wien on the ‘que_ring drama project’. She also worked as Project Co-ordinator for ‘Akademie geht in die Schule’ at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. As an art outreach worker, she currently works on KÖR NÖ’s INVENTOUR and Graz University’s DERLA project in co-operation with the OeAd. Her artistic works in the form of paintings, performances and films, have been seen at venues including mumok and Exhibit Eschenbachgasse.  

Concept, Choreography, Production: Boglárka Börcsök & Andreas Bolm
Dancers: Éva E. Kovács, Irén Preisich, Ágnes Roboz
Performance: Boglárka Börcsök
Lighting, Sound: Andreas Bolm
Costumes, Scenography: Boglárka Börcsök & Andreas Bolm
Production Assistant: Martyna Bezrąk
English Translation: David Robert Evans
Video: Andreas Bolm & Boglárka Börcsök (Editing), Lisa Rave (Camera), Elisa Calosi (Production Manager)

With support from Collegium Hungaricum, Atelier No. 63 – PACT Zollverein, Essen and HELLERAU – European Centre for the Arts, Dresden. Funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media as part of NEUSTART KULTUR.
A section of this work was devised as part of ‘20 danseurs pour le XXème siècle’ (conceived by: Boris Charmatz, Terrain). Video: With support from the Dance Heritage Fund – an initiative of the German Federal Cultural Foundation, La Musée de la Danse, Rennes and the Berlin Senate Department for Culture and Europe.
FIGURING AGE is presented by the Impulse Theater Festival in co-operation with Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen.

The German-Hungarian film-maker Andreas Bolm lives in Berlin. He studied at the FAMU Film Academy in Prague and at HFF Munich. His films have been seen at many prestigious festivals around the world. His short film ‘Jaba’ premiered at the 59th Cannes Film Festival and won the prize for Best Documentary Film at the Zinebi Film Festival in Bilbao. With the aid of a scholarship from the illustrious Cinéfondation Residence Festival de Cannes he was able to develop his first feature ‘Die Wiedergänger’, which premiered at the 63rd Berlinale in the Perspektive Deutsches Kino section and was subsequently presented at MoMA in New York. In 2016 Bolm shot his second feature ‘Le Juge’ with the French actor and film director Jacques Nolot in the leading role. In 2018 he completed the documentary short ‘My Last Video’ about the rising YouTube star Anton “Reyst”.
Bolm’s films portray people in their social and family surroundings and explore the fine line between documentary and fiction.

Boglárka Börcsök is a Berlin-based Hungarian artist and choreographer. She studied Dance at the Anton Bruckner Private University in Austria and P.A.R.T.S. in Belgium. As a performer she has taken part in works by Tino Sehgal at documenta (13), the Stedelijk Museum and the Museum of Contemporary Art KIASMA. She dances in Joachim Koester’s video works ‘The Place of Dead Roads’ and ‘Maybe This Act, This Work, This Thing’ that are exhibited in museums worldwide. Börcsök performed and collaborated for several years with Eszter Salamon on her acclaimed ‘MONUMENT’ series, which was presented at the Ruhrtriennale, the Centre Pompidou, the Festival d'Avignon, Kunstenfestivaldesarts, Tanz im August and elsewhere. Since 2016 she has been seen in several editions of ‘20 Dancers for the XX Century’ by Boris Charmatz/Terrain. She is currently touring with ‘Still Not Still’, a dance performance by Ligia Lewis. Boglárka Börcsök and Andreas Bolm have been working together since 2017. They created the documentary film ‘The Art of Movement’, a portrait of three dancers in their nineties from Budapest. Her performance and video installation based on the film, ‘Figuring Age’, has been presented at festivals including Moving in November in Helsinki and ImPulsTanz in Vienna, where it received an honourable mention. The production has also been selected for the Aerowaves Network’s Twenty23.

Direction: Sahar Rahimi
Concept: Ed. Hauswirth, Rupert Lehofer, Sahar Rahimi
Performers: Florentina Piffl, Emilia Thelen, Ed. Hauswirth, Rupert Lehofer
Design: Helene Thümmel
Technical Direction: Moke Rudolf-Klengel
Production Manager: Christina Romirer

Funded by the City of Graz, the Regional Government of Styria and the Republic of Austria’s Federal Ministry for Arts, Culture, Civil Service and Sport.

The Theater im Bahnhof Graz identifies as a contemporary folk theatre. Its theme is Austrian identity, by which it means self-identification, self-image and images of others, consensus and dissent in the reality of current society. These require constant negotiation, which is why the Theater im Bahnhof is continually altering its practices. It is permanently improvising its own existence. The TiB is an alternative institution and runs its own production space and venue in Graz. It operates locally, regionally and internationally. It is also the largest full-time, professional, independent theatre company in Austria. It conducts its work as a collective of highly accented, sought-after individual artists. Feedback within the ensemble plays a role in all its creations. TiB actors are theatre-makers. For over 30 years, the TiB has primarily produced its own productions, which are devised as a collective.

Ed. Hauswirth, born in Styria, is a director, performer and founder member of the Theater im Bahnhof Graz. From 1990–2005 he was Styria’s Regional Adviser for Non-Professional Theatre. Since 2006 he has been Artistic Director of the Theater im Bahnhof. He has directed numerous productions for the Theater im Bahnhof, the Rabtaldirndln, the Volkstheater, Schauspielhaus Graz, Schauspiel Dortmund and the Vorstadttheater Graz. His work has been presented at steirischer herbst, Wiener Festwochen, Theater der Welt and the Impulse Festival, and he has also worked as a guest director at numerous theatres in Austria and Germany. He has won several awards.

Rupert Lehofer, born in Graz, is a founder member, actor, dramaturg and writer with the Theater im Bahnhof, Graz. Since 2003 he has also formed part of the performance group Umherschweifende Produzenten together with Seppo Gründler. He has worked as a performer and content producer with Zinganel/Hieslmaier, Oleg Soulimenko, Zobel & Schneider and others. He is an improviser and previously appeared as a clown with Rote Nasen Österreich. He has also worked on several films.

Florentina Piffl-Percevic (13) lives with her parents, three siblings Philomena (15), Ferdinand (11) and Severin (8), and golden retriever Emil on the outskirts of Graz. Florentina has been in the same class as Emilia Thelen since their first year at primary school and is now in Class Three at Gibs – Graz International Bilingual School. Florentina has experimented on stage for a number of years with the theatre club of the Graz children’s theatre Next Liberty. She has also performed as a child extra in the operas ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ and ‘Morgen und Abend’. She loves athletics (Styrian Under-14 pentathlon champion in 2022 and, with Emilia, Styrian Under-14 80m sprint relay champion), skiing, mountaineering, reading and chilling out in her hammock.

Sahar Rahimi, born in Tehran, is a director, writer and performer, who currently lives in Munich. She studied at the Institute of Applied Theatre Studies in Gießen and is a co-founder of the performance group Monster Truck. She works in the disciplines of theatre, performance, installation and video in both the independent sector and in city theatres. At the heart of her work lies her interest in the ambivalent areas on the boundary between power and powerlessness.

Christina Romirer has worked with the Theater am Bahnhof in a variety of different roles since 2009. She often travels with TiB on tour, e.g. with ‘Black Moonshine’ to Eisenerz and Vordernberg, ‘Friedhof der Eigenheime’ to Murau and ‘My Life in the Bush of Sarajevo’ to Sarajevo and Salzburg. She studied Transmedia Arts at the University of Applied Arts and Stage Design at the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz (KUG). Her work and projects move between the fields of theatre and film design, interior design, the design of public spaces and the visual arts.

Moke Rudolf-Klengel was born in Graz, is a co-founder of Radio Helsinki, the independent radio station in Graz, and until 2019 was part of the artists’ collective ekw14,90. Musician. Technician at the Theater im Bahnhof.

Emilia Thelen was born with a talent for appearing in front of people without embarrassment. Her father has written and performed musicals for many years and her mother is a journalist with ORF. When she was at kindergarten, she volunteered to pose in children’s clothes for a fashion house. Her empathy has always been high enough to make group dynamics “explode.” She also enjoys travelling. She has been an active cheerleader for several years, and participated in international competitions. She believes it is important to set herself ambitious targets, at school as well as in athletics competitions. She also enjoyed amateur stage performances at primary school. Emilia can also contribute a few bars on the guitar to a social gathering: an instrument she found quickly at the age of 8: "I’m learning the guitar because I can always have it with me when I’m travelling through Europe, you can’t do that with a piano…" She has joined the theatre group at the International School in Graz and then auditioned for the Theater im Bahnhof and was cast in the play ‘Dudes halten endlich die Klappe’, even though they were looking for an older girl. Emilia has given numerous interviews to Austrian newspapers and public television. Here too, one can sense the ease and seriousness with which she approaches acting.

Helene Thümmel (*1990) studied Architecture (BA) in Graz, Austria, and Media Arts/New Media (MA) at the School of Arts in Nova Gorica, Slovenia. She has worked as a stage and costume designer for theatre and film productions since 2010 and is and has been part of a wide range of artistic co-operations and alliances. As an artist, Helene Thümmel moves between analogue and digital media. Inspired by science, politics and society, she attempts to understand wider connections and examines concepts such as distance, space and borders in social and political contexts. To do this, she employs tools including video, objects, text and photography in her installations. She has participated in numerous group and individual exhibitions in cities including Vienna, Graz, Nova Gorica, Trbovlje, Brussels and Rijeka. In 2020/2021, Thümmel was awarded the City of Graz’s Foreign Travel Scholarship and the Region of Styria’s Kunstraum Steiermark Scholarship.

Concept, Direction, Text, Food, Performance: Nadja Duesterberg
Composer: Svea Kirschmeier
With: Nadja Duesterberg, Kornelius Heidebrecht, Lisa Hinz, Svea Kirschmeier, Zeynep Topal, Oleg Zhukov
Dramaturgy: Felizitas Stilleke
Dramaturgical Consultant: Anna Bründl

This production was created as part of the project HAUS/DOMA.
Artistic Direction, Scenography, Music: subbotnik
Management: Béla Bisom/transmissions
Assistant: Lisa Hinz
Production Manager: Nora Vollmond
Dramaturgy: Anna Bründl

Funded by the Fonds Darstellende Künste with funding from the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media as part of NEUSTART KULTUR, #TakeHeart Residency Funding at the FFT Düsseldorf and the Ministry for Culture and Science of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia.

Anna Bründl is a dramaturg and curator. She has worked across Germany for international festivals including SPIELART and DANCE in Munich in a variety of roles, was Artistic Assistant at HELLERAU – European Centre for the Arts Dresden from 2010 to 2018 and Dramaturg and Project Co-ordinator of the new theatre alliance vier.ruhr in Mülheim an der Ruhr from 2019 to 2021. She works as a freelance dramaturg together with subbotnik, KGI – Büro für nicht übertragbare Angelegenheiten and the performance and media collective LIGNA. Since 2023 she has also been Dramaturg for the Impulse Theater Festival.

Nadja Duesterberg was born in Frankfurt am Main in 1983. She has been working as a freelance actor/performer in North Rhine-Westphalia and in Berlin since 2009 and as a chef since 2007. She was awarded the Cologne Performer’s Prize in 2017. She devised her first original performance in 2019 as part of ‘Homesick’ at FFT Düsseldorf (conceived by Michikazu Matsune). This was followed the same year by an international co-production by Jun Tsutsui with the Kyoto Art Center at FFT Düsseldorf. Nadja Duesterberg asks: Who is visible where and why? Where is our story? And who is telling it? In 2020 the #TakeCare residency of the Fonds Darstellende Künste gave her the opportunity to research patriarchal, misogynist and discriminatory structures in her everyday work as an actor in the independent performing arts. In 2022 she began a second residency at FFT Düsseldorf: ‘Expect a Tiger’ is a performative research project about dining.

Lisa Hinz came to Cologne after graduating from high school in 2021 and completed federal voluntary service here in the Press and Public Relations Department at the COMEDIA Theater. Since the summer of 2022 she has worked freelance as an Assistant Director and Project Manager in the independent theatre sector in Cologne and Düsseldorf, for the COMEDIA Theater, subbotnik and the Sommerblut Festival, among others.

Svea Kirschmeier is a freelance musician, actor and performer from Cologne. Since 2018 she has played and composed for venues including the COMEDIA Theater Cologne and JES Stuttgart and also with the independent performance collective subbotnik. With the production ‘Zuhause’ by the performance collective subbotnik she won the Cologne Theatre Prize 2021. In 2022 she was nominated for the FAUST Theatre Prize with an acrobatics and dance production by the theaterkohlenpott Herne and with other productions she has been invited to festivals across Germany, notably the Augenblick mal! festival in Berlin.

Felizitas Stilleke is a freelance dramaturg, artist and curator. She works as a festival dramaturg (Berlin Theatertreffen 2018, Impulse Theater Festival 2017 and FAVORITEN 2014 as Co-Director) and directs performance conferences, such as Branchentreff 2019–2021 and B.A.L.L. 2022, as well as working as a production dramaturg in Berlin, North Rhine-Westphalia, Zurich and the Netherlands. She holds a B.A. in German Literature/Narrative Studies from Bochum and an M.A. in Cultural Poetics from the University of Münster. In 2020 she started a series of podcast sessions at Ballhaus Ost entitled ‘The Mother in Me is the Mother in You’, in which she readdressed the discourse around the issue of not/not yet/no longer/perhaps/becoming a mother in conversation with friends. In all her work she is concerned and motivated by the search for radical intersectional/feminist change and the cultivation of collective knowledge.

The ensemble subbotnik operates on a project basis and is consistently extended by new artistic positions. It has developed artistic projects in North Rhine-Westphalia continuously for more than ten years. As theatre-makers and musicians, its members work where performative storytelling meets concerts and live audio drama. Their works have been seen at the Forum Freies Theater Düsseldorf, studiobühneköln, the Freies Werkstatt Theater Köln, Schauspiel Köln, the Theater an der Ruhr in Mülheim, Schauspiel Leipzig and Nationaltheater Mannheim. Their first award was the City of Düsseldorf’s Development Prize in the Performing Arts in 2013 for ‘Die Sehnsucht des Menschen ein Tier zu werden’. Three of their works were then presented at the NRW theatre festival FAVORITEN in 2014. The trilogy ‘Götter – Helden – Städte’ gained several prizes and festival invitations: WESTWIND 2016/ 2017/ 2018, Spurensuche Berlin 2018 and Augenblick mal! 2019. subbotnik won the Cologne Theatre Prize 2021 for the production ‘Zuhause’. Their most recent work ‘Lyriks’ has been invited to Augenblick mal! 2023.

Nora Vollmond works together with artists and collectives between Berlin and North Rhine-Westphalia as a producer, dramaturg, performer and speaker. Nora has worked regularly with the theatre collective subbotnik (32nd Cologne Theatre Prize, Augenblick mal! 2023) since 2020. As part of the #TakeHeart Residency at PACT Zollverein, she investigated transgenerational power relations and family narratives. Nora is currently a participant in the Academy for Performing Arts Producers #6 run by the Alliance of International Production Houses.

Performance, Artistic Direction: Savino Caruso
Performance, Concept: Elvio Avila
Video: Eleonora Camizzi
Graphics, Costumes, Scenography: Isabelle Mauchle
Sound Technician: Lena Brechbühl
Dramaturgy: Sebastian Gisi
Artistic Support: Beatrice Fleischlin
Production Manager: Gilda Laneve

A co-production with Südpol Luzern. With support from the Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia, the Ernst Göhner Stiftung, Migros Culture Percentage, the Canton of Lucerne Cultural Funding in association with Swisslos, the Schweizerische Interpretenstiftung SIS, Stiftung Monika Widmer, the Landis & Gyr Foundation and the City of Lucerne’s funds for the Promotion and Development of Cultural Activities (FUKA). Thanks to ROXY Birsfelden.

Elvio Avila is an artist who operates in constant conflict between conservatism and innovation, usually ending in absurdity. Elvio began an intense training in Argentinian folk dancing at the age of five. When he was fourteen, he started studying contemporary dance in Buenos Aires. In 2010 he moved to Switzerland, where he studied Advanced Studies in Modern Dance at the Zurich University of the Arts. This was followed by a B.A. in Physical Theatre at the Accademia Dimitri in Ticino and an M.A. in Expanded Theater at Bern Academy of the Arts. Elvio currently lives in Argentina.

Savino Caruso is a freelance stage designer, artistic director and performer. In addition to his artistic work, he is also an activist. He studied Film at Zurich University of the Arts and Photography at CEPV in Vevey and at the F+F School in Zurich.

Direction, Text, Performance: Boris Nikitin
Production: Annett Hardegen
Outside Eyes: Matthias Meppelink, Annett Hardegen, Fabian Schmidtlein

An It’s The Real Thing production in co-production with Steirischer Herbst 2022, Staatstheater Nürnberg, Kaserne Basel, Ringlokschuppen Ruhr, Mülheim an der Ruhr, Théâtre Vidy Lausanne, HAU Hebbel am Ufer, Berlin, Frascati Amsterdam, Theater Chur and OMANUT – Forum for Jewish Art and Culture. With support from Swiss Cultural Foundation Pro Helvetia, the Stanley Thomas Johnson Foundation and the expert panel on dance and theatre for the Cantons of Basel-Stadt and Basel-Landschaft as part of the projects made possible by three-year funding.

The first version of this work was commissioned by OMANUT – Forum for Jewish Arts and Culture.

Boris Nikitin is a theatre director and author. His productions, texts and happenings have explored the representation and fabrication of identity and reality for over fifteen years. These works are well known for crossing boundaries between theatrical illusion and performance. At the same time, they constitute a continuous long-term exploration of propaganda in its various forms. “Like few others, Boris Nikitin pushes theatre to a critical point,” wrote the German professional journal Theater heute. Nikitin produces work independently with major international festivals (Ruhrtriennale, Wiener Festwochen) and in city and state theatres (Münchner Kammerspiele, Theater Basel, Staatstheater Nürnberg, Schauspiel Graz). His pieces have already been invited to the Impulse Festival four times. In 2017 Nikitin was awarded the J.M.R. Lenz Prize for Drama by the city of Jena for his body of work. In 2020 he was awarded the Swiss Theatre Prize. His play ‘Erste Staffel. 20 Jahre Big Brother’ was invited to the 2021 Mülheimer Theatertagen.

Concept, Text, Performance: Henrike Iglesias (Anna Fries, Eva G. Alonso, Malu Peeters, Marielle Schavan, Sophia Schroth)
Coding, Creative Technology: bleeptrack
Costumes: Mascha Mihoa Bischoff
Assistant Director, voice performance: María Giacaman
Costume Assistant: Marie Göhler
Ceramics: Lauriane Daphne Carl
Outside Eye: Olivia Hyunsin Kim
Production Management Germany: ehrliche arbeit – freies Kulturbüro
Production Management Switzerland: Maxine Devaud, oh la la – performing arts production
Translation: Naomi Boyce

A Henrike Iglesias production in co-production with Sophiensæle, Berlin, FFT Düsseldorf, brut Wien and ROXY Birsfelden. Funded by the Berlin Senate Department for Culture and Europe, the Fonds Darstellende Künste with funding from the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media as part of NEUSTART KULTUR, the expert panel on dance and theatre for the Cantons of Basel-Stadt and Basel-Landschaft and the Schweizerische Interpretenstiftung SIS.

Henrike Iglesias understand pop cultural and mass media phenomena as mirrors of society’s conditions and misunderstandings, and they love to investigate these from queer and feminist perspectives. They create experimental performances and are based in Berlin and Basel. Their regular crew consists of Anna Fries, Eva G. Alonso, Malu Peeters, Marielle Schavan and Sophia Schroth. Most of their performances have their home at the Sophiensæle – and they have also received festival invitations from imagetanz Wien, the Heidelberger Stückemarkt, the FIBA Festival in Buenos Aires, the Theatertreffen’s digital showcase and Politik im Freien Theater.

This project was made possible by all the activists who contributed to its research phase and who shared their knowledge, their experiences and their dreams.
Direction: Absent.e pour le moment
Concept: Cédric Djedje
Performers: Cédric Djedje, Safi Martin Yé
Dramaturgy: Noémi Michel
Outside Eyes: Diane Muller, Ludovic Chazaud
Writers: Ludovic Chazaud, Noémi Michel
Stage Design: Nathalie Anguezomo Mba Bikoro, Consultant: Marco Ievoli
Stage Construction: Atelier construction Vidy
Choreography: Ivan Larson
Sound Design, Composition: Ka(ra)mi
Sound and Video Management: Sebastien Baudet
Costume Design, Kanga Maker: Tara Mabiala
Costume Maker: Eva Michel
Graphic Design: Claudia Ndebele
Lighting Design: Léo Garcia, Consultant: Joana Oliveira
Light Management: Nidea Henriques
Video: Valeria Stucki
Transcriptions: Eva Michel, Bel Kerkhoff-Parnell, Orfeo, Janyce Djedje
Surtitle operator: Diane Muller
Production Manager: Lionel Perrinjaquet, Tutu Production

A production by Absent.e pour le moment, Le Grütli – Centre de production et de diffusion des Arts Vivants, Lausanne and Théâtre Vidy Lausanne. With funding from the Swiss Cultural Foundation Pro Helvetia, the State of Geneva, Loterie Romande, the City of Geneva’s Agenda21, the Ernst Göhner Stiftung, Fondation Leenaards, the Porosus Endowment Fund, the Schweizerische Interpretenstiftung SIS, the SSA – Société Suisse des Auteurs, the Jan Michalski Foundation, the Migros Cultural Percentage and the Stanley Thomas Johnson Foundation.

The company Absent.e pour le moment was founded in Geneva in 2020 by Cédric Djedje (actor and creator of projects living between Geneva and Berlin). Its approach is based on the collective creation of multidisciplinary performances. The artists seek to question and experiment with different ways of creating a community from the perspective of black and postcolonial critical theories. The company aims to denaturalize the political relations and expose the power relations that underlie the construction of historical narratives in postcolonial European spaces. Through its use of field investigations, it seeks to examine the repercussions of the colonial moment on what we consider to be our daily life, on what often surrounds us unchallenged and yet shapes our individual and collective identities. Their method is conceived as a play machine that combines stage writing, dance and performance with critical academic disciplines. Absent.e pour le moment creates a political and playful art in which the desire to move on becomes irresistible: a political art that looks for movements in which the joy of minoritized peoples and their ability to be seen create spaces for acting and words that offer temporary refuge – not only for minoritized peoples but for everyone.

With: Ana Berkenhoff, Daniel Degeest, Alina Huppertz, Dominik Keggenhoff plus Jakob Boyny (cello), Jacob Bussmann (piano) and Špela Mastnak (vibraphone & percussion)

Direction: Jan Philipp Stange
Music: Jacob Bussmann
Stage Design: Jakob Engel
Costume Design: Maylin Habig
Production: Alessia Neumann, Paula Noack
Dramaturgy: Philipp Scholtysik
Stage Design Assistant: Kathrin Frech
Press and Public Relations: Annika Schmidt

A production by Stange Produktionen. In co-operation with Produktionshaus Naxos. With kind support from the City of Frankfurt am Main Department of Culture, the Fonds Darstellende Künste with funding from the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media, Kulturfonds Rhein-Main, the Claussen-Simon Foundation, the Hessian Ministry for Science and the Arts, and others.
Stange Produktionen receives multi-year institutional funding from the City of Frankfurt am Main Department of Culture and the Fonds Darstellende Künste.

By and with: Oliver Zahn
Dramaturgy: Felizitas Stilleke
Technical Direction: Dennis Dieter Kopp
Artistic Producer: Martina Neu

An Oliver Zahn production in co-production with the HAU Hebbel am Ufer, Berlin. Funded by the Berlin Senate Department for Culture and Europe.

Dennis Dieter Kopp studied Theatre, Media and Literature at the University of Hildesheim. He worked there as a freelance lighting designer and technician with an additional dramaturgical role on the student festival State of the Art and on numerous theatre productions. Since 2016 he has worked as a touring technician and Technical Director for the independent company HAUPTAKTION (Hannah Saar, Julian Warner, Oliver Zahn et al.), in particular on ‘Situation mit Doppelgänger’. He has taken this role for Thermoboy FK since 2015 for productions including ‘La Casa’ (2014). As a member of and performer with cobragianni.cobra he has been responsible for ‘Let Me Be the Object of Your Desire’ (2012) and ‘EIN BISSCHEN MEHR MUSS MAN SCHON SEHEN oder: Wie ich mich in einen Schmetterling verwandelte’ (2017). His artistic practice is primarily concerned with issues of critical research into masculinity and the search for queer, feminist and intersectional perspectives. Dennis Dieter Kopp currently works as Technical Director for the Brecht Festival.

Felizitas Stilleke is a freelance dramaturg, artist and curator. She works as a festival dramaturg (Berlin Theatertreffen 2018, Impulse Theater Festival 2017 and FAVORITEN 2014 as Co-Director) and directs performance conferences, such as Branchentreff 2019–2021 and B.A.L.L. 2022, as well as working as a production dramaturg in Berlin, North Rhine-Westphalia, Zurich and the Netherlands. She holds a B.A. in German Literature/Narrative Studies from Bochum and an M.A. in Cultural Poetics from the University of Münster. In 2020 she started a series of podcast sessions at Ballhaus Ost entitled ‘The Mother in Me is the Mother in You’, in which she readdressed the discourse around the issue of not/not yet/no longer/perhaps/becoming a mother in conversation with friends. In all her work she is concerned and motivated by the search for radical intersectional/feminist change and the cultivation of collective knowledge.

Oliver Zahn (*1989) is a theatre-maker and performer. His choreographic-discursive performance essays often revolve around the writing of history, the politics of memory, collective remembrance and intangible knowledge. These are always based on extensive research – ethnographic, archive-based and experimenting on his own body. In addition to ‘STEINERNE GÄSTE’, his recent works include ‘LOB DES VERGESSENS, Parts 1+2’, ‘RUINEN’ and ‘BERGENTRÜCKUNG’.

By: Nicoleta Esinencu, teatru-spălătorie
Performers: Nicoleta Esinencu, Artiom Zavadovsky, Doriana Talmazan, Kira Semionov, Nora Dorogan, Oana Cirpanu
Technical Development: Iulian Lungu, Neonil Rosça
Technician: Sergiu Iachimov
Production Managers: Jana Penz
Artistic Consultant: Aenne Quiñones
Technical Direction HAU: Annette Becker
Sound HAU: Janis Klinkhammer
Lighting HAU: Lea Schneidermann
Translation Moldovan Romanian to German: Eva Ruth Wemme
Translation Moldovan Romanian to English: Artiom Zavadovsky
Translation Russian to German: Yvonne Griesel
Translation Russian to English: Artiom Zavadovsky

A production by HAU Hebbel am Ufer, Berlin and teatru-spălătorie. A co-production by FFT Düsseldorf, HELLERAU – European Centre for the Arts, Dresden, Theater Rampe, Stuttgart, Festival Theaterformen, Hanover. Funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media through the Alliance of International Production Houses.

Nicoleta Esinencu lives and works as a writer and director in Chișinău, in the Republic of Moldova. Her radical plays are performed internationally. In 2010 she co-founded the alternative political artistic space teatru-spălătorie in Chișinău. Since the theatre’s enforced closure in 2017, the women’s collective teatru-spălătorie continues its work without its own venue.