“Good evening, everybody, we are going to bring you the best possible entertainment!” A promise the KLASSENREVUE will not break. Sketches, dancing and a whole load of songs: scrupulously deploying every type of performance and tons of humour, this show drags the present class structure out from obscurity behind its ideological veil. With indie icon Christiane Rösinger, Stefanie Sargnagel, Paula Irmschler and many others.
Language: German with English subtitles
Acoustic amplification through induction loop for visitors with hearing aids
30.5., 17:00: introduction in German for blind and visually impaired visitors
Tickets for all Impulse events are also available from our ticket shop.
But who is actually allowed to join in here? After a playful privilege competition, six experts are left: people from the working class who have been consistently plagued by money worries to this day. The middle class children who are left are allowed to be in the band providing musical accompaniment. The thematic framework is established in the very first song: “Rich-shaming, inheritance-shaming, redistribution, resistance” the ensemble belts out cheerfully from on stage. Get stuck in!
The fairy tale of social advancement through achievement is presented here as mini-drama shrouded in mist, in which all sorts of powerful devices are used to prevent the working classes from climbing the social ladder. A supposed therapist for inheritance shame describes how those who criticise capitalism yet benefit from legacies can combat their shame. The revue finds many forms for its complex theme. And in rhymes and songs the ensemble repeatedly describes a rich life with little money. Social climbing? No thank you! Because redistribution is the only way. Because otherwise the rich can do without their clever talk about classicism.
“A raised fist, filled with fervour – and steadfast defiance: they would rather drink cheap sekt and face poverty in old age than sup the leftover champagne of the ruling class.” Patrick Wildermann, Tagesspiegel
Concept, Text and Composition: Christiane Rösinger
Director: Meike Schmitz, Christiane Rösinger
Co-Composition: Paul Pötsch
Musical Director: Laura Landergott, Paul Pötsch
Band: Laura Landergott, Paul Pötsch, Albertine Sarges
Performance: Sila Davulcu, Doreen Kutzke, Paula Irmschler, Julie Miess, Minh Duc Pham, Christiane Rösinger, Stefanie Sargnagel, Andreas Schwarz
Stage: Marlene Lockemann, Sina Manthey
Costume: Svenja Gassen
Mask: Thomas Korn & Juli Schulz
Video and Live Camera: Kathrin Krottenthaler
Choreography: Rúben Nsue
Lighting Design: Hans Leser
Associate Director: Stella Nikisch
Associate Stage Designer: Rosina Zeus
Associate Costume Designer: Katharina Achterkamp, Aleix Ilusa
Associate Dramaturg and Producer: Lisa Homburger
Assistant Choreographer: Sara Fernández
Translation: Lyz Pfister and Andrew Clarke (Panthea)
Sound: Rozenn Lièvre, Torsten Schwarzbach (HAU Hebbel am Ufer)
Video: Julia Cremers (HAU Hebbel am Ufer)
Artistic Advisor: Aenne Quiñones (HAU)
Technical Director: Amina Nouns (HAU)
Production Manager: Chiara Galesi (HAU)
Contact for touring enquiries: Chiara Galesi, email hidden; JavaScript is required
A production by Christiane Rösinger / HAU Hebbel am Ufer, Berlin. Funded by the Capital Cultural Fund.
Sila Davulcu, born in Istanbul in 1982. Classic third generation. Davulcu’s grandmother came to Berlin from Turkey as a “guest worker” at the end of the 60s and gradually brought her children after her. Davulcu grew up in Kreuzberg (36), where she still lives today. As a child, she loved acting and singing. But she never dared try to make this her main profession and instead she did all the regular things: primary school, graduation, training, jobs.
Paula Irmschler was born in Dresden in 1989 and now lives in Cologne. She has already written columns for Intro, Neues Deutschland and Musikexpress. From 2019 to 2023 she was an editor with the satirical magazine Titanic. Her novel ‘Superbusen’ was published in 2020, it will be followed in 2024 by ‘Frau und Mutter’.
Doreen Kutzke, born in the dark forests of the Harz mountains and raised in the GDR, is a multidisciplinary musician, actor and composer from Berlin. She has been involved in musical projects since she was a child and now performs under the name Kutzkelina. Kutzke founded the Kreuzberg School of Yodelling and teaches yodelling and extended voice techniques around the world. She has worked as a voice tutor at Art Academy Reykjavík, Goldsmiths University London and the University of the Arts Berlin. She has co-operated in numerous combinations with artists including Hermann Nitsch, Column One, Element of Crime, Parabelles, Fearless Bob, Malcolm Alison, Myriam Van Imschoot, Raionbashi and the LA Free Music Society.
Laura Landergott, the Austrian multi-instrumentalist, is famous for the versatility of her musical work. In 2019 she toured with queer icon Peaches, performing at venues including the Royal Festival Hall in London, Kampnagel in Hamburg and the Berlin Volksbühne. She currently plays with the group Ja, Panik and Fuffifufzich. In addition to her live stage presence, Landergott also works as a musical director for a range of theatre productions. For many years she has collaborated with the theatre collective Copy & Waste, which has won the prestigious George Tabori Prize.
Julie Miess was conceived in Manchester, but was born in Karlsruhe in 1972. Descended from Transylvanian peasants and a family that owned a fur factory, she had a materially privileged upbringing. In 1991 she moved to Berlin. Alongside her life as a musician, she also conducts post-doctoral academic research into books and monsters. From the mid-90s she played bass in the band Britta with Christiane Rösinger, later founding the band Half Girl, where she sang and played keyboards. In 2021 Rösinger changed Miess’s life once again by recruiting her to the theatre band for ‘Planet Egalia’ and casting her in the role of cheeky little Fandango. Since 2022 Miess has also performed in a musical duo, combining her love of Lemmy, cats and noise: Motörcat.
Minh Duc Pham, born in Schlema, Germany, in 1991, is an artist and lives in Berlin. Pham completed his diploma in Exhibition Design and Scenography at HfG Karlsruhe in 2019 and studied Performance and Design Theory as a guest at the University of the Arts Berlin. In his works in the visual and performing arts, Pham examines the theme of identity amid the tensions of gender, race and class.
Paul Pötsch, born in Lauchhammer/Brandenburg in 1988, is a freelance musician and composer. He lives with his family in Hamburg. He trained as a musician with Laurenz Wannenmacher (piano) and Eckhard Lipske (acoustic and electric guitar). He is a founder member of the bands Trümmer, Hotel Rimini and Ilgen-Nur. For his band projects he has been awarded the German Record Critics’ Award, was nominated for an ECHO Prize and won the HANS Hamburg Music Prize as Young Artist of the Year. He continually releases new sounds and regularly performs national and international concert tours – amongst others, on behalf of the Goethe Institut. He has presented his own musical theatre performances at HKW Berlin (the rock opera ‘Vincent’) and Kampnagel im Hamburg (the GDR musical revue ‘Wir treiben die Liebe auf die Weide’).
The musician and writer Christiane Rösinger moved to Berlin in 1985, where she founded the bands Lassie Singers and Britta. The themes of her books and songs include criticism of couples and capitalism, the challenges to Bohemian life created by a precarious existence, and practical feminism. The city of Berlin is the setting for her novels, provides material for her columns and has inspired song lyrics and theatre texts. As well as making music and years of working as a journalist, one of Rösinger’s priorities has always been to create local structures to promote young musicians and counter the male-dominated music business. In the 90s she roganised the legendary “Flittchenbar” in the Maria at the Ostbahnhof and, following a long break, revived it again in the Südblock at Kottbusser Tor. Her artistic and personal connections in the city made the housing crisis a particularly pressing issue for her, expressing itself in the song ‘Eigentumswohnung’ about housing and class on her 2017 album ‘Lieder ohne Leiden’. Rösinger created her first work as a director in 2019 in response to an invitation from the HAU Hebbel am Ufer. The stage musical ‘Stadt unter Einfluss – das Musical zur Wohnungsfrage’ was produced by HAU as part of the festival Berlin bleibt! Stadt, Kunst, Zukunft. It was acclaimed by the public and the media as “popular theatre in the best sense.“ Following on from this successful collaboration, Rösinger devised her second musical stage production at HAU ‘Planet Egalia – Ein feministisches Singspiel’ in 2021 and ‘Die große Klassenrevue’ in 2023.
Albertine Sarges, born in Berlin Kreuzberg in 1987, studied Musicology in Leipzig and is a freelance musician working in theatre and pop music production.
Stefanie Sargnagel, born in 1986, studied Painting in the class run by Daniel Richter at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, but spent more time at her bread-and-butter job in a call centre. She has been a freelance writer since 2016 – and has spent more time with her financial adviser ever since. She won the BKS Bank audience prize at the competition for the 2016 Ingeborg Bachmann Prize. Her two books ‘Statusmeldungen’ and ‘Dicht’ have both been bestsellers. Her latest book ‘Iowa’ was published in December 2023 by Rowohlt.
Meike Schmitz studied Literature, Latin American Studies and Dramaturgy at the Theaterakademie Hamburg. She held the post of Dramaturg at the Deutsches Theater Berlin from 2009 to 2014. In 2013 she co-founded the artistic and cultural organisation Die Heitere Fahne in Bern and has since been part of the Artistic Directorate of Frei_Raum, the inclusive theatre collective that is based there. Meike Schmitz has lived in Dresden since 2019. Here she has collaborated consistently with the Dresden-based dance company the guts company and Hellerau – European Centre for the Arts. Her work as a freelance dramaturg and director has been seen recently at venues including the Deutsches Theater Berlin, Theater Bremen, HAU – Hebbel am Ufer and Hellerau – European Centre for the Arts. Meike Schmitz is frequently involved in inclusive working situations. In addition to regularly devising productions she directs with Theater Frei_Raum, she has also realised co-operation projects with Rambazamba Theater, Theater Thikwa and, most recently, a mixed-abled dance piece with the guts company. Meike Schmitz has worked together with Christiane Rösinger since 2019, directing the productions ‘City Under the Influence’, ‘Planet Egalia’ and ‘Die große Klassenrevue’ with her.
Andreas Schwarz aka Herr Schwarz (aka “Krah-Krah”) is one of the leading movers in the Berlin underground, electronic, punk, art and party scene. Originally from the Black Forest, the artist, singer and performer is the promoter of the festival Ich bin ein Berliner(in) at SO36, mixes at “Chantal’s House of Shame” and attracts attention with his avantgarde scene and festival appearances.
Entry free of charge.
For the opening, Ntando Cele and Julian Hetzel play dance music that celebrates the irreconcilable, stumbling across genre boundaries on the dancefloor in the proces. It’s best to wear dance shoes – or to come barefoot!
A tour of the Impulse ACADEMIES 2018–23
30.5.–1.6. at various locations in Düsseldorf and Cologne
Together with the network FESTIVALFRIENDS, Impulse looks back on the ACADEMIES that have taken place since 2018 and share the knowledge that has emerged from them. What has lasted? How have perspectives on the ACADEMIES’ various themes changed – including remote meetings and international co-productions, artistic methods, archiving practices and working conditions? ACADEMY leaders report on how they view their topic now and revisit formats that encouraged particularly intense exchanges between the participants and fostered collective learning.
ACADEMY #1: ‘MAKE FRIENDS – SHARE KNOWLEDGE’ is presented in co-operation with FESTIVALFRIENDS, an alliance of festivals of the independent performing arts in Germany, and the NRW Landesbüro Freie Darstellende Künste e. V. and the Bundesverband Freie Darstellende Künste e. V. FESTIVALFRIENDS is funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media through the programme ‘Verbindungen fördern’ run by the Bundesverbands Freie Darstellende Künste e. V.
Locations:
FFT Düsseldorf, Konrad-Adenauer-Platz 1, 40210 Düsseldorf
TMD Theatermuseum Hofgartenhaus Düsseldorf, Jägerhofstraße 1, 40479 Düsseldorf
Südstadion, Vorgebirgsstraße 76, 50969 Köln
Costs:
Day pass: 10 € (incl. lunch and shuttle to the SHOWCASE in Cologne)
3-day-ticket: 20 €
The tickets can be booked here on rausgegangen.de.
As part of the cooperation with FESTIVALFRIENDS, there is the possibility of limited travel expenses being covered if required and subject to availability. Applications must be submitted via e-mail to akademie[at]impulsefestival.de.
Location and Opening Hours:
30.5. and 1.6., 10:00–13:00: FFT Düsseldorf
31.5., 10:00–17:00: FFT Düsseldorf
1.6., 14:00–17:00: TMD Theatermuseum Hofgartenhaus Düsseldorf
Portable Archive is an attempt to transpose a theatre performance into an archive that can be reactivated by visitors. Using a range of "filtered" and newly materialised elements from the Futur3 production '1934 – Stimmen' (2020) the project seeks to reconstruct documents and fragments of this piece. The archive aims to immerse visitors in the structure of the theatre work, its questions, contexts and images. Observing the reciprocal effects between the archive and the theatre production is intended to facilitate a re-activation of constitutive elements of theatre-making. Visits to the archive are conducted in dialogue - ideally two at a time.
Thursday, 30.5.
Locations: FFT Düsseldorf and Südstadion, Cologne
Location: FFT Düsseldorf
Language: German
With the ACADEMY host Anne Schneider, the ACADEMY leaders and FESTIVALFRIENDS
Südstadion, Cologne
Language: German
Talk with Kolja Burgschuld and Anne Schneider
In the independent performing arts, collaboration with local communities, individual biographies and in public spaces intersect with international co-productions and touring performances. This talk looks back on the Impulse ACADEMY 2018, which explored the tensions between the local and the global from the perspectives of aesthetics, cultural politics and economics. In a series of excursions, the participants will investigate international trade, the culture industry and football.
Otmar Wagner: Fortuna. Sport Art Politics
In the popular sport of football, being able to play on a national or even international stage represents success and growth. At the same time the histories of many clubs remain rooted in local identities. 'Theatre has to be like Football' is the much-quoted title of a book about independent theatre that performance artist Otmar Wagner enjoys dissecting for a soundtrack he produced for Impulse 2018: with fan chants, original clips from local champions and 1001 cross references from his bookshelves. The visitors will also be able to explore the Südstadion and the checkered history of SC Fortuna Köln with Managing Director Niklas Müller: how can a local identity be successfully reconciled with international success – in football and in independent theatre? The curtain has to go up and the ball has to hit the back of the net!
Friday, 31.5.
Location: FFT Düsseldorf
Language: German
Talk and Workshop: Exercises in Social Intimacy – revisited
By and with: Sibylle Peters, Clara Vaughan, Ansuman Biswas, Phanuel Antwi
In 2021, in a three-day workshop 'Exercises in Social Intimacy', theatre practitioners, dancers, researchers and students from South Africa, Switzerland, Belarus, the United Kingdom and Germany met - both online and offline. After a year of the Covid pandemic, it was still almost impossible to make theatre. Because breathing the same air was too much of a risk. Gathering together in the theatre was too intimate. In the workshop the participants concentrated on this essential but often previously overlooked intimacy of the theatre and saw it as a strength. Despite conforming strictly to the rules of social distancing, they used the tools of performance art to make contact with each other. They persuaded strangers to hug each other through plastic film, stroked people with sticks 1.5 metres long and danced together on Zoom.
In this year's workshop the participants look back and ask: Are we doing theatre differently - now that we've got it back again? Are we still aware of how intimate it is to breathe the same air and to sit side by side with each other? Do we know we should value this intimacy? Has the time of distancing possibly brought us closer?
Location: FFT Düsseldorf
Language: German
Talk with Sandra Umathum and Anne Schneider
Artists in the independent theatre often find and generate their material in and with people from non-artistic contexts. Starting from this observation, the ACADEMY 2018 was based on the principle of the "uncertain encounter." At its heart lay the question of how meeting and working with people from non-artistic fields of life could unsettle established aesthetic approaches and inspire new ones. In 2024 this focus willl be expanded to include what was omitted then: to uncertain encounters between human and more-than-human entities.
Workshop: How to do things with slime
With Philomena Theuretzbacher, Doris Uhlich, Sandra Umathum
This workshop is about slime. Slime is a substance that causes ambivalent reactions. That is neither definitely solid nor liquid. That holds organisms together and creates connections. Inviting you to the workshop are: the dancer and choreographer Doris Uhlich, whose pieces 'Gootopia' and 'Gootopia – The Treatment' feature slime as a material and as a performer, the theatre scholar and dramaturg Sandra Umathum and the slime expert Philomena Theuretzbacher. Together with the participants they try out a range of ways of making contact with slime and explore its various different qualities.
Participants are recommended to bring clothing with them that can tolerate (washable) stains.
Saturday, 1.6.
Locations: FFT Düsseldorf and TMD Theatermuseum Hofgartenhaus Düsseldorf
Location: FFT Düsseldorf
Language: German
Talk with Jascha Sommer and Anne Schneider
In previous years Impulse ACADEMIES have repeatedly focussed on working conditions in the independent performing arts. And there have been some improvements: minimum fees have increased the income of many freelancers, it has become entirely natural to discuss and argue about working conditions, and associations and trade unions adopt a more confident approach to cultural politicians. However, the situation of many freelancers and full-time employees in the sector remains precarious – and even more tense in times when money is short and there is a need to balance the books. Urgently necessary budget increases have not happened or been cancelled, minimum fees and hourly rates are being undermined by undocumented overtime, and, for many workers, anything more than minimal provision for their old age is barely possible.
Work better!?
Working conditions in the independent performing arts
Lectures and table talks by and with Anica Happich, Christoph Rech and Katja Sonnemann
After associations, trade unions and research projects have primarily studied the situation of artists, 'Work better!?' expands its focus to look at the independent theatre system as a whole: what is the financial situation of the theatres and their workers? What do the latest developments in cultural policy mean for the numerous freelancers who are not artists, e.g.
Location: TMD Theatermuseum Hofgartenhaus Düsseldorf
Language: German
Talk with Daniel Richter and Anne Schneider
What might a future archive of the independent performing arts look like? And how might that archive be designed in order not only to conserve the past but also to make it present in sensual form? These are the questions that the Impulse Theater Festival asked in 2021. In an open laboratory process together with academics, performing and visual artists, we explored the future of the Impulse archive at the intersection of theatre, archiving and digital art. Time to take stock. Which different archiving strategies and methods came out of this? Which collection narratives have emerged? What willl the first steps for our own archive look like?
Our Way to the Archive
Archiving workshop with Barbara Jennerwein, Wilma Renfordt, Steffen Wedepohl (Digital Archive of the Independent Performing Arts)
Do you want to preserve your work and the stories and memories associated with it and allow others to see it? But you don't know how to do it, or even where to start? In this workshop the participants willl run through the first steps of archiving together. Everyone willl bring something along with them that they would like to archive: from their own artistic practice or that of others, or something that was part of a process; an object, a document or a data file. Together we will talk about these objects and what they mean and then start to record them in the Digital Archive of the Independent Performing Arts. For this, all participants will need to bring a laptop of their own.
What's missing? – And now?
with Sascha Förster (Director of TMD Theatermuseum Hofgartenhaus Düsseldorf) and Dominik Müller (Curator NRW Festival Archive)
The Impulse Archive forms an essential pillar in the NRW Festival Archive that is currently being set up at the TMD Theatermuseum Hofgartenhaus Düsseldorf. Together we will view materials from selected years of the festival. With you we willl try to pin down what happened and identify gaps where there nothing remains. Do you think certain objects are missing from the collections? Is there no room for your memories? Join us in creating a speculative archiving and documentation workshop: how can gaps be avoided in future? How can we develop documentary tools for curatorial processes that are not evidenced by objects alone? How can personal experience, including that of audiences, be preserved?
A tour of the Impulse ACADEMIES 2018–23
30.5.–1.6. at various locations in Düsseldorf and Cologne
Together with the network FESTIVALFRIENDS, Impulse looks back on the ACADEMIES that have taken place since 2018 and share the knowledge that has emerged from them. What has lasted? How have perspectives on the ACADEMIES’ various themes changed – including remote meetings and international co-productions, artistic methods, archiving practices and working conditions? ACADEMY leaders report on how they view their topic now and revisit formats that encouraged particularly intense exchanges between the participants and fostered collective learning.
ACADEMY #1: ‘MAKE FRIENDS – SHARE KNOWLEDGE’ is presented in co-operation with FESTIVALFRIENDS, an alliance of festivals of the independent performing arts in Germany, and the NRW Landesbüro Freie Darstellende Künste e. V. and the Bundesverband Freie Darstellende Künste e. V. FESTIVALFRIENDS is funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media through the programme ‘Verbindungen fördern’ run by the Bundesverbands Freie Darstellende Künste e. V.
Locations:
FFT Düsseldorf, Konrad-Adenauer-Platz 1, 40210 Düsseldorf
TMD Theatermuseum Hofgartenhaus Düsseldorf, Jägerhofstraße 1, 40479 Düsseldorf
Südstadion, Vorgebirgsstraße 76, 50969 Köln
Costs:
Day pass: 10 € (incl. lunch and shuttle to the SHOWCASE in Cologne)
3-day-ticket: 20 €
The tickets can be booked here on rausgegangen.de.
As part of the cooperation with FESTIVALFRIENDS, there is the possibility of limited travel expenses being covered if required and subject to availability. Applications must be submitted via e-mail to akademie[at]impulsefestival.de.
Location and Opening Hours:
30.5. and 1.6., 10:00–13:00: FFT Düsseldorf
31.5., 10:00–17:00: FFT Düsseldorf
1.6., 14:00–17:00: TMD Theatermuseum Hofgartenhaus Düsseldorf
Portable Archive is an attempt to transpose a theatre performance into an archive that can be reactivated by visitors. Using a range of "filtered" and newly materialised elements from the Futur3 production '1934 – Stimmen' (2020) the project seeks to reconstruct documents and fragments of this piece. The archive aims to immerse visitors in the structure of the theatre work, its questions, contexts and images. Observing the reciprocal effects between the archive and the theatre production is intended to facilitate a re-activation of constitutive elements of theatre-making. Visits to the archive are conducted in dialogue - ideally two at a time.
Thursday, 30.5.
Locations: FFT Düsseldorf and Südstadion, Cologne
Location: FFT Düsseldorf
Language: German
With the ACADEMY host Anne Schneider, the ACADEMY leaders and FESTIVALFRIENDS
Südstadion, Cologne
Language: German
Talk with Kolja Burgschuld and Anne Schneider
In the independent performing arts, collaboration with local communities, individual biographies and in public spaces intersect with international co-productions and touring performances. This talk looks back on the Impulse ACADEMY 2018, which explored the tensions between the local and the global from the perspectives of aesthetics, cultural politics and economics. In a series of excursions, the participants will investigate international trade, the culture industry and football.
Otmar Wagner: Fortuna. Sport Art Politics
In the popular sport of football, being able to play on a national or even international stage represents success and growth. At the same time the histories of many clubs remain rooted in local identities. 'Theatre has to be like Football' is the much-quoted title of a book about independent theatre that performance artist Otmar Wagner enjoys dissecting for a soundtrack he produced for Impulse 2018: with fan chants, original clips from local champions and 1001 cross references from his bookshelves. The visitors will also be able to explore the Südstadion and the checkered history of SC Fortuna Köln with Managing Director Niklas Müller: how can a local identity be successfully reconciled with international success – in football and in independent theatre? The curtain has to go up and the ball has to hit the back of the net!
Friday, 31.5.
Location: FFT Düsseldorf
Language: German
Talk and Workshop: Exercises in Social Intimacy – revisited
By and with: Sibylle Peters, Clara Vaughan, Ansuman Biswas, Phanuel Antwi
In 2021, in a three-day workshop 'Exercises in Social Intimacy', theatre practitioners, dancers, researchers and students from South Africa, Switzerland, Belarus, the United Kingdom and Germany met - both online and offline. After a year of the Covid pandemic, it was still almost impossible to make theatre. Because breathing the same air was too much of a risk. Gathering together in the theatre was too intimate. In the workshop the participants concentrated on this essential but often previously overlooked intimacy of the theatre and saw it as a strength. Despite conforming strictly to the rules of social distancing, they used the tools of performance art to make contact with each other. They persuaded strangers to hug each other through plastic film, stroked people with sticks 1.5 metres long and danced together on Zoom.
In this year's workshop the participants look back and ask: Are we doing theatre differently - now that we've got it back again? Are we still aware of how intimate it is to breathe the same air and to sit side by side with each other? Do we know we should value this intimacy? Has the time of distancing possibly brought us closer?
Location: FFT Düsseldorf
Language: German
Talk with Sandra Umathum and Anne Schneider
Artists in the independent theatre often find and generate their material in and with people from non-artistic contexts. Starting from this observation, the ACADEMY 2018 was based on the principle of the "uncertain encounter." At its heart lay the question of how meeting and working with people from non-artistic fields of life could unsettle established aesthetic approaches and inspire new ones. In 2024 this focus willl be expanded to include what was omitted then: to uncertain encounters between human and more-than-human entities.
Workshop: How to do things with slime
With Philomena Theuretzbacher, Doris Uhlich, Sandra Umathum
This workshop is about slime. Slime is a substance that causes ambivalent reactions. That is neither definitely solid nor liquid. That holds organisms together and creates connections. Inviting you to the workshop are: the dancer and choreographer Doris Uhlich, whose pieces 'Gootopia' and 'Gootopia – The Treatment' feature slime as a material and as a performer, the theatre scholar and dramaturg Sandra Umathum and the slime expert Philomena Theuretzbacher. Together with the participants they try out a range of ways of making contact with slime and explore its various different qualities.
Participants are recommended to bring clothing with them that can tolerate (washable) stains.
Saturday, 1.6.
Locations: FFT Düsseldorf and TMD Theatermuseum Hofgartenhaus Düsseldorf
Location: FFT Düsseldorf
Language: German
Talk with Jascha Sommer and Anne Schneider
In previous years Impulse ACADEMIES have repeatedly focussed on working conditions in the independent performing arts. And there have been some improvements: minimum fees have increased the income of many freelancers, it has become entirely natural to discuss and argue about working conditions, and associations and trade unions adopt a more confident approach to cultural politicians. However, the situation of many freelancers and full-time employees in the sector remains precarious – and even more tense in times when money is short and there is a need to balance the books. Urgently necessary budget increases have not happened or been cancelled, minimum fees and hourly rates are being undermined by undocumented overtime, and, for many workers, anything more than minimal provision for their old age is barely possible.
Work better!?
Working conditions in the independent performing arts
Lectures and table talks by and with Anica Happich, Christoph Rech and Katja Sonnemann
After associations, trade unions and research projects have primarily studied the situation of artists, 'Work better!?' expands its focus to look at the independent theatre system as a whole: what is the financial situation of the theatres and their workers? What do the latest developments in cultural policy mean for the numerous freelancers who are not artists, e.g.
Location: TMD Theatermuseum Hofgartenhaus Düsseldorf
Language: German
Talk with Daniel Richter and Anne Schneider
What might a future archive of the independent performing arts look like? And how might that archive be designed in order not only to conserve the past but also to make it present in sensual form? These are the questions that the Impulse Theater Festival asked in 2021. In an open laboratory process together with academics, performing and visual artists, we explored the future of the Impulse archive at the intersection of theatre, archiving and digital art. Time to take stock. Which different archiving strategies and methods came out of this? Which collection narratives have emerged? What willl the first steps for our own archive look like?
Our Way to the Archive
Archiving workshop with Barbara Jennerwein, Wilma Renfordt, Steffen Wedepohl (Digital Archive of the Independent Performing Arts)
Do you want to preserve your work and the stories and memories associated with it and allow others to see it? But you don't know how to do it, or even where to start? In this workshop the participants willl run through the first steps of archiving together. Everyone willl bring something along with them that they would like to archive: from their own artistic practice or that of others, or something that was part of a process; an object, a document or a data file. Together we will talk about these objects and what they mean and then start to record them in the Digital Archive of the Independent Performing Arts. For this, all participants will need to bring a laptop of their own.
What's missing? – And now?
with Sascha Förster (Director of TMD Theatermuseum Hofgartenhaus Düsseldorf) and Dominik Müller (Curator NRW Festival Archive)
The Impulse Archive forms an essential pillar in the NRW Festival Archive that is currently being set up at the TMD Theatermuseum Hofgartenhaus Düsseldorf. Together we will view materials from selected years of the festival. With you we willl try to pin down what happened and identify gaps where there nothing remains. Do you think certain objects are missing from the collections? Is there no room for your memories? Join us in creating a speculative archiving and documentation workshop: how can gaps be avoided in future? How can we develop documentary tools for curatorial processes that are not evidenced by objects alone? How can personal experience, including that of audiences, be preserved?
For decades now, public swimming pools in Mülheim an der Ruhr have been killed off through lack of funding or abandoned. 2024 was even in danger of becoming a summer without a single open-air pool. At the same time the market in private pools is booming: those who can afford it are seeking comfort and security in their own gardens.
As a counter proposal to this privatisation of leisure time, the Impulse Theater Festival in association with artists and Ringlokschuppen Ruhr will open a summer pool for eleven days in the MüGa-Park. The group Conte Potuto will construct a pool of dreams: with almost no water, but filled with the visitors’ wishes and ideas. TachoTinta play on dry land with an underwater rugby team, and the Tigers’ Kitchen not only produces fries but also slushy pop songs.
Together with local initiatives and sports clubs, the artists present actions and conversations exploring issues around open-air swimming pools: who is allowed in, who has to stay outside? What sort of encounters are possible here? And which social conflicts can be seen at public pools? SCHWIMM CITY looks the increasing polarisation of society squarely in the eye and counters it with shared pleasure. Because one thing is certain: everyone can agree on the swimming pool snack: fries. They’re vegan, halal, kosher, gluten- and lactose-free.
Entry is free of charge, no registration required.
If you like, bring swimwear and a towel. But all other outfits are just as welcome!
As part of the 'ExtraSchicht' (1.6.) free admission only with registration by 31.5. at stadtprojekt[at]impulsefestival.de.
Thursday, 30.5., open 12:00–20:00
The artists of the Austrian collective Conte Potuto will build and operate SCHWIMM CITY. They take care of the pool, distribute sun loungers and sun shades - an all-round service focussing on the guests' needs. If it was up to Conte Potuto, people should have the right to be idle in public!
TIGERS’ KITCHEN are the actor and chef Nadja Duesterberg and the musician and performer Svea Kischmeier. At SCHWIMM CITY they run a snack bar that is also a radio station. Radio Pommes broadcasts every day online from 14:00 to 18:00 h. At the end of each working day and broadcast, TIGERS’ KITCHEN perform a slushy pop song in their snack bar that they have produced in the course of the day together with their customers.
An act of celebration with fries and ice lollies!
At the "Hellblaue Stunde", or twilight, the open-air pool provides an opportunity for speculation. Swimming pool and water sport experts are invited to come and talk, and to discuss what a pool for everyone might look like and what is needed to create a dream pool of the future.
These twilight talks willl be broadcast live online on Radio Pommes by TIGERS’ KITCHEN. The artists of Conte Potuto will pick up on ideas from the conversations and include these in the process of designing SCHWIMM CITY.
Different body images and clichés come together in the outdoor pool. '4ever young' is a staged fashion show with various bathing and outdoor pool accessories from different decades. Summer pop songs from the 80s and 90s serve as the soundtrack. How do social norms and ideas influence our perception of our bodies? What has changed over the years? And where are we today?
Underwater rugby is a fascinating niche sport that was supposedly invented in Mülheim an der Ruhr. In Overwater Rugby: Club Darlington e.V., the dance company TachoTinta plays with underwater rugby players on dry land. To do this, the rules have to be changed and new groupings have to be formed – and sometimes the referee also has to be contradicted. Training turns into choreography and the contest turns into a dance.
At the end of each working day, TIGERS’ KITCHEN perform a slushy pop song in their snack bar that they have produced in the course of the day together with their customers. Open Mic for all fans of fries and pop
On the opening day of SCHWIMM CITY, Conte Potuto invite you to a concert. The Viennese band AUTOR combines tried-and-trusted punk influences with catchy melodies and cryptic lyrics. Their music combines the rawness of the DIY music scene with nonchalance and plays with the grey areas in between poetry and punk.
Friday, 31.5., open 12:00–18:00
The artists of the Austrian collective Conte Potuto will build and operate SCHWIMM CITY. They take care of the pool, distribute sun loungers and sun shades - an all-round service focussing on the guests' needs. If it was up to Conte Potuto, people should have the right to be idle in public!
TIGERS’ KITCHEN are the actor and chef Nadja Duesterberg and the musician and performer Svea Kischmeier. At SCHWIMM CITY they run a snack bar that is also a radio station. Radio Pommes broadcasts every day online from 14:00 to 18:00 h. At the end of each working day and broadcast, TIGERS’ KITCHEN perform a slushy pop song in their snack bar that they have produced in the course of the day together with their customers.
At the "Hellblaue Stunde", or twilight, the open-air pool provides an opportunity for speculation. Swimming pool and water sport experts are invited to come and talk, and to discuss what a pool for everyone might look like and what is needed to create a dream pool of the future.
These twilight talks willl be broadcast live online on Radio Pommes by TIGERS’ KITCHEN. The artists of Conte Potuto will pick up on ideas from the conversations and include these in the process of designing SCHWIMM CITY.
Different body images and clichés come together in the outdoor pool. '4ever young' is a staged fashion show with various bathing and outdoor pool accessories from different decades. Summer pop songs from the 80s and 90s serve as the soundtrack. How do social norms and ideas influence our perception of our bodies? What has changed over the years? And where are we today?
At the end of each working day, TIGERS’ KITCHEN perform a slushy pop song in their snack bar that they have produced in the course of the day together with their customers. Open Mic for all fans of fries and pop
Saturday, 1.6., 18:00–23:00
SCHWIMM CITY opens as part of 'ExtraSchicht – Die Nacht der Industriekultur'
The 'ExtraSchicht – Night of Industrial Culture' has been staging former industrial plants, museums and historical monuments in the Ruhr region since 2001. Traditionally, the Ringlokschuppen Ruhr is also part of the programme. The programme includes a long night in the SCHWIMM CITY with theatre, comedy, concerts and DJs from 'ExtraSchicht'.
Free admission to SCHWIMM CITY on this day only with registration by 31 May at email hidden; JavaScript is required.
Paid tickets for the entire 'ExtraSchicht' programme with all venues at extraschicht.de.
The artists of the Austrian collective Conte Potuto will build and operate SCHWIMM CITY. They take care of the pool, distribute sun loungers and sun shades - an all-round service focussing on the guests' needs. If it was up to Conte Potuto, people should have the right to be idle in public! TIGERS’ KITCHEN are the actor and chef Nadja Duesterberg and the musician and performer Svea Kischmeier. At SCHWIMM CITY they run a snack bar that is also a radio station.
Different body images and clichés come together in the outdoor pool. '4ever young' is a staged fashion show with various bathing and outdoor pool accessories from different decades. Summer pop songs from the 80s and 90s serve as the soundtrack. How do social norms and ideas influence our perception of our bodies? What has changed over the years? And where are we today?
Underwater rugby is a fascinating niche sport that was supposedly invented in Mülheim an der Ruhr. In Overwater Rugby: Club Darlington e.V., the dance company TachoTinta plays with underwater rugby players on dry land. To do this, the rules have to be changed and new groupings have to be formed - and sometimes the referee also has to be contradicted. Training turns into choreography and the contest turns into a dance.
Sunday, 2.6., open 12:00–18:00 geöffnet
Family Sunday in co-operation with 'Sport im Park', Silent University Ruhr and the vier.zentrale
The artists of the Austrian collective Conte Potuto will build and operate SCHWIMM CITY. They take care of the pool, distribute sun loungers and sun shades - an all-round service focussing on the guests' needs. If it was up to Conte Potuto, people should have the right to be idle in public!
TIGERS’ KITCHEN are the actor and chef Nadja Duesterberg and the musician and performer Svea Kischmeier. At SCHWIMM CITY they run a snack bar that is also a radio station. Radio Pommes broadcasts every day online from 14:00 to 18:00 h. At the end of each working day and broadcast, TIGERS’ KITCHEN perform a slushy pop song in their snack bar that they have produced in the course of the day together with their customers.
How do children imagine the perfect open-air swimming pool? Artists from Mülheim an der Ruhr invite children to paint and make the pool of their dreams with them (or other ideas).
Try-out training session for children. They provide dance-based insights into the fascinating sport of underwater rugby, but without water. What might it feel like underwater when it's already so much fun on the grass? Just come along and join in.
At the "Hellblaue Stunde", or twilight, the open-air pool provides an opportunity for speculation. Swimming pool and water sport experts are invited to come and talk, and to discuss what a pool for everyone might look like and what is needed to create a dream pool of the future.
These twilight talks willl be broadcast live online on Radio Pommes by TIGERS’ KITCHEN. The artists of Conte Potuto will pick up on ideas from the conversations and include these in the process of designing SCHWIMM CITY.
At the end of each working day, TIGERS’ KITCHEN perform a pop song in their snack bar that they have produced in the course of the day together with their customers. On Family Sunday, children and young people in particular are invited to come to the snack bar where they can sing the song and help to arrange it.
Monday, 3.6., open 12:00–18:00
The artists of the Austrian collective Conte Potuto will build and operate SCHWIMM CITY. They take care of the pool, distribute sun loungers and sun shades - an all-round service focussing on the guests' needs. If it was up to Conte Potuto, people should have the right to be idle in public!
TIGERS’ KITCHEN are the actor and chef Nadja Duesterberg and the musician and performer Svea Kischmeier. At SCHWIMM CITY they run a snack bar that is also a radio station. Radio Pommes broadcasts every day online from 14:00 to 18:00 h. At the end of each working day and broadcast, TIGERS’ KITCHEN perform a slushy pop song in their snack bar that they have produced in the course of the day together with their customers.
At the end of each working day, TIGERS’ KITCHEN perform a slushy pop song in their snack bar that they have produced in the course of the day together with their customers. Open Mic for all fans of fries and pop!
Tuesday, 4.6. – Women's Day
9:30–16:00 women only, 16:00–18:00 open for everyone
The artists of the Austrian collective Conte Potuto will build and operate SCHWIMM CITY. They take care of the pool, distribute sun loungers and sun shades – an all-round service focussing on the guests' needs. If it was up to Conte Potuto, people should have the right to be idle in public!
The MUT-Café's international women's group meets on Tuesdays for regular exchanges at the vier.zentrale. On 4 June they will hold their communal breakfast at the MüGa as guests at SCHWIMM CITY.
TIGERS’ KITCHEN are the actor and chef Nadja Duesterberg and the musician and performer Svea Kischmeier. At SCHWIMM CITY they run a snack bar that is also a radio station. Radio Pommes broadcasts every day online from 14:00 to 18:00 h. At the end of each working day and broadcast, TIGERS’ KITCHEN perform a slushy pop song in their snack bar that they have produced in the course of the day together with their customers.
At the "Hellblaue Stunde", or twilight, the open-air pool provides an opportunity for speculation. Swimming pool and water sport experts are invited to come and talk, and to discuss what a pool for everyone might look like and what is needed to create a dream pool of the future.
These twilight talks willl be broadcast live online on Radio Pommes by TIGERS’ KITCHEN. The artists of Conte Potuto will pick up on ideas from the conversations and include these in the process of designing SCHWIMM CITY.
At the end of each working day, TIGERS’ KITCHEN perform a slushy pop song in their snack bar that they have produced in the course of the day together with their customers. Open Mic for all fans of fries and pop!
Wednesday, 5.6., open 12:00–18:00
The artists of the Austrian collective Conte Potuto will build and operate SCHWIMM CITY. They take care of the pool, distribute sun loungers and sun shades - an all-round service focussing on the guests' needs. If it was up to Conte Potuto, people should have the right to be idle in public!
TIGERS’ KITCHEN are the actor and chef Nadja Duesterberg and the musician and performer Svea Kischmeier. At SCHWIMM CITY they run a snack bar that is also a radio station. Radio Pommes broadcasts every day online from 14:00 to 18:00 h. At the end of each working day and broadcast, TIGERS’ KITCHEN perform a slushy pop song in their snack bar that they have produced in the course of the day together with their customers.
At the "Hellblaue Stunde", or twilight, the open-air pool provides an opportunity for speculation. Swimming pool and water sport experts are invited to come and talk, and to discuss what a pool for everyone might look like and what is needed to create a dream pool of the future.
These twilight talks willl be broadcast live online on Radio Pommes by TIGERS’ KITCHEN. The artists of Conte Potuto will pick up on ideas from the conversations and include these in the process of designing SCHWIMM CITY.
At the end of each working day, TIGERS’ KITCHEN perform a slushy pop song in their snack bar that they have produced in the course of the day together with their customers. Open Mic for all fans of fries and pop!
Thursday, 6.6., open 12:00–18:00
The artists of the Austrian collective Conte Potuto will build and operate SCHWIMM CITY. They take care of the pool, distribute sun loungers and sun shades - an all-round service focussing on the guests' needs. If it was up to Conte Potuto, people should have the right to be idle in public!
TIGERS’ KITCHEN are the actor and chef Nadja Duesterberg and the musician and performer Svea Kischmeier. At SCHWIMM CITY they run a snack bar that is also a radio station. Radio Pommes broadcasts every day online from 14:00 to 18:00 h. At the end of each working day and broadcast, TIGERS’ KITCHEN perform a slushy pop song in their snack bar that they have produced in the course of the day together with their customers.
At the "Hellblaue Stunde", or twilight, the open-air pool provides an opportunity for speculation. Swimming pool and water sport experts are invited to come and talk, and to discuss what a pool for everyone might look like and what is needed to create a dream pool of the future.
These twilight talks willl be broadcast live online on Radio Pommes by TIGERS’ KITCHEN. The artists of Conte Potuto will pick up on ideas from the conversations and include these in the process of designing SCHWIMM CITY.
At the end of each working day, TIGERS’ KITCHEN perform a slushy pop song in their snack bar that they have produced in the course of the day together with their customers. Open Mic for all fans of fries and pop!
Friday, 7.6., open 12:00–22:00
The artists of the Austrian collective Conte Potuto will build and operate SCHWIMM CITY. They take care of the pool, distribute sun loungers and sun shades - an all-round service focussing on the guests' needs. If it was up to Conte Potuto, people should have the right to be idle in public!
TIGERS’ KITCHEN are the actor and chef Nadja Duesterberg and the musician and performer Svea Kischmeier. At SCHWIMM CITY they run a snack bar that is also a radio station. Radio Pommes broadcasts every day online from 14:00 to 18:00 h. At the end of each working day and broadcast, TIGERS’ KITCHEN perform a slushy pop song in their snack bar that they have produced in the course of the day together with their customers.
The volunteer-run International Women's Café has been open in Mülheim since 2020 with the support of PLANB Ruhr e.V. and funding from "KOMM-AN NRW". At SCHWIMM CITY the International Women's Café invites everyone, with or without a refugee background, to an open meeting and picnic. Whoever wishes can bring food and drink with them. However, guests without any provisions will also be warmly welcomed.
At the "Hellblaue Stunde", or twilight, the open-air pool provides an opportunity for speculation. Swimming pool and water sport experts are invited to come and talk, and to discuss what a pool for everyone might look like and what is needed to create a dream pool of the future.
These twilight talks willl be broadcast live online on Radio Pommes by TIGERS’ KITCHEN. The artists of Conte Potuto will pick up on ideas from the conversations and include these in the process of designing SCHWIMM CITY.
At the end of each working day, TIGERS’ KITCHEN perform a slushy pop song in their snack bar that they have produced in the course of the day together with their customers. Open Mic for all fans of fries and pop!
Concert and Dance Night for all swimming pool employees, sport swimmers and other keen dancers
Saturday, 8.6., open 12:00–18:00
The artists of the Austrian collective Conte Potuto will build and operate SCHWIMM CITY. They take care of the pool, distribute sun loungers and sun shades - an all-round service focussing on the guests' needs. If it was up to Conte Potuto, people should have the right to be idle in public!
TIGERS’ KITCHEN are the actor and chef Nadja Duesterberg and the musician and performer Svea Kischmeier. At SCHWIMM CITY they run a snack bar that is also a radio station. Radio Pommes broadcasts every day online from 14:00 to 18:00 h. At the end of each working day and broadcast, TIGERS’ KITCHEN perform a slushy pop song in their snack bar that they have produced in the course of the day together with their customers.
In addition to his artistic work as a performer, the Australian Damian Rebgetz is also a very good swimmer. In Germany he not only acts on numerous independent and city theatre stages, he has also spent a whole summer working as a lifeguard at a Berlin open-air pool. He has created a musical lecture-performance on the basis of his various working experiences. How do you become a lifeguard in Germany? What rules apply in swimming pools? What is a walk-through pool and how should it be filled? How can you best keep an eye on all the bathers, who is allowed to dive from the diving tower and what does this have to do with theatre? In Mülheim 'Guy Working at a Pool' will be seen in a version specially re-worked for SCHWIMM CITY.
Different body images and clichés come together in the outdoor pool. '4ever young' is a staged fashion show with various bathing and outdoor pool accessories from different decades. Summer pop songs from the 80s and 90s serve as the soundtrack. How do social norms and ideas influence our perception of our bodies? What has changed over the years? And where are we today?
At the "Hellblaue Stunde", or twilight, the open-air pool provides an opportunity for speculation. Swimming pool and water sport experts are invited to come and talk, and to discuss what a pool for everyone might look like and what is needed to create a dream pool of the future.
These twilight talks willl be broadcast live online on Radio Pommes by TIGERS’ KITCHEN. The artists of Conte Potuto will pick up on ideas from the conversations and include these in the process of designing SCHWIMM CITY.
Underwater rugby is a fascinating niche sport that was supposedly invented in Mülheim an der Ruhr. In Overwater Rugby: Club Darlington e.V., the dance company TachoTinta plays with underwater rugby players on dry land. To do this, the rules have to be changed and new groupings have to be formed – and sometimes the referee also has to be contradicted. Training turns into choreography and the contest turns into a dance.
In addition to his artistic work as a performer, the Australian Damian Rebgetz is also a very good swimmer. In Germany he not only acts on numerous independent and city theatre stages, he has also spent a whole summer working as a lifeguard at a Berlin open-air pool. He has created a musical lecture-performance on the basis of his various working experiences. How do you become a lifeguard in Germany? What rules apply in swimming pools? What is a walk-through pool and how should it be filled? How can you best keep an eye on all the bathers, who is allowed to dive from the diving tower and what does this have to do with theatre? In Mülheim 'Guy Working at a Pool' will be seen in a version specially re-worked for SCHWIMM CITY.
At the end of each working day, TIGERS’ KITCHEN perform a slushy pop song in their snack bar that they have produced in the course of the day together with their customers. Open Mic for all fans of fries and pop!
Sunday, 9.6., open 12:00–22:00
The artists of the Austrian collective Conte Potuto will build and operate SCHWIMM CITY. They take care of the pool, distribute sun loungers and sun shades - an all-round service focussing on the guests' needs. If it was up to Conte Potuto, people should have the right to be idle in public!
TIGERS’ KITCHEN are the actor and chef Nadja Duesterberg and the musician and performer Svea Kischmeier. At SCHWIMM CITY they run a snack bar that is also a radio station. Radio Pommes broadcasts every day online from 14:00 to 18:00 h. At the end of each working day and broadcast, TIGERS’ KITCHEN perform a slushy pop song in their snack bar that they have produced in the course of the day together with their customers.
In addition to his artistic work as a performer, the Australian Damian Rebgetz is also a very good swimmer. In Germany he not only acts on numerous independent and city theatre stages, he has also spent a whole summer working as a lifeguard at a Berlin open-air pool. He has created a musical lecture-performance on the basis of his various working experiences. How do you become a lifeguard in Germany? What rules apply in swimming pools? What is a walk-through pool and how should it be filled? How can you best keep an eye on all the bathers, who is allowed to dive from the diving tower and what does this have to do with theatre? In Mülheim 'Guy Working at a Pool' will be seen in a version specially re-worked for SCHWIMM CITY.
Different body images and clichés come together in the outdoor pool. '4ever young' is a staged fashion show with various bathing and outdoor pool accessories from different decades. Summer pop songs from the 80s and 90s serve as the soundtrack. How do social norms and ideas influence our perception of our bodies? What has changed over the years? And where are we today?
Underwater rugby is a fascinating niche sport that was supposedly invented in Mülheim an der Ruhr. In Overwater Rugby: Club Darlington e.V., the dance company TachoTinta plays with underwater rugby players on dry land. To do this, the rules have to be changed and new groupings have to be formed – and sometimes the referee also has to be contradicted. Training turns into choreography and the contest turns into a dance.
In addition to his artistic work as a performer, the Australian Damian Rebgetz is also a very good swimmer. In Germany he not only acts on numerous independent and city theatre stages, he has also spent a whole summer working as a lifeguard at a Berlin open-air pool. He has created a musical lecture-performance on the basis of his various working experiences. How do you become a lifeguard in Germany? What rules apply in swimming pools? What is a walk-through pool and how should it be filled? How can you best keep an eye on all the bathers, who is allowed to dive from the diving tower and what does this have to do with theatre? In Mülheim 'Guy Working at a Pool' will be seen in a version specially re-worked for SCHWIMM CITY.
Finally, there will be a foam party with DJ Lenz, songs by Damian Rebgetz and a pop parade by TIGERS' KITCHEN. The performance ‘4ever young’ by HARTMANNMUELLER will be shown again. Corks will pop, endings and new beginnings will be celebrated, and SCHWIMM CITY is transformed into the setting for a banging finale.
A tour of the Impulse ACADEMIES 2018–23
30.5.–1.6. at various locations in Düsseldorf and Cologne
Together with the network FESTIVALFRIENDS, Impulse looks back on the ACADEMIES that have taken place since 2018 and share the knowledge that has emerged from them. What has lasted? How have perspectives on the ACADEMIES’ various themes changed – including remote meetings and international co-productions, artistic methods, archiving practices and working conditions? ACADEMY leaders report on how they view their topic now and revisit formats that encouraged particularly intense exchanges between the participants and fostered collective learning.
ACADEMY #1: ‘MAKE FRIENDS – SHARE KNOWLEDGE’ is presented in co-operation with FESTIVALFRIENDS, an alliance of festivals of the independent performing arts in Germany, and the NRW Landesbüro Freie Darstellende Künste e. V. and the Bundesverband Freie Darstellende Künste e. V. FESTIVALFRIENDS is funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media through the programme ‘Verbindungen fördern’ run by the Bundesverbands Freie Darstellende Künste e. V.
Locations:
FFT Düsseldorf, Konrad-Adenauer-Platz 1, 40210 Düsseldorf
TMD Theatermuseum Hofgartenhaus Düsseldorf, Jägerhofstraße 1, 40479 Düsseldorf
Südstadion, Vorgebirgsstraße 76, 50969 Köln
Costs:
Day pass: 10 € (incl. lunch and shuttle to the SHOWCASE in Cologne)
3-day-ticket: 20 €
The tickets can be booked here on rausgegangen.de.
As part of the cooperation with FESTIVALFRIENDS, there is the possibility of limited travel expenses being covered if required and subject to availability. Applications must be submitted via e-mail to akademie[at]impulsefestival.de.
Location and Opening Hours:
30.5. and 1.6., 10:00–13:00: FFT Düsseldorf
31.5., 10:00–17:00: FFT Düsseldorf
1.6., 14:00–17:00: TMD Theatermuseum Hofgartenhaus Düsseldorf
Portable Archive is an attempt to transpose a theatre performance into an archive that can be reactivated by visitors. Using a range of "filtered" and newly materialised elements from the Futur3 production '1934 – Stimmen' (2020) the project seeks to reconstruct documents and fragments of this piece. The archive aims to immerse visitors in the structure of the theatre work, its questions, contexts and images. Observing the reciprocal effects between the archive and the theatre production is intended to facilitate a re-activation of constitutive elements of theatre-making. Visits to the archive are conducted in dialogue - ideally two at a time.
Thursday, 30.5.
Locations: FFT Düsseldorf and Südstadion, Cologne
Location: FFT Düsseldorf
Language: German
With the ACADEMY host Anne Schneider, the ACADEMY leaders and FESTIVALFRIENDS
Südstadion, Cologne
Language: German
Talk with Kolja Burgschuld and Anne Schneider
In the independent performing arts, collaboration with local communities, individual biographies and in public spaces intersect with international co-productions and touring performances. This talk looks back on the Impulse ACADEMY 2018, which explored the tensions between the local and the global from the perspectives of aesthetics, cultural politics and economics. In a series of excursions, the participants will investigate international trade, the culture industry and football.
Otmar Wagner: Fortuna. Sport Art Politics
In the popular sport of football, being able to play on a national or even international stage represents success and growth. At the same time the histories of many clubs remain rooted in local identities. 'Theatre has to be like Football' is the much-quoted title of a book about independent theatre that performance artist Otmar Wagner enjoys dissecting for a soundtrack he produced for Impulse 2018: with fan chants, original clips from local champions and 1001 cross references from his bookshelves. The visitors will also be able to explore the Südstadion and the checkered history of SC Fortuna Köln with Managing Director Niklas Müller: how can a local identity be successfully reconciled with international success – in football and in independent theatre? The curtain has to go up and the ball has to hit the back of the net!
Friday, 31.5.
Location: FFT Düsseldorf
Language: German
Talk and Workshop: Exercises in Social Intimacy – revisited
By and with: Sibylle Peters, Clara Vaughan, Ansuman Biswas, Phanuel Antwi
In 2021, in a three-day workshop 'Exercises in Social Intimacy', theatre practitioners, dancers, researchers and students from South Africa, Switzerland, Belarus, the United Kingdom and Germany met - both online and offline. After a year of the Covid pandemic, it was still almost impossible to make theatre. Because breathing the same air was too much of a risk. Gathering together in the theatre was too intimate. In the workshop the participants concentrated on this essential but often previously overlooked intimacy of the theatre and saw it as a strength. Despite conforming strictly to the rules of social distancing, they used the tools of performance art to make contact with each other. They persuaded strangers to hug each other through plastic film, stroked people with sticks 1.5 metres long and danced together on Zoom.
In this year's workshop the participants look back and ask: Are we doing theatre differently - now that we've got it back again? Are we still aware of how intimate it is to breathe the same air and to sit side by side with each other? Do we know we should value this intimacy? Has the time of distancing possibly brought us closer?
Location: FFT Düsseldorf
Language: German
Talk with Sandra Umathum and Anne Schneider
Artists in the independent theatre often find and generate their material in and with people from non-artistic contexts. Starting from this observation, the ACADEMY 2018 was based on the principle of the "uncertain encounter." At its heart lay the question of how meeting and working with people from non-artistic fields of life could unsettle established aesthetic approaches and inspire new ones. In 2024 this focus willl be expanded to include what was omitted then: to uncertain encounters between human and more-than-human entities.
Workshop: How to do things with slime
With Philomena Theuretzbacher, Doris Uhlich, Sandra Umathum
This workshop is about slime. Slime is a substance that causes ambivalent reactions. That is neither definitely solid nor liquid. That holds organisms together and creates connections. Inviting you to the workshop are: the dancer and choreographer Doris Uhlich, whose pieces 'Gootopia' and 'Gootopia – The Treatment' feature slime as a material and as a performer, the theatre scholar and dramaturg Sandra Umathum and the slime expert Philomena Theuretzbacher. Together with the participants they try out a range of ways of making contact with slime and explore its various different qualities.
Participants are recommended to bring clothing with them that can tolerate (washable) stains.
Saturday, 1.6.
Locations: FFT Düsseldorf and TMD Theatermuseum Hofgartenhaus Düsseldorf
Location: FFT Düsseldorf
Language: German
Talk with Jascha Sommer and Anne Schneider
In previous years Impulse ACADEMIES have repeatedly focussed on working conditions in the independent performing arts. And there have been some improvements: minimum fees have increased the income of many freelancers, it has become entirely natural to discuss and argue about working conditions, and associations and trade unions adopt a more confident approach to cultural politicians. However, the situation of many freelancers and full-time employees in the sector remains precarious – and even more tense in times when money is short and there is a need to balance the books. Urgently necessary budget increases have not happened or been cancelled, minimum fees and hourly rates are being undermined by undocumented overtime, and, for many workers, anything more than minimal provision for their old age is barely possible.
Work better!?
Working conditions in the independent performing arts
Lectures and table talks by and with Anica Happich, Christoph Rech and Katja Sonnemann
After associations, trade unions and research projects have primarily studied the situation of artists, 'Work better!?' expands its focus to look at the independent theatre system as a whole: what is the financial situation of the theatres and their workers? What do the latest developments in cultural policy mean for the numerous freelancers who are not artists, e.g.
Location: TMD Theatermuseum Hofgartenhaus Düsseldorf
Language: German
Talk with Daniel Richter and Anne Schneider
What might a future archive of the independent performing arts look like? And how might that archive be designed in order not only to conserve the past but also to make it present in sensual form? These are the questions that the Impulse Theater Festival asked in 2021. In an open laboratory process together with academics, performing and visual artists, we explored the future of the Impulse archive at the intersection of theatre, archiving and digital art. Time to take stock. Which different archiving strategies and methods came out of this? Which collection narratives have emerged? What willl the first steps for our own archive look like?
Our Way to the Archive
Archiving workshop with Barbara Jennerwein, Wilma Renfordt, Steffen Wedepohl (Digital Archive of the Independent Performing Arts)
Do you want to preserve your work and the stories and memories associated with it and allow others to see it? But you don't know how to do it, or even where to start? In this workshop the participants willl run through the first steps of archiving together. Everyone willl bring something along with them that they would like to archive: from their own artistic practice or that of others, or something that was part of a process; an object, a document or a data file. Together we will talk about these objects and what they mean and then start to record them in the Digital Archive of the Independent Performing Arts. For this, all participants will need to bring a laptop of their own.
What's missing? – And now?
with Sascha Förster (Director of TMD Theatermuseum Hofgartenhaus Düsseldorf) and Dominik Müller (Curator NRW Festival Archive)
The Impulse Archive forms an essential pillar in the NRW Festival Archive that is currently being set up at the TMD Theatermuseum Hofgartenhaus Düsseldorf. Together we will view materials from selected years of the festival. With you we willl try to pin down what happened and identify gaps where there nothing remains. Do you think certain objects are missing from the collections? Is there no room for your memories? Join us in creating a speculative archiving and documentation workshop: how can gaps be avoided in future? How can we develop documentary tools for curatorial processes that are not evidenced by objects alone? How can personal experience, including that of audiences, be preserved?
“Good evening, everybody, we are going to bring you the best possible entertainment!” A promise the KLASSENREVUE will not break. Sketches, dancing and a whole load of songs: scrupulously deploying every type of performance and tons of humour, this show drags the present class structure out from obscurity behind its ideological veil. With indie icon Christiane Rösinger, Stefanie Sargnagel, Paula Irmschler and many others.
Language: German with English subtitles
Acoustic amplification through induction loop for visitors with hearing aids
30.5., 17:00: introduction in German for blind and visually impaired visitors
Tickets for all Impulse events are also available from our ticket shop.
But who is actually allowed to join in here? After a playful privilege competition, six experts are left: people from the working class who have been consistently plagued by money worries to this day. The middle class children who are left are allowed to be in the band providing musical accompaniment. The thematic framework is established in the very first song: “Rich-shaming, inheritance-shaming, redistribution, resistance” the ensemble belts out cheerfully from on stage. Get stuck in!
The fairy tale of social advancement through achievement is presented here as mini-drama shrouded in mist, in which all sorts of powerful devices are used to prevent the working classes from climbing the social ladder. A supposed therapist for inheritance shame describes how those who criticise capitalism yet benefit from legacies can combat their shame. The revue finds many forms for its complex theme. And in rhymes and songs the ensemble repeatedly describes a rich life with little money. Social climbing? No thank you! Because redistribution is the only way. Because otherwise the rich can do without their clever talk about classicism.
“A raised fist, filled with fervour – and steadfast defiance: they would rather drink cheap sekt and face poverty in old age than sup the leftover champagne of the ruling class.” Patrick Wildermann, Tagesspiegel
Concept, Text and Composition: Christiane Rösinger
Director: Meike Schmitz, Christiane Rösinger
Co-Composition: Paul Pötsch
Musical Director: Laura Landergott, Paul Pötsch
Band: Laura Landergott, Paul Pötsch, Albertine Sarges
Performance: Sila Davulcu, Doreen Kutzke, Paula Irmschler, Julie Miess, Minh Duc Pham, Christiane Rösinger, Stefanie Sargnagel, Andreas Schwarz
Stage: Marlene Lockemann, Sina Manthey
Costume: Svenja Gassen
Mask: Thomas Korn & Juli Schulz
Video and Live Camera: Kathrin Krottenthaler
Choreography: Rúben Nsue
Lighting Design: Hans Leser
Associate Director: Stella Nikisch
Associate Stage Designer: Rosina Zeus
Associate Costume Designer: Katharina Achterkamp, Aleix Ilusa
Associate Dramaturg and Producer: Lisa Homburger
Assistant Choreographer: Sara Fernández
Translation: Lyz Pfister and Andrew Clarke (Panthea)
Sound: Rozenn Lièvre, Torsten Schwarzbach (HAU Hebbel am Ufer)
Video: Julia Cremers (HAU Hebbel am Ufer)
Artistic Advisor: Aenne Quiñones (HAU)
Technical Director: Amina Nouns (HAU)
Production Manager: Chiara Galesi (HAU)
Contact for touring enquiries: Chiara Galesi, email hidden; JavaScript is required
A production by Christiane Rösinger / HAU Hebbel am Ufer, Berlin. Funded by the Capital Cultural Fund.
Sila Davulcu, born in Istanbul in 1982. Classic third generation. Davulcu’s grandmother came to Berlin from Turkey as a “guest worker” at the end of the 60s and gradually brought her children after her. Davulcu grew up in Kreuzberg (36), where she still lives today. As a child, she loved acting and singing. But she never dared try to make this her main profession and instead she did all the regular things: primary school, graduation, training, jobs.
Paula Irmschler was born in Dresden in 1989 and now lives in Cologne. She has already written columns for Intro, Neues Deutschland and Musikexpress. From 2019 to 2023 she was an editor with the satirical magazine Titanic. Her novel ‘Superbusen’ was published in 2020, it will be followed in 2024 by ‘Frau und Mutter’.
Doreen Kutzke, born in the dark forests of the Harz mountains and raised in the GDR, is a multidisciplinary musician, actor and composer from Berlin. She has been involved in musical projects since she was a child and now performs under the name Kutzkelina. Kutzke founded the Kreuzberg School of Yodelling and teaches yodelling and extended voice techniques around the world. She has worked as a voice tutor at Art Academy Reykjavík, Goldsmiths University London and the University of the Arts Berlin. She has co-operated in numerous combinations with artists including Hermann Nitsch, Column One, Element of Crime, Parabelles, Fearless Bob, Malcolm Alison, Myriam Van Imschoot, Raionbashi and the LA Free Music Society.
Laura Landergott, the Austrian multi-instrumentalist, is famous for the versatility of her musical work. In 2019 she toured with queer icon Peaches, performing at venues including the Royal Festival Hall in London, Kampnagel in Hamburg and the Berlin Volksbühne. She currently plays with the group Ja, Panik and Fuffifufzich. In addition to her live stage presence, Landergott also works as a musical director for a range of theatre productions. For many years she has collaborated with the theatre collective Copy & Waste, which has won the prestigious George Tabori Prize.
Julie Miess was conceived in Manchester, but was born in Karlsruhe in 1972. Descended from Transylvanian peasants and a family that owned a fur factory, she had a materially privileged upbringing. In 1991 she moved to Berlin. Alongside her life as a musician, she also conducts post-doctoral academic research into books and monsters. From the mid-90s she played bass in the band Britta with Christiane Rösinger, later founding the band Half Girl, where she sang and played keyboards. In 2021 Rösinger changed Miess’s life once again by recruiting her to the theatre band for ‘Planet Egalia’ and casting her in the role of cheeky little Fandango. Since 2022 Miess has also performed in a musical duo, combining her love of Lemmy, cats and noise: Motörcat.
Minh Duc Pham, born in Schlema, Germany, in 1991, is an artist and lives in Berlin. Pham completed his diploma in Exhibition Design and Scenography at HfG Karlsruhe in 2019 and studied Performance and Design Theory as a guest at the University of the Arts Berlin. In his works in the visual and performing arts, Pham examines the theme of identity amid the tensions of gender, race and class.
Paul Pötsch, born in Lauchhammer/Brandenburg in 1988, is a freelance musician and composer. He lives with his family in Hamburg. He trained as a musician with Laurenz Wannenmacher (piano) and Eckhard Lipske (acoustic and electric guitar). He is a founder member of the bands Trümmer, Hotel Rimini and Ilgen-Nur. For his band projects he has been awarded the German Record Critics’ Award, was nominated for an ECHO Prize and won the HANS Hamburg Music Prize as Young Artist of the Year. He continually releases new sounds and regularly performs national and international concert tours – amongst others, on behalf of the Goethe Institut. He has presented his own musical theatre performances at HKW Berlin (the rock opera ‘Vincent’) and Kampnagel im Hamburg (the GDR musical revue ‘Wir treiben die Liebe auf die Weide’).
The musician and writer Christiane Rösinger moved to Berlin in 1985, where she founded the bands Lassie Singers and Britta. The themes of her books and songs include criticism of couples and capitalism, the challenges to Bohemian life created by a precarious existence, and practical feminism. The city of Berlin is the setting for her novels, provides material for her columns and has inspired song lyrics and theatre texts. As well as making music and years of working as a journalist, one of Rösinger’s priorities has always been to create local structures to promote young musicians and counter the male-dominated music business. In the 90s she roganised the legendary “Flittchenbar” in the Maria at the Ostbahnhof and, following a long break, revived it again in the Südblock at Kottbusser Tor. Her artistic and personal connections in the city made the housing crisis a particularly pressing issue for her, expressing itself in the song ‘Eigentumswohnung’ about housing and class on her 2017 album ‘Lieder ohne Leiden’. Rösinger created her first work as a director in 2019 in response to an invitation from the HAU Hebbel am Ufer. The stage musical ‘Stadt unter Einfluss – das Musical zur Wohnungsfrage’ was produced by HAU as part of the festival Berlin bleibt! Stadt, Kunst, Zukunft. It was acclaimed by the public and the media as “popular theatre in the best sense.“ Following on from this successful collaboration, Rösinger devised her second musical stage production at HAU ‘Planet Egalia – Ein feministisches Singspiel’ in 2021 and ‘Die große Klassenrevue’ in 2023.
Albertine Sarges, born in Berlin Kreuzberg in 1987, studied Musicology in Leipzig and is a freelance musician working in theatre and pop music production.
Stefanie Sargnagel, born in 1986, studied Painting in the class run by Daniel Richter at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, but spent more time at her bread-and-butter job in a call centre. She has been a freelance writer since 2016 – and has spent more time with her financial adviser ever since. She won the BKS Bank audience prize at the competition for the 2016 Ingeborg Bachmann Prize. Her two books ‘Statusmeldungen’ and ‘Dicht’ have both been bestsellers. Her latest book ‘Iowa’ was published in December 2023 by Rowohlt.
Meike Schmitz studied Literature, Latin American Studies and Dramaturgy at the Theaterakademie Hamburg. She held the post of Dramaturg at the Deutsches Theater Berlin from 2009 to 2014. In 2013 she co-founded the artistic and cultural organisation Die Heitere Fahne in Bern and has since been part of the Artistic Directorate of Frei_Raum, the inclusive theatre collective that is based there. Meike Schmitz has lived in Dresden since 2019. Here she has collaborated consistently with the Dresden-based dance company the guts company and Hellerau – European Centre for the Arts. Her work as a freelance dramaturg and director has been seen recently at venues including the Deutsches Theater Berlin, Theater Bremen, HAU – Hebbel am Ufer and Hellerau – European Centre for the Arts. Meike Schmitz is frequently involved in inclusive working situations. In addition to regularly devising productions she directs with Theater Frei_Raum, she has also realised co-operation projects with Rambazamba Theater, Theater Thikwa and, most recently, a mixed-abled dance piece with the guts company. Meike Schmitz has worked together with Christiane Rösinger since 2019, directing the productions ‘City Under the Influence’, ‘Planet Egalia’ and ‘Die große Klassenrevue’ with her.
Andreas Schwarz aka Herr Schwarz (aka “Krah-Krah”) is one of the leading movers in the Berlin underground, electronic, punk, art and party scene. Originally from the Black Forest, the artist, singer and performer is the promoter of the festival Ich bin ein Berliner(in) at SO36, mixes at “Chantal’s House of Shame” and attracts attention with his avantgarde scene and festival appearances.
Vienna during the Second World War: the audience follows the fate of eight homosexuals who suffered repression and persecution under the Nazi regime. Moving breathlessly from one precisely-detailed room to the next, alternating between victims and perpetrators. However, no one can see all 160 of these nightmarish scenes: everyone has their own individual route.
Dates:
30.05., 19:00–22:00
31.05., 19:00–22:00
01.06., 19:00–22:00
04.06., 17:30–20:30
05.06., 17:30–20:30
06.06., 17:30–20:30
Venue: brut nordwest, Vienna (Austria)
Language: German
Tickets are available from brut wien.
The promenade starts at the heart of its setting: in the canteen of a porcelain factory. At night this turns into a secret shebeen, a safe place for homosexuals and trans people to meet. But the Nazis soon get wind of their activities …
From here the audience have to decide for themselves which of the two dozen characters they want to follow through the labyrinth of darkened rooms and when they want to swap to the next one. The audience enters a vortex of fiction and reality. This principle has made Nesterval stars of the Viennese theatre scene: they make theatre for people who think theatre is actually too boring. Immersive settings in disused buildings immediately involve the public and create experiences that are addictive. In their home city, Nesterval’s plays are sold out within minutes.
But the subject is serious: „Der Rosa Winkel – Die Geschichte der Namenlosen“, a revised version of DIE NAMENLOSEN, is both a memorial and a warning. Its historical narrative predetermines how the production will turn out: it begins sadly and rapidly becomes desperate. An evening of theatre that has after effects.
“The Viennese company Nesterval once again draws its audience into an unsettling story. They don’t just stare but share the thoughts, lives and emotions of the characters.” Margarete Affenzeller, Der Standard
Artistic Director, Direction: Martin Finnland
Book: Teresa Löfberg
Stage Design: Andrea Konrad
Costume Design: Dritan Kosovrasti
Choreography: Marcelo Doño
Dramaturgy: Tove Grün
Assistant Director: Laura Athanasiadis
Co-Authors: Martin Finnland, Gisa Fellerer, Lorenz Tröbinger
Co-Conceiver, Applications, Archive: Martin Walanka
Production: Emilie Kleinszig, Sabine Anders
Secondary Direction: Lorenz Tröbinger
Technical Director: Lukas “Lupo” Saller
Set Construction: Andreas Holzmann (Vienna Decoration Company), Walter Winkelmüller
Composition Songs and Score: Julian Muldoon
Song Lyrics: Sarah Muldoon
Sound Design: Alkis Vlassakakis
Assistant Play Development: Gisa Fellerer
Research Advisors: Andreas Brunner, Jürgen Pettinger
Magic Consultant: Raphael Macho
Design Team: Ruth Grau, Willy Mutzenpachner, Milo Marx, Lorenz Hötzeneder
Graphics: Rita Brandneulinger
Website: Gisa Fellerer
Communications: Christopher Wurmdobler
Photography: Alexandra Thompson
Trailer: Sabine Anders (Director), Lukas Grubba (Camera), Sabrina Winkler (Editor, Grading)
Co-operations: Lukas Kirisits
Bookkeeping, Office: Doris Panzer
Technicians: Plan B, Till Gatermann
Stage Management: Ela Lankes, Sabine Anders, Sebastian Kieberl
Bar: Luki Kirisits, Markus Gorfer
Contact for touring enquiries: Martin Finnland, email hidden; JavaScript is required
With: Christopher Wurmdobler, Martin Finnland, Gisa Fellerer, Chiara Seide, Stefan Pauser, Mio Riedl, Romy Hrubeš, Willy Mutzenpachner, Rita Brandneulinger, Johannes Scheutz, Sven Diestel, Gellert Gerson Butter, Martin Walanka, Laura Hermann, Aston Matters, Lorenz Tröbinger, Peter Kraus, Julia Fuchs, Alkis Vlassakakis, Hisham Morscher, Ela Lankes, Sabine Anders, Sebastian Kieberl, Denice Bourbon, Simon Stockinger, Anne Wieben, Norbert Fiedler, Alexandra Thompson, Bernhard Hablé, Eva Deutsch, Jürgen Pettinger, Luki Kirisits, Markus Gorfer
Special thanks to Peter Hörmanseder (sound recordings), Peter Holub, Johannes Felber and the Friends of Nesterval (especially Andrea and Valerie Lenk, Andreas Kauba, Clemens and Katharina Pallitsch, Edmund Weninger, Kaya Alina Knapp, Maria Sibilia, Markus Kellner, Martin Hinterndorfer, Michael Brandtner and Michael Marker) and also to Nikolaus Vogler (PKHV Attorneys at Law), René Lipkovich (Siart Lipkovich & Team) and Helmut Patterer (PRBS Patterer e.U.).
With generous support from the City of Vienna Department of Culture (MA7), the Austrian Federal Ministry for Arts, Culture, the Civil Service and Sport, the National Fund of the Republic of Austria and the Future Fund of the Republic of Austria as well as Vienna Decoration Company, Magenta, ZANTHO, Pedacola, Trumer Privatbrauerei, Vöslauer, Mietmöbel Föhr.
Nesterval sees itself as a queer folk theatre that translates, overwrites and deconstructs classics of literary and theatre history into the present. Each production is centred around a delight in play, the creation of a space for theatrical experiences and the inclusion of the audience in immersive theatre. Room for interactive manoeuvre is created through empathy, through surprising casting choices and also through conversations after the show. Nesterval consistently foregrounds a queer technique of self-empowerment, in which the pleasurable level of play always has a political dimension, raising and processing socio-political issues. The plays are always based on epoch-making experiences within the dynasty of the fictitious Nesterval family. All of the more than 25 productions so far been presented in Austria and internationally have been site-specific in nature and made reference to the cultural, social and historical background of each particular venue. The ensemble consists of around 20 performers, drag artists and actors who tell the history of the Nesterval family in a variety of combinations. Nesterval has already been nominated for Vienna’s Nestroy Theatre Prize on three occasions, most recently in 2023 for DIE NAMENLOSEN. Nesterval won a Nestroy Prize in 2020 for ‘Der Kreisky Test’. The Hamburg version of DIE NAMENLOSEN was shortlisted for the Nachtkritik Theatertreffen 2024.
SPAfrica is the world’s first ever empathy drink: water from South Africa that can only be bought in exchange for a donation of tears. This product is the starting point for an unsparing performance about racism, colonialism and the cannibalisation of sorrow and trauma by the art market.
Language: English with German surtitles
30.5. after the performance: discussion in English with Ntando Cele and Julian Hetzel, chaired by: Wilma Renfordt
Tickets for all Impulse events are also available from our ticket shop.
As a Black actress in Europe, Ntando Cele has become an expert at creating empathy. Because the market demands stories about angry victims full of pain for the audience to be able to feel anything at all any more. Cele is capable of servicing this demand.
But what if empathy does nothing to change existing power relations, and indeed only reinforces them? The white audience sees itself confronted with a dilemma: does it want to empathise and pay for its colonial guilt with its tears? Or does it recognise that an art that reduces black performers to the role of victims deprives them of the opportunity of telling their own story in their own way?
Ntando Cele and Julian Hetzel have previously been invited to earlier Impulse festivals. ‘Enjoy Racism’ (with Ntando Cele in der the leading role, 2018) and ‘All Inclusive’ (Julian Hetzel, 2019) have generated controversial discussions around the complex of themes that they now tackle together in ‘SPAfrica’.
“‘SPAfrica’ succeeds in making complex, neocolonial power relations and our own entanglement within them tangible with painful and perceptive ambivalence.” Theresa Schütz, Theater der Zeit
Concept: Julian Hetzel and Ntando Cele
Direction: Julian Hetzel
Performance: Ntando Cele
Dramaturgy: Miguel A. Melgares
Artistic advisor: Sodja Lotker, Khanyisile Mbongwa
Music & composition: Frank Wienk
Light design: Nico de Rooij
Technical coordination: Vincent Beune, Aengus Havinga
Technicians: Tom Doeven, Simon Kelaita, Bea Verbeek, Wout Jansen
Technical solutions: Merijn Versnel, Guido Bevers
Production manager: Marieke van den Bosch
Production Cape Town: Lungile Mbongwa
Galerist Cape Town: Mpilo Ngcukana
Production assistant: Jana Riese
Assistant costume designer: Merel van Erpers Roijaards
Mask artist: Carly Heathcote
Make-up artist: Julia Markow
Prop maker: Saskia Hartog
Intern: Piet van Duijn Ferreira
Video documentation: Reynold Reynolds, Bongeka Ngcobo
Video performer: Revé Terborg
Photography: Alexandra Masmanidi, Anouk Maupu
Contact for touring enquiries: Studio Julian Hetzel, email hidden; JavaScript is required
Special thanks to the voluntears and the local hosts of the artist talk
A production by Studio Julian Hetzel in co-production with Schauspiel Leipzig, CAMPO, Ghent, Théâtre Vidy-Lausanne, SPRING Performing Arts Festival, Utrecht and auawirleben Theaterfestival Bern.
Ntando Cele was born in South Africa and is based in Bern, Switzerland. She studied acting in Durban and also attended DasArts in Amsterdam. Her work overturns the borders between physical theatre, video installation, concert and performance. She combines music, text and video to recreate her own identity on the stage. In 2023 she won the Swiss Performing Arts Award.
Julian Hetzel works as performance maker, musician and visual artist. He develops works along the intersection of theatre, music and media that have a political dimension and a documentary approach. He is Artistic Director of Studio Julian Hetzel, an Utrecht-based organisation that realises and produces his artistic work. Hetzel’s creations are produced internationally. His work has been presented in more than 20 countries all around the world. In 2017 Hetzel received the VSCD-Mimeprijs for ‘The Automated Sniper’ (by Frascati producties and Ism & Heit). In 2019 ‘All Inclusive’ (by CAMPO and Ism & heit) was part of the official selection of the Nederlands Theaterfestival. ‘SELF’ by Julian Hetzel was the national entry of the Netherlands at the Prague Quadrennial 2019. In August 2019 Hetzel presented three works at the Venice Biennale del Teatro. Julian Hetzel is Associate Artist at Kunstencentrum CAMPO Gent (Belgium). Studio Julian Hetzel has received structural funding from Fonds Podiumkunsten (FPK) and the City of Utrecht since 2021.
In a one-off formation, the four multi-instrumentalists Stella Polaris, Niko Dolle, Timmy Lorenz and Pippo Bracht will pool together their influences from soul, groove, folk, jazz and rock, adding a sprinkling of original songs to this laid back live session.
Entry free of charge.
A tour of the Impulse ACADEMIES 2018–23
30.5.–1.6. at various locations in Düsseldorf and Cologne
Together with the network FESTIVALFRIENDS, Impulse looks back on the ACADEMIES that have taken place since 2018 and share the knowledge that has emerged from them. What has lasted? How have perspectives on the ACADEMIES’ various themes changed – including remote meetings and international co-productions, artistic methods, archiving practices and working conditions? ACADEMY leaders report on how they view their topic now and revisit formats that encouraged particularly intense exchanges between the participants and fostered collective learning.
ACADEMY #1: ‘MAKE FRIENDS – SHARE KNOWLEDGE’ is presented in co-operation with FESTIVALFRIENDS, an alliance of festivals of the independent performing arts in Germany, and the NRW Landesbüro Freie Darstellende Künste e. V. and the Bundesverband Freie Darstellende Künste e. V. FESTIVALFRIENDS is funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media through the programme ‘Verbindungen fördern’ run by the Bundesverbands Freie Darstellende Künste e. V.
Locations:
FFT Düsseldorf, Konrad-Adenauer-Platz 1, 40210 Düsseldorf
TMD Theatermuseum Hofgartenhaus Düsseldorf, Jägerhofstraße 1, 40479 Düsseldorf
Südstadion, Vorgebirgsstraße 76, 50969 Köln
Costs:
Day pass: 10 € (incl. lunch and shuttle to the SHOWCASE in Cologne)
3-day-ticket: 20 €
The tickets can be booked here on rausgegangen.de.
As part of the cooperation with FESTIVALFRIENDS, there is the possibility of limited travel expenses being covered if required and subject to availability. Applications must be submitted via e-mail to akademie[at]impulsefestival.de.
Location and Opening Hours:
30.5. and 1.6., 10:00–13:00: FFT Düsseldorf
31.5., 10:00–17:00: FFT Düsseldorf
1.6., 14:00–17:00: TMD Theatermuseum Hofgartenhaus Düsseldorf
Portable Archive is an attempt to transpose a theatre performance into an archive that can be reactivated by visitors. Using a range of "filtered" and newly materialised elements from the Futur3 production '1934 – Stimmen' (2020) the project seeks to reconstruct documents and fragments of this piece. The archive aims to immerse visitors in the structure of the theatre work, its questions, contexts and images. Observing the reciprocal effects between the archive and the theatre production is intended to facilitate a re-activation of constitutive elements of theatre-making. Visits to the archive are conducted in dialogue - ideally two at a time.
Thursday, 30.5.
Locations: FFT Düsseldorf and Südstadion, Cologne
Location: FFT Düsseldorf
Language: German
With the ACADEMY host Anne Schneider, the ACADEMY leaders and FESTIVALFRIENDS
Südstadion, Cologne
Language: German
Talk with Kolja Burgschuld and Anne Schneider
In the independent performing arts, collaboration with local communities, individual biographies and in public spaces intersect with international co-productions and touring performances. This talk looks back on the Impulse ACADEMY 2018, which explored the tensions between the local and the global from the perspectives of aesthetics, cultural politics and economics. In a series of excursions, the participants will investigate international trade, the culture industry and football.
Otmar Wagner: Fortuna. Sport Art Politics
In the popular sport of football, being able to play on a national or even international stage represents success and growth. At the same time the histories of many clubs remain rooted in local identities. 'Theatre has to be like Football' is the much-quoted title of a book about independent theatre that performance artist Otmar Wagner enjoys dissecting for a soundtrack he produced for Impulse 2018: with fan chants, original clips from local champions and 1001 cross references from his bookshelves. The visitors will also be able to explore the Südstadion and the checkered history of SC Fortuna Köln with Managing Director Niklas Müller: how can a local identity be successfully reconciled with international success – in football and in independent theatre? The curtain has to go up and the ball has to hit the back of the net!
Friday, 31.5.
Location: FFT Düsseldorf
Language: German
Talk and Workshop: Exercises in Social Intimacy – revisited
By and with: Sibylle Peters, Clara Vaughan, Ansuman Biswas, Phanuel Antwi
In 2021, in a three-day workshop 'Exercises in Social Intimacy', theatre practitioners, dancers, researchers and students from South Africa, Switzerland, Belarus, the United Kingdom and Germany met - both online and offline. After a year of the Covid pandemic, it was still almost impossible to make theatre. Because breathing the same air was too much of a risk. Gathering together in the theatre was too intimate. In the workshop the participants concentrated on this essential but often previously overlooked intimacy of the theatre and saw it as a strength. Despite conforming strictly to the rules of social distancing, they used the tools of performance art to make contact with each other. They persuaded strangers to hug each other through plastic film, stroked people with sticks 1.5 metres long and danced together on Zoom.
In this year's workshop the participants look back and ask: Are we doing theatre differently - now that we've got it back again? Are we still aware of how intimate it is to breathe the same air and to sit side by side with each other? Do we know we should value this intimacy? Has the time of distancing possibly brought us closer?
Location: FFT Düsseldorf
Language: German
Talk with Sandra Umathum and Anne Schneider
Artists in the independent theatre often find and generate their material in and with people from non-artistic contexts. Starting from this observation, the ACADEMY 2018 was based on the principle of the "uncertain encounter." At its heart lay the question of how meeting and working with people from non-artistic fields of life could unsettle established aesthetic approaches and inspire new ones. In 2024 this focus willl be expanded to include what was omitted then: to uncertain encounters between human and more-than-human entities.
Workshop: How to do things with slime
With Philomena Theuretzbacher, Doris Uhlich, Sandra Umathum
This workshop is about slime. Slime is a substance that causes ambivalent reactions. That is neither definitely solid nor liquid. That holds organisms together and creates connections. Inviting you to the workshop are: the dancer and choreographer Doris Uhlich, whose pieces 'Gootopia' and 'Gootopia – The Treatment' feature slime as a material and as a performer, the theatre scholar and dramaturg Sandra Umathum and the slime expert Philomena Theuretzbacher. Together with the participants they try out a range of ways of making contact with slime and explore its various different qualities.
Participants are recommended to bring clothing with them that can tolerate (washable) stains.
Saturday, 1.6.
Locations: FFT Düsseldorf and TMD Theatermuseum Hofgartenhaus Düsseldorf
Location: FFT Düsseldorf
Language: German
Talk with Jascha Sommer and Anne Schneider
In previous years Impulse ACADEMIES have repeatedly focussed on working conditions in the independent performing arts. And there have been some improvements: minimum fees have increased the income of many freelancers, it has become entirely natural to discuss and argue about working conditions, and associations and trade unions adopt a more confident approach to cultural politicians. However, the situation of many freelancers and full-time employees in the sector remains precarious – and even more tense in times when money is short and there is a need to balance the books. Urgently necessary budget increases have not happened or been cancelled, minimum fees and hourly rates are being undermined by undocumented overtime, and, for many workers, anything more than minimal provision for their old age is barely possible.
Work better!?
Working conditions in the independent performing arts
Lectures and table talks by and with Anica Happich, Christoph Rech and Katja Sonnemann
After associations, trade unions and research projects have primarily studied the situation of artists, 'Work better!?' expands its focus to look at the independent theatre system as a whole: what is the financial situation of the theatres and their workers? What do the latest developments in cultural policy mean for the numerous freelancers who are not artists, e.g.
Location: TMD Theatermuseum Hofgartenhaus Düsseldorf
Language: German
Talk with Daniel Richter and Anne Schneider
What might a future archive of the independent performing arts look like? And how might that archive be designed in order not only to conserve the past but also to make it present in sensual form? These are the questions that the Impulse Theater Festival asked in 2021. In an open laboratory process together with academics, performing and visual artists, we explored the future of the Impulse archive at the intersection of theatre, archiving and digital art. Time to take stock. Which different archiving strategies and methods came out of this? Which collection narratives have emerged? What willl the first steps for our own archive look like?
Our Way to the Archive
Archiving workshop with Barbara Jennerwein, Wilma Renfordt, Steffen Wedepohl (Digital Archive of the Independent Performing Arts)
Do you want to preserve your work and the stories and memories associated with it and allow others to see it? But you don't know how to do it, or even where to start? In this workshop the participants willl run through the first steps of archiving together. Everyone willl bring something along with them that they would like to archive: from their own artistic practice or that of others, or something that was part of a process; an object, a document or a data file. Together we will talk about these objects and what they mean and then start to record them in the Digital Archive of the Independent Performing Arts. For this, all participants will need to bring a laptop of their own.
What's missing? – And now?
with Sascha Förster (Director of TMD Theatermuseum Hofgartenhaus Düsseldorf) and Dominik Müller (Curator NRW Festival Archive)
The Impulse Archive forms an essential pillar in the NRW Festival Archive that is currently being set up at the TMD Theatermuseum Hofgartenhaus Düsseldorf. Together we will view materials from selected years of the festival. With you we willl try to pin down what happened and identify gaps where there nothing remains. Do you think certain objects are missing from the collections? Is there no room for your memories? Join us in creating a speculative archiving and documentation workshop: how can gaps be avoided in future? How can we develop documentary tools for curatorial processes that are not evidenced by objects alone? How can personal experience, including that of audiences, be preserved?
A tour of the Impulse ACADEMIES 2018–23
30.5.–1.6. at various locations in Düsseldorf and Cologne
Together with the network FESTIVALFRIENDS, Impulse looks back on the ACADEMIES that have taken place since 2018 and share the knowledge that has emerged from them. What has lasted? How have perspectives on the ACADEMIES’ various themes changed – including remote meetings and international co-productions, artistic methods, archiving practices and working conditions? ACADEMY leaders report on how they view their topic now and revisit formats that encouraged particularly intense exchanges between the participants and fostered collective learning.
ACADEMY #1: ‘MAKE FRIENDS – SHARE KNOWLEDGE’ is presented in co-operation with FESTIVALFRIENDS, an alliance of festivals of the independent performing arts in Germany, and the NRW Landesbüro Freie Darstellende Künste e. V. and the Bundesverband Freie Darstellende Künste e. V. FESTIVALFRIENDS is funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media through the programme ‘Verbindungen fördern’ run by the Bundesverbands Freie Darstellende Künste e. V.
Locations:
FFT Düsseldorf, Konrad-Adenauer-Platz 1, 40210 Düsseldorf
TMD Theatermuseum Hofgartenhaus Düsseldorf, Jägerhofstraße 1, 40479 Düsseldorf
Südstadion, Vorgebirgsstraße 76, 50969 Köln
Costs:
Day pass: 10 € (incl. lunch and shuttle to the SHOWCASE in Cologne)
3-day-ticket: 20 €
The tickets can be booked here on rausgegangen.de.
As part of the cooperation with FESTIVALFRIENDS, there is the possibility of limited travel expenses being covered if required and subject to availability. Applications must be submitted via e-mail to akademie[at]impulsefestival.de.
Location and Opening Hours:
30.5. and 1.6., 10:00–13:00: FFT Düsseldorf
31.5., 10:00–17:00: FFT Düsseldorf
1.6., 14:00–17:00: TMD Theatermuseum Hofgartenhaus Düsseldorf
Portable Archive is an attempt to transpose a theatre performance into an archive that can be reactivated by visitors. Using a range of "filtered" and newly materialised elements from the Futur3 production '1934 – Stimmen' (2020) the project seeks to reconstruct documents and fragments of this piece. The archive aims to immerse visitors in the structure of the theatre work, its questions, contexts and images. Observing the reciprocal effects between the archive and the theatre production is intended to facilitate a re-activation of constitutive elements of theatre-making. Visits to the archive are conducted in dialogue - ideally two at a time.
Thursday, 30.5.
Locations: FFT Düsseldorf and Südstadion, Cologne
Location: FFT Düsseldorf
Language: German
With the ACADEMY host Anne Schneider, the ACADEMY leaders and FESTIVALFRIENDS
Südstadion, Cologne
Language: German
Talk with Kolja Burgschuld and Anne Schneider
In the independent performing arts, collaboration with local communities, individual biographies and in public spaces intersect with international co-productions and touring performances. This talk looks back on the Impulse ACADEMY 2018, which explored the tensions between the local and the global from the perspectives of aesthetics, cultural politics and economics. In a series of excursions, the participants will investigate international trade, the culture industry and football.
Otmar Wagner: Fortuna. Sport Art Politics
In the popular sport of football, being able to play on a national or even international stage represents success and growth. At the same time the histories of many clubs remain rooted in local identities. 'Theatre has to be like Football' is the much-quoted title of a book about independent theatre that performance artist Otmar Wagner enjoys dissecting for a soundtrack he produced for Impulse 2018: with fan chants, original clips from local champions and 1001 cross references from his bookshelves. The visitors will also be able to explore the Südstadion and the checkered history of SC Fortuna Köln with Managing Director Niklas Müller: how can a local identity be successfully reconciled with international success – in football and in independent theatre? The curtain has to go up and the ball has to hit the back of the net!
Friday, 31.5.
Location: FFT Düsseldorf
Language: German
Talk and Workshop: Exercises in Social Intimacy – revisited
By and with: Sibylle Peters, Clara Vaughan, Ansuman Biswas, Phanuel Antwi
In 2021, in a three-day workshop 'Exercises in Social Intimacy', theatre practitioners, dancers, researchers and students from South Africa, Switzerland, Belarus, the United Kingdom and Germany met - both online and offline. After a year of the Covid pandemic, it was still almost impossible to make theatre. Because breathing the same air was too much of a risk. Gathering together in the theatre was too intimate. In the workshop the participants concentrated on this essential but often previously overlooked intimacy of the theatre and saw it as a strength. Despite conforming strictly to the rules of social distancing, they used the tools of performance art to make contact with each other. They persuaded strangers to hug each other through plastic film, stroked people with sticks 1.5 metres long and danced together on Zoom.
In this year's workshop the participants look back and ask: Are we doing theatre differently - now that we've got it back again? Are we still aware of how intimate it is to breathe the same air and to sit side by side with each other? Do we know we should value this intimacy? Has the time of distancing possibly brought us closer?
Location: FFT Düsseldorf
Language: German
Talk with Sandra Umathum and Anne Schneider
Artists in the independent theatre often find and generate their material in and with people from non-artistic contexts. Starting from this observation, the ACADEMY 2018 was based on the principle of the "uncertain encounter." At its heart lay the question of how meeting and working with people from non-artistic fields of life could unsettle established aesthetic approaches and inspire new ones. In 2024 this focus willl be expanded to include what was omitted then: to uncertain encounters between human and more-than-human entities.
Workshop: How to do things with slime
With Philomena Theuretzbacher, Doris Uhlich, Sandra Umathum
This workshop is about slime. Slime is a substance that causes ambivalent reactions. That is neither definitely solid nor liquid. That holds organisms together and creates connections. Inviting you to the workshop are: the dancer and choreographer Doris Uhlich, whose pieces 'Gootopia' and 'Gootopia – The Treatment' feature slime as a material and as a performer, the theatre scholar and dramaturg Sandra Umathum and the slime expert Philomena Theuretzbacher. Together with the participants they try out a range of ways of making contact with slime and explore its various different qualities.
Participants are recommended to bring clothing with them that can tolerate (washable) stains.
Saturday, 1.6.
Locations: FFT Düsseldorf and TMD Theatermuseum Hofgartenhaus Düsseldorf
Location: FFT Düsseldorf
Language: German
Talk with Jascha Sommer and Anne Schneider
In previous years Impulse ACADEMIES have repeatedly focussed on working conditions in the independent performing arts. And there have been some improvements: minimum fees have increased the income of many freelancers, it has become entirely natural to discuss and argue about working conditions, and associations and trade unions adopt a more confident approach to cultural politicians. However, the situation of many freelancers and full-time employees in the sector remains precarious – and even more tense in times when money is short and there is a need to balance the books. Urgently necessary budget increases have not happened or been cancelled, minimum fees and hourly rates are being undermined by undocumented overtime, and, for many workers, anything more than minimal provision for their old age is barely possible.
Work better!?
Working conditions in the independent performing arts
Lectures and table talks by and with Anica Happich, Christoph Rech and Katja Sonnemann
After associations, trade unions and research projects have primarily studied the situation of artists, 'Work better!?' expands its focus to look at the independent theatre system as a whole: what is the financial situation of the theatres and their workers? What do the latest developments in cultural policy mean for the numerous freelancers who are not artists, e.g.
Location: TMD Theatermuseum Hofgartenhaus Düsseldorf
Language: German
Talk with Daniel Richter and Anne Schneider
What might a future archive of the independent performing arts look like? And how might that archive be designed in order not only to conserve the past but also to make it present in sensual form? These are the questions that the Impulse Theater Festival asked in 2021. In an open laboratory process together with academics, performing and visual artists, we explored the future of the Impulse archive at the intersection of theatre, archiving and digital art. Time to take stock. Which different archiving strategies and methods came out of this? Which collection narratives have emerged? What willl the first steps for our own archive look like?
Our Way to the Archive
Archiving workshop with Barbara Jennerwein, Wilma Renfordt, Steffen Wedepohl (Digital Archive of the Independent Performing Arts)
Do you want to preserve your work and the stories and memories associated with it and allow others to see it? But you don't know how to do it, or even where to start? In this workshop the participants willl run through the first steps of archiving together. Everyone willl bring something along with them that they would like to archive: from their own artistic practice or that of others, or something that was part of a process; an object, a document or a data file. Together we will talk about these objects and what they mean and then start to record them in the Digital Archive of the Independent Performing Arts. For this, all participants will need to bring a laptop of their own.
What's missing? – And now?
with Sascha Förster (Director of TMD Theatermuseum Hofgartenhaus Düsseldorf) and Dominik Müller (Curator NRW Festival Archive)
The Impulse Archive forms an essential pillar in the NRW Festival Archive that is currently being set up at the TMD Theatermuseum Hofgartenhaus Düsseldorf. Together we will view materials from selected years of the festival. With you we willl try to pin down what happened and identify gaps where there nothing remains. Do you think certain objects are missing from the collections? Is there no room for your memories? Join us in creating a speculative archiving and documentation workshop: how can gaps be avoided in future? How can we develop documentary tools for curatorial processes that are not evidenced by objects alone? How can personal experience, including that of audiences, be preserved?
For decades now, public swimming pools in Mülheim an der Ruhr have been killed off through lack of funding or abandoned. 2024 was even in danger of becoming a summer without a single open-air pool. At the same time the market in private pools is booming: those who can afford it are seeking comfort and security in their own gardens.
As a counter proposal to this privatisation of leisure time, the Impulse Theater Festival in association with artists and Ringlokschuppen Ruhr will open a summer pool for eleven days in the MüGa-Park. The group Conte Potuto will construct a pool of dreams: with almost no water, but filled with the visitors’ wishes and ideas. TachoTinta play on dry land with an underwater rugby team, and the Tigers’ Kitchen not only produces fries but also slushy pop songs.
Together with local initiatives and sports clubs, the artists present actions and conversations exploring issues around open-air swimming pools: who is allowed in, who has to stay outside? What sort of encounters are possible here? And which social conflicts can be seen at public pools? SCHWIMM CITY looks the increasing polarisation of society squarely in the eye and counters it with shared pleasure. Because one thing is certain: everyone can agree on the swimming pool snack: fries. They’re vegan, halal, kosher, gluten- and lactose-free.
Entry is free of charge, no registration required.
If you like, bring swimwear and a towel. But all other outfits are just as welcome!
As part of the 'ExtraSchicht' (1.6.) free admission only with registration by 31.5. at stadtprojekt[at]impulsefestival.de.
Thursday, 30.5., open 12:00–20:00
The artists of the Austrian collective Conte Potuto will build and operate SCHWIMM CITY. They take care of the pool, distribute sun loungers and sun shades - an all-round service focussing on the guests' needs. If it was up to Conte Potuto, people should have the right to be idle in public!
TIGERS’ KITCHEN are the actor and chef Nadja Duesterberg and the musician and performer Svea Kischmeier. At SCHWIMM CITY they run a snack bar that is also a radio station. Radio Pommes broadcasts every day online from 14:00 to 18:00 h. At the end of each working day and broadcast, TIGERS’ KITCHEN perform a slushy pop song in their snack bar that they have produced in the course of the day together with their customers.
An act of celebration with fries and ice lollies!
At the "Hellblaue Stunde", or twilight, the open-air pool provides an opportunity for speculation. Swimming pool and water sport experts are invited to come and talk, and to discuss what a pool for everyone might look like and what is needed to create a dream pool of the future.
These twilight talks willl be broadcast live online on Radio Pommes by TIGERS’ KITCHEN. The artists of Conte Potuto will pick up on ideas from the conversations and include these in the process of designing SCHWIMM CITY.
Different body images and clichés come together in the outdoor pool. '4ever young' is a staged fashion show with various bathing and outdoor pool accessories from different decades. Summer pop songs from the 80s and 90s serve as the soundtrack. How do social norms and ideas influence our perception of our bodies? What has changed over the years? And where are we today?
Underwater rugby is a fascinating niche sport that was supposedly invented in Mülheim an der Ruhr. In Overwater Rugby: Club Darlington e.V., the dance company TachoTinta plays with underwater rugby players on dry land. To do this, the rules have to be changed and new groupings have to be formed – and sometimes the referee also has to be contradicted. Training turns into choreography and the contest turns into a dance.
At the end of each working day, TIGERS’ KITCHEN perform a slushy pop song in their snack bar that they have produced in the course of the day together with their customers. Open Mic for all fans of fries and pop
On the opening day of SCHWIMM CITY, Conte Potuto invite you to a concert. The Viennese band AUTOR combines tried-and-trusted punk influences with catchy melodies and cryptic lyrics. Their music combines the rawness of the DIY music scene with nonchalance and plays with the grey areas in between poetry and punk.
Friday, 31.5., open 12:00–18:00
The artists of the Austrian collective Conte Potuto will build and operate SCHWIMM CITY. They take care of the pool, distribute sun loungers and sun shades - an all-round service focussing on the guests' needs. If it was up to Conte Potuto, people should have the right to be idle in public!
TIGERS’ KITCHEN are the actor and chef Nadja Duesterberg and the musician and performer Svea Kischmeier. At SCHWIMM CITY they run a snack bar that is also a radio station. Radio Pommes broadcasts every day online from 14:00 to 18:00 h. At the end of each working day and broadcast, TIGERS’ KITCHEN perform a slushy pop song in their snack bar that they have produced in the course of the day together with their customers.
At the "Hellblaue Stunde", or twilight, the open-air pool provides an opportunity for speculation. Swimming pool and water sport experts are invited to come and talk, and to discuss what a pool for everyone might look like and what is needed to create a dream pool of the future.
These twilight talks willl be broadcast live online on Radio Pommes by TIGERS’ KITCHEN. The artists of Conte Potuto will pick up on ideas from the conversations and include these in the process of designing SCHWIMM CITY.
Different body images and clichés come together in the outdoor pool. '4ever young' is a staged fashion show with various bathing and outdoor pool accessories from different decades. Summer pop songs from the 80s and 90s serve as the soundtrack. How do social norms and ideas influence our perception of our bodies? What has changed over the years? And where are we today?
At the end of each working day, TIGERS’ KITCHEN perform a slushy pop song in their snack bar that they have produced in the course of the day together with their customers. Open Mic for all fans of fries and pop
Saturday, 1.6., 18:00–23:00
SCHWIMM CITY opens as part of 'ExtraSchicht – Die Nacht der Industriekultur'
The 'ExtraSchicht – Night of Industrial Culture' has been staging former industrial plants, museums and historical monuments in the Ruhr region since 2001. Traditionally, the Ringlokschuppen Ruhr is also part of the programme. The programme includes a long night in the SCHWIMM CITY with theatre, comedy, concerts and DJs from 'ExtraSchicht'.
Free admission to SCHWIMM CITY on this day only with registration by 31 May at email hidden; JavaScript is required.
Paid tickets for the entire 'ExtraSchicht' programme with all venues at extraschicht.de.
The artists of the Austrian collective Conte Potuto will build and operate SCHWIMM CITY. They take care of the pool, distribute sun loungers and sun shades - an all-round service focussing on the guests' needs. If it was up to Conte Potuto, people should have the right to be idle in public! TIGERS’ KITCHEN are the actor and chef Nadja Duesterberg and the musician and performer Svea Kischmeier. At SCHWIMM CITY they run a snack bar that is also a radio station.
Different body images and clichés come together in the outdoor pool. '4ever young' is a staged fashion show with various bathing and outdoor pool accessories from different decades. Summer pop songs from the 80s and 90s serve as the soundtrack. How do social norms and ideas influence our perception of our bodies? What has changed over the years? And where are we today?
Underwater rugby is a fascinating niche sport that was supposedly invented in Mülheim an der Ruhr. In Overwater Rugby: Club Darlington e.V., the dance company TachoTinta plays with underwater rugby players on dry land. To do this, the rules have to be changed and new groupings have to be formed - and sometimes the referee also has to be contradicted. Training turns into choreography and the contest turns into a dance.
Sunday, 2.6., open 12:00–18:00 geöffnet
Family Sunday in co-operation with 'Sport im Park', Silent University Ruhr and the vier.zentrale
The artists of the Austrian collective Conte Potuto will build and operate SCHWIMM CITY. They take care of the pool, distribute sun loungers and sun shades - an all-round service focussing on the guests' needs. If it was up to Conte Potuto, people should have the right to be idle in public!
TIGERS’ KITCHEN are the actor and chef Nadja Duesterberg and the musician and performer Svea Kischmeier. At SCHWIMM CITY they run a snack bar that is also a radio station. Radio Pommes broadcasts every day online from 14:00 to 18:00 h. At the end of each working day and broadcast, TIGERS’ KITCHEN perform a slushy pop song in their snack bar that they have produced in the course of the day together with their customers.
How do children imagine the perfect open-air swimming pool? Artists from Mülheim an der Ruhr invite children to paint and make the pool of their dreams with them (or other ideas).
Try-out training session for children. They provide dance-based insights into the fascinating sport of underwater rugby, but without water. What might it feel like underwater when it's already so much fun on the grass? Just come along and join in.
At the "Hellblaue Stunde", or twilight, the open-air pool provides an opportunity for speculation. Swimming pool and water sport experts are invited to come and talk, and to discuss what a pool for everyone might look like and what is needed to create a dream pool of the future.
These twilight talks willl be broadcast live online on Radio Pommes by TIGERS’ KITCHEN. The artists of Conte Potuto will pick up on ideas from the conversations and include these in the process of designing SCHWIMM CITY.
At the end of each working day, TIGERS’ KITCHEN perform a pop song in their snack bar that they have produced in the course of the day together with their customers. On Family Sunday, children and young people in particular are invited to come to the snack bar where they can sing the song and help to arrange it.
Monday, 3.6., open 12:00–18:00
The artists of the Austrian collective Conte Potuto will build and operate SCHWIMM CITY. They take care of the pool, distribute sun loungers and sun shades - an all-round service focussing on the guests' needs. If it was up to Conte Potuto, people should have the right to be idle in public!
TIGERS’ KITCHEN are the actor and chef Nadja Duesterberg and the musician and performer Svea Kischmeier. At SCHWIMM CITY they run a snack bar that is also a radio station. Radio Pommes broadcasts every day online from 14:00 to 18:00 h. At the end of each working day and broadcast, TIGERS’ KITCHEN perform a slushy pop song in their snack bar that they have produced in the course of the day together with their customers.
At the end of each working day, TIGERS’ KITCHEN perform a slushy pop song in their snack bar that they have produced in the course of the day together with their customers. Open Mic for all fans of fries and pop!
Tuesday, 4.6. – Women's Day
9:30–16:00 women only, 16:00–18:00 open for everyone
The artists of the Austrian collective Conte Potuto will build and operate SCHWIMM CITY. They take care of the pool, distribute sun loungers and sun shades – an all-round service focussing on the guests' needs. If it was up to Conte Potuto, people should have the right to be idle in public!
The MUT-Café's international women's group meets on Tuesdays for regular exchanges at the vier.zentrale. On 4 June they will hold their communal breakfast at the MüGa as guests at SCHWIMM CITY.
TIGERS’ KITCHEN are the actor and chef Nadja Duesterberg and the musician and performer Svea Kischmeier. At SCHWIMM CITY they run a snack bar that is also a radio station. Radio Pommes broadcasts every day online from 14:00 to 18:00 h. At the end of each working day and broadcast, TIGERS’ KITCHEN perform a slushy pop song in their snack bar that they have produced in the course of the day together with their customers.
At the "Hellblaue Stunde", or twilight, the open-air pool provides an opportunity for speculation. Swimming pool and water sport experts are invited to come and talk, and to discuss what a pool for everyone might look like and what is needed to create a dream pool of the future.
These twilight talks willl be broadcast live online on Radio Pommes by TIGERS’ KITCHEN. The artists of Conte Potuto will pick up on ideas from the conversations and include these in the process of designing SCHWIMM CITY.
At the end of each working day, TIGERS’ KITCHEN perform a slushy pop song in their snack bar that they have produced in the course of the day together with their customers. Open Mic for all fans of fries and pop!
Wednesday, 5.6., open 12:00–18:00
The artists of the Austrian collective Conte Potuto will build and operate SCHWIMM CITY. They take care of the pool, distribute sun loungers and sun shades - an all-round service focussing on the guests' needs. If it was up to Conte Potuto, people should have the right to be idle in public!
TIGERS’ KITCHEN are the actor and chef Nadja Duesterberg and the musician and performer Svea Kischmeier. At SCHWIMM CITY they run a snack bar that is also a radio station. Radio Pommes broadcasts every day online from 14:00 to 18:00 h. At the end of each working day and broadcast, TIGERS’ KITCHEN perform a slushy pop song in their snack bar that they have produced in the course of the day together with their customers.
At the "Hellblaue Stunde", or twilight, the open-air pool provides an opportunity for speculation. Swimming pool and water sport experts are invited to come and talk, and to discuss what a pool for everyone might look like and what is needed to create a dream pool of the future.
These twilight talks willl be broadcast live online on Radio Pommes by TIGERS’ KITCHEN. The artists of Conte Potuto will pick up on ideas from the conversations and include these in the process of designing SCHWIMM CITY.
At the end of each working day, TIGERS’ KITCHEN perform a slushy pop song in their snack bar that they have produced in the course of the day together with their customers. Open Mic for all fans of fries and pop!
Thursday, 6.6., open 12:00–18:00
The artists of the Austrian collective Conte Potuto will build and operate SCHWIMM CITY. They take care of the pool, distribute sun loungers and sun shades - an all-round service focussing on the guests' needs. If it was up to Conte Potuto, people should have the right to be idle in public!
TIGERS’ KITCHEN are the actor and chef Nadja Duesterberg and the musician and performer Svea Kischmeier. At SCHWIMM CITY they run a snack bar that is also a radio station. Radio Pommes broadcasts every day online from 14:00 to 18:00 h. At the end of each working day and broadcast, TIGERS’ KITCHEN perform a slushy pop song in their snack bar that they have produced in the course of the day together with their customers.
At the "Hellblaue Stunde", or twilight, the open-air pool provides an opportunity for speculation. Swimming pool and water sport experts are invited to come and talk, and to discuss what a pool for everyone might look like and what is needed to create a dream pool of the future.
These twilight talks willl be broadcast live online on Radio Pommes by TIGERS’ KITCHEN. The artists of Conte Potuto will pick up on ideas from the conversations and include these in the process of designing SCHWIMM CITY.
At the end of each working day, TIGERS’ KITCHEN perform a slushy pop song in their snack bar that they have produced in the course of the day together with their customers. Open Mic for all fans of fries and pop!
Friday, 7.6., open 12:00–22:00
The artists of the Austrian collective Conte Potuto will build and operate SCHWIMM CITY. They take care of the pool, distribute sun loungers and sun shades - an all-round service focussing on the guests' needs. If it was up to Conte Potuto, people should have the right to be idle in public!
TIGERS’ KITCHEN are the actor and chef Nadja Duesterberg and the musician and performer Svea Kischmeier. At SCHWIMM CITY they run a snack bar that is also a radio station. Radio Pommes broadcasts every day online from 14:00 to 18:00 h. At the end of each working day and broadcast, TIGERS’ KITCHEN perform a slushy pop song in their snack bar that they have produced in the course of the day together with their customers.
The volunteer-run International Women's Café has been open in Mülheim since 2020 with the support of PLANB Ruhr e.V. and funding from "KOMM-AN NRW". At SCHWIMM CITY the International Women's Café invites everyone, with or without a refugee background, to an open meeting and picnic. Whoever wishes can bring food and drink with them. However, guests without any provisions will also be warmly welcomed.
At the "Hellblaue Stunde", or twilight, the open-air pool provides an opportunity for speculation. Swimming pool and water sport experts are invited to come and talk, and to discuss what a pool for everyone might look like and what is needed to create a dream pool of the future.
These twilight talks willl be broadcast live online on Radio Pommes by TIGERS’ KITCHEN. The artists of Conte Potuto will pick up on ideas from the conversations and include these in the process of designing SCHWIMM CITY.
At the end of each working day, TIGERS’ KITCHEN perform a slushy pop song in their snack bar that they have produced in the course of the day together with their customers. Open Mic for all fans of fries and pop!
Concert and Dance Night for all swimming pool employees, sport swimmers and other keen dancers
Saturday, 8.6., open 12:00–18:00
The artists of the Austrian collective Conte Potuto will build and operate SCHWIMM CITY. They take care of the pool, distribute sun loungers and sun shades - an all-round service focussing on the guests' needs. If it was up to Conte Potuto, people should have the right to be idle in public!
TIGERS’ KITCHEN are the actor and chef Nadja Duesterberg and the musician and performer Svea Kischmeier. At SCHWIMM CITY they run a snack bar that is also a radio station. Radio Pommes broadcasts every day online from 14:00 to 18:00 h. At the end of each working day and broadcast, TIGERS’ KITCHEN perform a slushy pop song in their snack bar that they have produced in the course of the day together with their customers.
In addition to his artistic work as a performer, the Australian Damian Rebgetz is also a very good swimmer. In Germany he not only acts on numerous independent and city theatre stages, he has also spent a whole summer working as a lifeguard at a Berlin open-air pool. He has created a musical lecture-performance on the basis of his various working experiences. How do you become a lifeguard in Germany? What rules apply in swimming pools? What is a walk-through pool and how should it be filled? How can you best keep an eye on all the bathers, who is allowed to dive from the diving tower and what does this have to do with theatre? In Mülheim 'Guy Working at a Pool' will be seen in a version specially re-worked for SCHWIMM CITY.
Different body images and clichés come together in the outdoor pool. '4ever young' is a staged fashion show with various bathing and outdoor pool accessories from different decades. Summer pop songs from the 80s and 90s serve as the soundtrack. How do social norms and ideas influence our perception of our bodies? What has changed over the years? And where are we today?
At the "Hellblaue Stunde", or twilight, the open-air pool provides an opportunity for speculation. Swimming pool and water sport experts are invited to come and talk, and to discuss what a pool for everyone might look like and what is needed to create a dream pool of the future.
These twilight talks willl be broadcast live online on Radio Pommes by TIGERS’ KITCHEN. The artists of Conte Potuto will pick up on ideas from the conversations and include these in the process of designing SCHWIMM CITY.
Underwater rugby is a fascinating niche sport that was supposedly invented in Mülheim an der Ruhr. In Overwater Rugby: Club Darlington e.V., the dance company TachoTinta plays with underwater rugby players on dry land. To do this, the rules have to be changed and new groupings have to be formed – and sometimes the referee also has to be contradicted. Training turns into choreography and the contest turns into a dance.
In addition to his artistic work as a performer, the Australian Damian Rebgetz is also a very good swimmer. In Germany he not only acts on numerous independent and city theatre stages, he has also spent a whole summer working as a lifeguard at a Berlin open-air pool. He has created a musical lecture-performance on the basis of his various working experiences. How do you become a lifeguard in Germany? What rules apply in swimming pools? What is a walk-through pool and how should it be filled? How can you best keep an eye on all the bathers, who is allowed to dive from the diving tower and what does this have to do with theatre? In Mülheim 'Guy Working at a Pool' will be seen in a version specially re-worked for SCHWIMM CITY.
At the end of each working day, TIGERS’ KITCHEN perform a slushy pop song in their snack bar that they have produced in the course of the day together with their customers. Open Mic for all fans of fries and pop!
Sunday, 9.6., open 12:00–22:00
The artists of the Austrian collective Conte Potuto will build and operate SCHWIMM CITY. They take care of the pool, distribute sun loungers and sun shades - an all-round service focussing on the guests' needs. If it was up to Conte Potuto, people should have the right to be idle in public!
TIGERS’ KITCHEN are the actor and chef Nadja Duesterberg and the musician and performer Svea Kischmeier. At SCHWIMM CITY they run a snack bar that is also a radio station. Radio Pommes broadcasts every day online from 14:00 to 18:00 h. At the end of each working day and broadcast, TIGERS’ KITCHEN perform a slushy pop song in their snack bar that they have produced in the course of the day together with their customers.
In addition to his artistic work as a performer, the Australian Damian Rebgetz is also a very good swimmer. In Germany he not only acts on numerous independent and city theatre stages, he has also spent a whole summer working as a lifeguard at a Berlin open-air pool. He has created a musical lecture-performance on the basis of his various working experiences. How do you become a lifeguard in Germany? What rules apply in swimming pools? What is a walk-through pool and how should it be filled? How can you best keep an eye on all the bathers, who is allowed to dive from the diving tower and what does this have to do with theatre? In Mülheim 'Guy Working at a Pool' will be seen in a version specially re-worked for SCHWIMM CITY.
Different body images and clichés come together in the outdoor pool. '4ever young' is a staged fashion show with various bathing and outdoor pool accessories from different decades. Summer pop songs from the 80s and 90s serve as the soundtrack. How do social norms and ideas influence our perception of our bodies? What has changed over the years? And where are we today?
Underwater rugby is a fascinating niche sport that was supposedly invented in Mülheim an der Ruhr. In Overwater Rugby: Club Darlington e.V., the dance company TachoTinta plays with underwater rugby players on dry land. To do this, the rules have to be changed and new groupings have to be formed – and sometimes the referee also has to be contradicted. Training turns into choreography and the contest turns into a dance.
In addition to his artistic work as a performer, the Australian Damian Rebgetz is also a very good swimmer. In Germany he not only acts on numerous independent and city theatre stages, he has also spent a whole summer working as a lifeguard at a Berlin open-air pool. He has created a musical lecture-performance on the basis of his various working experiences. How do you become a lifeguard in Germany? What rules apply in swimming pools? What is a walk-through pool and how should it be filled? How can you best keep an eye on all the bathers, who is allowed to dive from the diving tower and what does this have to do with theatre? In Mülheim 'Guy Working at a Pool' will be seen in a version specially re-worked for SCHWIMM CITY.
Finally, there will be a foam party with DJ Lenz, songs by Damian Rebgetz and a pop parade by TIGERS' KITCHEN. The performance ‘4ever young’ by HARTMANNMUELLER will be shown again. Corks will pop, endings and new beginnings will be celebrated, and SCHWIMM CITY is transformed into the setting for a banging finale.
A tour of the Impulse ACADEMIES 2018–23
30.5.–1.6. at various locations in Düsseldorf and Cologne
Together with the network FESTIVALFRIENDS, Impulse looks back on the ACADEMIES that have taken place since 2018 and share the knowledge that has emerged from them. What has lasted? How have perspectives on the ACADEMIES’ various themes changed – including remote meetings and international co-productions, artistic methods, archiving practices and working conditions? ACADEMY leaders report on how they view their topic now and revisit formats that encouraged particularly intense exchanges between the participants and fostered collective learning.
ACADEMY #1: ‘MAKE FRIENDS – SHARE KNOWLEDGE’ is presented in co-operation with FESTIVALFRIENDS, an alliance of festivals of the independent performing arts in Germany, and the NRW Landesbüro Freie Darstellende Künste e. V. and the Bundesverband Freie Darstellende Künste e. V. FESTIVALFRIENDS is funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media through the programme ‘Verbindungen fördern’ run by the Bundesverbands Freie Darstellende Künste e. V.
Locations:
FFT Düsseldorf, Konrad-Adenauer-Platz 1, 40210 Düsseldorf
TMD Theatermuseum Hofgartenhaus Düsseldorf, Jägerhofstraße 1, 40479 Düsseldorf
Südstadion, Vorgebirgsstraße 76, 50969 Köln
Costs:
Day pass: 10 € (incl. lunch and shuttle to the SHOWCASE in Cologne)
3-day-ticket: 20 €
The tickets can be booked here on rausgegangen.de.
As part of the cooperation with FESTIVALFRIENDS, there is the possibility of limited travel expenses being covered if required and subject to availability. Applications must be submitted via e-mail to akademie[at]impulsefestival.de.
Location and Opening Hours:
30.5. and 1.6., 10:00–13:00: FFT Düsseldorf
31.5., 10:00–17:00: FFT Düsseldorf
1.6., 14:00–17:00: TMD Theatermuseum Hofgartenhaus Düsseldorf
Portable Archive is an attempt to transpose a theatre performance into an archive that can be reactivated by visitors. Using a range of "filtered" and newly materialised elements from the Futur3 production '1934 – Stimmen' (2020) the project seeks to reconstruct documents and fragments of this piece. The archive aims to immerse visitors in the structure of the theatre work, its questions, contexts and images. Observing the reciprocal effects between the archive and the theatre production is intended to facilitate a re-activation of constitutive elements of theatre-making. Visits to the archive are conducted in dialogue - ideally two at a time.
Thursday, 30.5.
Locations: FFT Düsseldorf and Südstadion, Cologne
Location: FFT Düsseldorf
Language: German
With the ACADEMY host Anne Schneider, the ACADEMY leaders and FESTIVALFRIENDS
Südstadion, Cologne
Language: German
Talk with Kolja Burgschuld and Anne Schneider
In the independent performing arts, collaboration with local communities, individual biographies and in public spaces intersect with international co-productions and touring performances. This talk looks back on the Impulse ACADEMY 2018, which explored the tensions between the local and the global from the perspectives of aesthetics, cultural politics and economics. In a series of excursions, the participants will investigate international trade, the culture industry and football.
Otmar Wagner: Fortuna. Sport Art Politics
In the popular sport of football, being able to play on a national or even international stage represents success and growth. At the same time the histories of many clubs remain rooted in local identities. 'Theatre has to be like Football' is the much-quoted title of a book about independent theatre that performance artist Otmar Wagner enjoys dissecting for a soundtrack he produced for Impulse 2018: with fan chants, original clips from local champions and 1001 cross references from his bookshelves. The visitors will also be able to explore the Südstadion and the checkered history of SC Fortuna Köln with Managing Director Niklas Müller: how can a local identity be successfully reconciled with international success – in football and in independent theatre? The curtain has to go up and the ball has to hit the back of the net!
Friday, 31.5.
Location: FFT Düsseldorf
Language: German
Talk and Workshop: Exercises in Social Intimacy – revisited
By and with: Sibylle Peters, Clara Vaughan, Ansuman Biswas, Phanuel Antwi
In 2021, in a three-day workshop 'Exercises in Social Intimacy', theatre practitioners, dancers, researchers and students from South Africa, Switzerland, Belarus, the United Kingdom and Germany met - both online and offline. After a year of the Covid pandemic, it was still almost impossible to make theatre. Because breathing the same air was too much of a risk. Gathering together in the theatre was too intimate. In the workshop the participants concentrated on this essential but often previously overlooked intimacy of the theatre and saw it as a strength. Despite conforming strictly to the rules of social distancing, they used the tools of performance art to make contact with each other. They persuaded strangers to hug each other through plastic film, stroked people with sticks 1.5 metres long and danced together on Zoom.
In this year's workshop the participants look back and ask: Are we doing theatre differently - now that we've got it back again? Are we still aware of how intimate it is to breathe the same air and to sit side by side with each other? Do we know we should value this intimacy? Has the time of distancing possibly brought us closer?
Location: FFT Düsseldorf
Language: German
Talk with Sandra Umathum and Anne Schneider
Artists in the independent theatre often find and generate their material in and with people from non-artistic contexts. Starting from this observation, the ACADEMY 2018 was based on the principle of the "uncertain encounter." At its heart lay the question of how meeting and working with people from non-artistic fields of life could unsettle established aesthetic approaches and inspire new ones. In 2024 this focus willl be expanded to include what was omitted then: to uncertain encounters between human and more-than-human entities.
Workshop: How to do things with slime
With Philomena Theuretzbacher, Doris Uhlich, Sandra Umathum
This workshop is about slime. Slime is a substance that causes ambivalent reactions. That is neither definitely solid nor liquid. That holds organisms together and creates connections. Inviting you to the workshop are: the dancer and choreographer Doris Uhlich, whose pieces 'Gootopia' and 'Gootopia – The Treatment' feature slime as a material and as a performer, the theatre scholar and dramaturg Sandra Umathum and the slime expert Philomena Theuretzbacher. Together with the participants they try out a range of ways of making contact with slime and explore its various different qualities.
Participants are recommended to bring clothing with them that can tolerate (washable) stains.
Saturday, 1.6.
Locations: FFT Düsseldorf and TMD Theatermuseum Hofgartenhaus Düsseldorf
Location: FFT Düsseldorf
Language: German
Talk with Jascha Sommer and Anne Schneider
In previous years Impulse ACADEMIES have repeatedly focussed on working conditions in the independent performing arts. And there have been some improvements: minimum fees have increased the income of many freelancers, it has become entirely natural to discuss and argue about working conditions, and associations and trade unions adopt a more confident approach to cultural politicians. However, the situation of many freelancers and full-time employees in the sector remains precarious – and even more tense in times when money is short and there is a need to balance the books. Urgently necessary budget increases have not happened or been cancelled, minimum fees and hourly rates are being undermined by undocumented overtime, and, for many workers, anything more than minimal provision for their old age is barely possible.
Work better!?
Working conditions in the independent performing arts
Lectures and table talks by and with Anica Happich, Christoph Rech and Katja Sonnemann
After associations, trade unions and research projects have primarily studied the situation of artists, 'Work better!?' expands its focus to look at the independent theatre system as a whole: what is the financial situation of the theatres and their workers? What do the latest developments in cultural policy mean for the numerous freelancers who are not artists, e.g.
Location: TMD Theatermuseum Hofgartenhaus Düsseldorf
Language: German
Talk with Daniel Richter and Anne Schneider
What might a future archive of the independent performing arts look like? And how might that archive be designed in order not only to conserve the past but also to make it present in sensual form? These are the questions that the Impulse Theater Festival asked in 2021. In an open laboratory process together with academics, performing and visual artists, we explored the future of the Impulse archive at the intersection of theatre, archiving and digital art. Time to take stock. Which different archiving strategies and methods came out of this? Which collection narratives have emerged? What willl the first steps for our own archive look like?
Our Way to the Archive
Archiving workshop with Barbara Jennerwein, Wilma Renfordt, Steffen Wedepohl (Digital Archive of the Independent Performing Arts)
Do you want to preserve your work and the stories and memories associated with it and allow others to see it? But you don't know how to do it, or even where to start? In this workshop the participants willl run through the first steps of archiving together. Everyone willl bring something along with them that they would like to archive: from their own artistic practice or that of others, or something that was part of a process; an object, a document or a data file. Together we will talk about these objects and what they mean and then start to record them in the Digital Archive of the Independent Performing Arts. For this, all participants will need to bring a laptop of their own.
What's missing? – And now?
with Sascha Förster (Director of TMD Theatermuseum Hofgartenhaus Düsseldorf) and Dominik Müller (Curator NRW Festival Archive)
The Impulse Archive forms an essential pillar in the NRW Festival Archive that is currently being set up at the TMD Theatermuseum Hofgartenhaus Düsseldorf. Together we will view materials from selected years of the festival. With you we willl try to pin down what happened and identify gaps where there nothing remains. Do you think certain objects are missing from the collections? Is there no room for your memories? Join us in creating a speculative archiving and documentation workshop: how can gaps be avoided in future? How can we develop documentary tools for curatorial processes that are not evidenced by objects alone? How can personal experience, including that of audiences, be preserved?
SPAfrica is the world’s first ever empathy drink: water from South Africa that can only be bought in exchange for a donation of tears. This product is the starting point for an unsparing performance about racism, colonialism and the cannibalisation of sorrow and trauma by the art market.
Language: English with German surtitles
30.5. after the performance: discussion in English with Ntando Cele and Julian Hetzel, chaired by: Wilma Renfordt
Tickets for all Impulse events are also available from our ticket shop.
As a Black actress in Europe, Ntando Cele has become an expert at creating empathy. Because the market demands stories about angry victims full of pain for the audience to be able to feel anything at all any more. Cele is capable of servicing this demand.
But what if empathy does nothing to change existing power relations, and indeed only reinforces them? The white audience sees itself confronted with a dilemma: does it want to empathise and pay for its colonial guilt with its tears? Or does it recognise that an art that reduces black performers to the role of victims deprives them of the opportunity of telling their own story in their own way?
Ntando Cele and Julian Hetzel have previously been invited to earlier Impulse festivals. ‘Enjoy Racism’ (with Ntando Cele in der the leading role, 2018) and ‘All Inclusive’ (Julian Hetzel, 2019) have generated controversial discussions around the complex of themes that they now tackle together in ‘SPAfrica’.
“‘SPAfrica’ succeeds in making complex, neocolonial power relations and our own entanglement within them tangible with painful and perceptive ambivalence.” Theresa Schütz, Theater der Zeit
Concept: Julian Hetzel and Ntando Cele
Direction: Julian Hetzel
Performance: Ntando Cele
Dramaturgy: Miguel A. Melgares
Artistic advisor: Sodja Lotker, Khanyisile Mbongwa
Music & composition: Frank Wienk
Light design: Nico de Rooij
Technical coordination: Vincent Beune, Aengus Havinga
Technicians: Tom Doeven, Simon Kelaita, Bea Verbeek, Wout Jansen
Technical solutions: Merijn Versnel, Guido Bevers
Production manager: Marieke van den Bosch
Production Cape Town: Lungile Mbongwa
Galerist Cape Town: Mpilo Ngcukana
Production assistant: Jana Riese
Assistant costume designer: Merel van Erpers Roijaards
Mask artist: Carly Heathcote
Make-up artist: Julia Markow
Prop maker: Saskia Hartog
Intern: Piet van Duijn Ferreira
Video documentation: Reynold Reynolds, Bongeka Ngcobo
Video performer: Revé Terborg
Photography: Alexandra Masmanidi, Anouk Maupu
Contact for touring enquiries: Studio Julian Hetzel, email hidden; JavaScript is required
Special thanks to the voluntears and the local hosts of the artist talk
A production by Studio Julian Hetzel in co-production with Schauspiel Leipzig, CAMPO, Ghent, Théâtre Vidy-Lausanne, SPRING Performing Arts Festival, Utrecht and auawirleben Theaterfestival Bern.
Ntando Cele was born in South Africa and is based in Bern, Switzerland. She studied acting in Durban and also attended DasArts in Amsterdam. Her work overturns the borders between physical theatre, video installation, concert and performance. She combines music, text and video to recreate her own identity on the stage. In 2023 she won the Swiss Performing Arts Award.
Julian Hetzel works as performance maker, musician and visual artist. He develops works along the intersection of theatre, music and media that have a political dimension and a documentary approach. He is Artistic Director of Studio Julian Hetzel, an Utrecht-based organisation that realises and produces his artistic work. Hetzel’s creations are produced internationally. His work has been presented in more than 20 countries all around the world. In 2017 Hetzel received the VSCD-Mimeprijs for ‘The Automated Sniper’ (by Frascati producties and Ism & Heit). In 2019 ‘All Inclusive’ (by CAMPO and Ism & heit) was part of the official selection of the Nederlands Theaterfestival. ‘SELF’ by Julian Hetzel was the national entry of the Netherlands at the Prague Quadrennial 2019. In August 2019 Hetzel presented three works at the Venice Biennale del Teatro. Julian Hetzel is Associate Artist at Kunstencentrum CAMPO Gent (Belgium). Studio Julian Hetzel has received structural funding from Fonds Podiumkunsten (FPK) and the City of Utrecht since 2021.
Vienna during the Second World War: the audience follows the fate of eight homosexuals who suffered repression and persecution under the Nazi regime. Moving breathlessly from one precisely-detailed room to the next, alternating between victims and perpetrators. However, no one can see all 160 of these nightmarish scenes: everyone has their own individual route.
Dates:
30.05., 19:00–22:00
31.05., 19:00–22:00
01.06., 19:00–22:00
04.06., 17:30–20:30
05.06., 17:30–20:30
06.06., 17:30–20:30
Venue: brut nordwest, Vienna (Austria)
Language: German
Tickets are available from brut wien.
The promenade starts at the heart of its setting: in the canteen of a porcelain factory. At night this turns into a secret shebeen, a safe place for homosexuals and trans people to meet. But the Nazis soon get wind of their activities …
From here the audience have to decide for themselves which of the two dozen characters they want to follow through the labyrinth of darkened rooms and when they want to swap to the next one. The audience enters a vortex of fiction and reality. This principle has made Nesterval stars of the Viennese theatre scene: they make theatre for people who think theatre is actually too boring. Immersive settings in disused buildings immediately involve the public and create experiences that are addictive. In their home city, Nesterval’s plays are sold out within minutes.
But the subject is serious: „Der Rosa Winkel – Die Geschichte der Namenlosen“, a revised version of DIE NAMENLOSEN, is both a memorial and a warning. Its historical narrative predetermines how the production will turn out: it begins sadly and rapidly becomes desperate. An evening of theatre that has after effects.
“The Viennese company Nesterval once again draws its audience into an unsettling story. They don’t just stare but share the thoughts, lives and emotions of the characters.” Margarete Affenzeller, Der Standard
Artistic Director, Direction: Martin Finnland
Book: Teresa Löfberg
Stage Design: Andrea Konrad
Costume Design: Dritan Kosovrasti
Choreography: Marcelo Doño
Dramaturgy: Tove Grün
Assistant Director: Laura Athanasiadis
Co-Authors: Martin Finnland, Gisa Fellerer, Lorenz Tröbinger
Co-Conceiver, Applications, Archive: Martin Walanka
Production: Emilie Kleinszig, Sabine Anders
Secondary Direction: Lorenz Tröbinger
Technical Director: Lukas “Lupo” Saller
Set Construction: Andreas Holzmann (Vienna Decoration Company), Walter Winkelmüller
Composition Songs and Score: Julian Muldoon
Song Lyrics: Sarah Muldoon
Sound Design: Alkis Vlassakakis
Assistant Play Development: Gisa Fellerer
Research Advisors: Andreas Brunner, Jürgen Pettinger
Magic Consultant: Raphael Macho
Design Team: Ruth Grau, Willy Mutzenpachner, Milo Marx, Lorenz Hötzeneder
Graphics: Rita Brandneulinger
Website: Gisa Fellerer
Communications: Christopher Wurmdobler
Photography: Alexandra Thompson
Trailer: Sabine Anders (Director), Lukas Grubba (Camera), Sabrina Winkler (Editor, Grading)
Co-operations: Lukas Kirisits
Bookkeeping, Office: Doris Panzer
Technicians: Plan B, Till Gatermann
Stage Management: Ela Lankes, Sabine Anders, Sebastian Kieberl
Bar: Luki Kirisits, Markus Gorfer
Contact for touring enquiries: Martin Finnland, email hidden; JavaScript is required
With: Christopher Wurmdobler, Martin Finnland, Gisa Fellerer, Chiara Seide, Stefan Pauser, Mio Riedl, Romy Hrubeš, Willy Mutzenpachner, Rita Brandneulinger, Johannes Scheutz, Sven Diestel, Gellert Gerson Butter, Martin Walanka, Laura Hermann, Aston Matters, Lorenz Tröbinger, Peter Kraus, Julia Fuchs, Alkis Vlassakakis, Hisham Morscher, Ela Lankes, Sabine Anders, Sebastian Kieberl, Denice Bourbon, Simon Stockinger, Anne Wieben, Norbert Fiedler, Alexandra Thompson, Bernhard Hablé, Eva Deutsch, Jürgen Pettinger, Luki Kirisits, Markus Gorfer
Special thanks to Peter Hörmanseder (sound recordings), Peter Holub, Johannes Felber and the Friends of Nesterval (especially Andrea and Valerie Lenk, Andreas Kauba, Clemens and Katharina Pallitsch, Edmund Weninger, Kaya Alina Knapp, Maria Sibilia, Markus Kellner, Martin Hinterndorfer, Michael Brandtner and Michael Marker) and also to Nikolaus Vogler (PKHV Attorneys at Law), René Lipkovich (Siart Lipkovich & Team) and Helmut Patterer (PRBS Patterer e.U.).
With generous support from the City of Vienna Department of Culture (MA7), the Austrian Federal Ministry for Arts, Culture, the Civil Service and Sport, the National Fund of the Republic of Austria and the Future Fund of the Republic of Austria as well as Vienna Decoration Company, Magenta, ZANTHO, Pedacola, Trumer Privatbrauerei, Vöslauer, Mietmöbel Föhr.
Nesterval sees itself as a queer folk theatre that translates, overwrites and deconstructs classics of literary and theatre history into the present. Each production is centred around a delight in play, the creation of a space for theatrical experiences and the inclusion of the audience in immersive theatre. Room for interactive manoeuvre is created through empathy, through surprising casting choices and also through conversations after the show. Nesterval consistently foregrounds a queer technique of self-empowerment, in which the pleasurable level of play always has a political dimension, raising and processing socio-political issues. The plays are always based on epoch-making experiences within the dynasty of the fictitious Nesterval family. All of the more than 25 productions so far been presented in Austria and internationally have been site-specific in nature and made reference to the cultural, social and historical background of each particular venue. The ensemble consists of around 20 performers, drag artists and actors who tell the history of the Nesterval family in a variety of combinations. Nesterval has already been nominated for Vienna’s Nestroy Theatre Prize on three occasions, most recently in 2023 for DIE NAMENLOSEN. Nesterval won a Nestroy Prize in 2020 for ‘Der Kreisky Test’. The Hamburg version of DIE NAMENLOSEN was shortlisted for the Nachtkritik Theatertreffen 2024.
Smiley is the first trans woman in India who has been able to get the name and gender in her passport changed. But she wanted more: a sense of belonging, justice and protection from hostility. In 2018 she fled the strengthening Hindu fascism for Switzerland. Personable, approachable and full of humour, she takes the audience along on her journey to freedom.
Language: German and English with German and English surtitles
Tickets for all Impulse events are also available from our ticket shop.
Smiley shares her story in order to give other people courage. She tells us how being an activist enabled her to open doors for her Indian trans sisters. How she begged in the streets to pay for her first gender reassignment operation. Towards the end, Smiley stands in the spotlight, wrapped in a golden gown. She spreads out her arms and imagines flying above the stage. The hungry caterpillar that she always talks of with a chuckle has turned into a butterfly. She has achieved a great deal of what she has fought for. But how will the butterfly pay its bills if it doesn’t always want to live off social security?
Smiley’s life story is full of highs and lows. In projections she shows photos of her new boyfriend in Switzerland, but also hate posts from people who threaten to rape and murder her because she has published a photo of herself in a bra. She tells of pain and shows her scars. And she makes the audience laugh over and over again.
Artistic Direction and Performance: Living Smile Vidya
Mentoring: Marcel Schwald
Video: Moritz Flachsmann
Costumes: Diana Ammann
Costumes Intern: Lucia Müller
Sound: Silvan Koch
Voice on Video: Suzí Feliz Das Neves
Subtitles: Anton Kuzema
Lighting, Technical Direction: Thomas Kohler
Artistic Support: Beatrice Fleischlin
Production: Das Theaterkolleg (Mirjam Berger, Christina Teuber, Patric Gehrig)
Contact for touring enquiries: Mirjam Berger, Das Theaterkolleg, email hidden; JavaScript is required
A co-production between Treibstoff Theatertage Basel, Tojo Theater, Bern and Südpol, Lucerne. Funded by City of Bern Culture, the Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia, the Albert Koechlin Stiftung, the Ruth und Paul Wallach-Stiftung and the Schweizerische Interpretenstiftung SIS.
Diana Ammann lives in Basel and works as a freelance costume designer. She studied Fashion Design at Basel Academy of Art and Design. She then spent two years working as a Costume Assistant at the Münchner Kammerspiele. She has worked as a self-employed costume designer for theatre and film since 2008. dianammann.blogspot.com
Moritz Flachsmann studied Animation at Lucerne University and works as a sound editor, editor, cameraman and animator. He produces installations, video productions, live visuals, events and concepts with his collective packungsbeilage. Flachsmann lives in Basel and works internationally. www.packungsbeilage.tv
In her performances Beatrice Fleischlin attempts to formulate an in-between existence: her stage figures oscillate between autobiography and fiction. She devises performance works in collaboration with a range of artists and works on projects by colleagues as a supportive accomplice. She has maintained a long-term collaboration with Anja Meser. In 2021 fleischlin/meser was presented with a swiss performing arts award by the Federal Ministry of Culture. www.produktionsdock.ch/en/artists/beatrice-fleischlin
Silvan Koch lives in Lucerne and works as a musician, composer and pianist in the independent theatre and film scene. He has composed the music for works including ‘Sex-Stück’ (Beatrice Fleischlin) and numerous films. www.silvankoch.ch
Living Smile Vidya was born in India and is an actress, hospital clown and author. She was the first trans woman in India to be legally allowed to change her name and gender. In 2014 she was awarded a scholarship to study at the International School of Performing Arts in London, after which she founded India’s first trans theatre collective Panmai Theatre in Chennai. Since 2018 Living Smile Vidya has lived in Eschenbach, having fled to Switzerland after attempts were made on her life in response to her political activities. https://youtu.be/8Mq3xy6w_V8 / https://vimeo.com/755149666
Marcel Schwald lives in Basel and works as a freelance theatre director, dramaturg and performer. His works have been presented at theatres and festivals in Switzerland and beyond. Since 2019 he has been a full-time member of the performance collective Reines Prochaines & Friends, which won the Basel Culture Prize for 2022. www.marcelschwald.com
Das Theaterkolleg is a Central Swiss production office for theatre, dance and performance based in Lucerne that was founded in 2022 by seven Lucerne independent collectives. Das Theaterkolleg is currently run by Mirjam Berger and Patric Gehrig.
Keshav Purushotham makes music like other people make cocktails after they’ve already drunk three of them: blurred krautpop, Bollywood and Morricone-esque film music, all measured by eye and shaken with abandon. In a DJ duo with Der Assistent he invites you to a phatasmorgiastic party full of transcultural clashes.
Entry is free of charge.
A tour of the Impulse ACADEMIES 2018–23
30.5.–1.6. at various locations in Düsseldorf and Cologne
Together with the network FESTIVALFRIENDS, Impulse looks back on the ACADEMIES that have taken place since 2018 and share the knowledge that has emerged from them. What has lasted? How have perspectives on the ACADEMIES’ various themes changed – including remote meetings and international co-productions, artistic methods, archiving practices and working conditions? ACADEMY leaders report on how they view their topic now and revisit formats that encouraged particularly intense exchanges between the participants and fostered collective learning.
ACADEMY #1: ‘MAKE FRIENDS – SHARE KNOWLEDGE’ is presented in co-operation with FESTIVALFRIENDS, an alliance of festivals of the independent performing arts in Germany, and the NRW Landesbüro Freie Darstellende Künste e. V. and the Bundesverband Freie Darstellende Künste e. V. FESTIVALFRIENDS is funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media through the programme ‘Verbindungen fördern’ run by the Bundesverbands Freie Darstellende Künste e. V.
Locations:
FFT Düsseldorf, Konrad-Adenauer-Platz 1, 40210 Düsseldorf
TMD Theatermuseum Hofgartenhaus Düsseldorf, Jägerhofstraße 1, 40479 Düsseldorf
Südstadion, Vorgebirgsstraße 76, 50969 Köln
Costs:
Day pass: 10 € (incl. lunch and shuttle to the SHOWCASE in Cologne)
3-day-ticket: 20 €
The tickets can be booked here on rausgegangen.de.
As part of the cooperation with FESTIVALFRIENDS, there is the possibility of limited travel expenses being covered if required and subject to availability. Applications must be submitted via e-mail to akademie[at]impulsefestival.de.
Location and Opening Hours:
30.5. and 1.6., 10:00–13:00: FFT Düsseldorf
31.5., 10:00–17:00: FFT Düsseldorf
1.6., 14:00–17:00: TMD Theatermuseum Hofgartenhaus Düsseldorf
Portable Archive is an attempt to transpose a theatre performance into an archive that can be reactivated by visitors. Using a range of "filtered" and newly materialised elements from the Futur3 production '1934 – Stimmen' (2020) the project seeks to reconstruct documents and fragments of this piece. The archive aims to immerse visitors in the structure of the theatre work, its questions, contexts and images. Observing the reciprocal effects between the archive and the theatre production is intended to facilitate a re-activation of constitutive elements of theatre-making. Visits to the archive are conducted in dialogue - ideally two at a time.
Thursday, 30.5.
Locations: FFT Düsseldorf and Südstadion, Cologne
Location: FFT Düsseldorf
Language: German
With the ACADEMY host Anne Schneider, the ACADEMY leaders and FESTIVALFRIENDS
Südstadion, Cologne
Language: German
Talk with Kolja Burgschuld and Anne Schneider
In the independent performing arts, collaboration with local communities, individual biographies and in public spaces intersect with international co-productions and touring performances. This talk looks back on the Impulse ACADEMY 2018, which explored the tensions between the local and the global from the perspectives of aesthetics, cultural politics and economics. In a series of excursions, the participants will investigate international trade, the culture industry and football.
Otmar Wagner: Fortuna. Sport Art Politics
In the popular sport of football, being able to play on a national or even international stage represents success and growth. At the same time the histories of many clubs remain rooted in local identities. 'Theatre has to be like Football' is the much-quoted title of a book about independent theatre that performance artist Otmar Wagner enjoys dissecting for a soundtrack he produced for Impulse 2018: with fan chants, original clips from local champions and 1001 cross references from his bookshelves. The visitors will also be able to explore the Südstadion and the checkered history of SC Fortuna Köln with Managing Director Niklas Müller: how can a local identity be successfully reconciled with international success – in football and in independent theatre? The curtain has to go up and the ball has to hit the back of the net!
Friday, 31.5.
Location: FFT Düsseldorf
Language: German
Talk and Workshop: Exercises in Social Intimacy – revisited
By and with: Sibylle Peters, Clara Vaughan, Ansuman Biswas, Phanuel Antwi
In 2021, in a three-day workshop 'Exercises in Social Intimacy', theatre practitioners, dancers, researchers and students from South Africa, Switzerland, Belarus, the United Kingdom and Germany met - both online and offline. After a year of the Covid pandemic, it was still almost impossible to make theatre. Because breathing the same air was too much of a risk. Gathering together in the theatre was too intimate. In the workshop the participants concentrated on this essential but often previously overlooked intimacy of the theatre and saw it as a strength. Despite conforming strictly to the rules of social distancing, they used the tools of performance art to make contact with each other. They persuaded strangers to hug each other through plastic film, stroked people with sticks 1.5 metres long and danced together on Zoom.
In this year's workshop the participants look back and ask: Are we doing theatre differently - now that we've got it back again? Are we still aware of how intimate it is to breathe the same air and to sit side by side with each other? Do we know we should value this intimacy? Has the time of distancing possibly brought us closer?
Location: FFT Düsseldorf
Language: German
Talk with Sandra Umathum and Anne Schneider
Artists in the independent theatre often find and generate their material in and with people from non-artistic contexts. Starting from this observation, the ACADEMY 2018 was based on the principle of the "uncertain encounter." At its heart lay the question of how meeting and working with people from non-artistic fields of life could unsettle established aesthetic approaches and inspire new ones. In 2024 this focus willl be expanded to include what was omitted then: to uncertain encounters between human and more-than-human entities.
Workshop: How to do things with slime
With Philomena Theuretzbacher, Doris Uhlich, Sandra Umathum
This workshop is about slime. Slime is a substance that causes ambivalent reactions. That is neither definitely solid nor liquid. That holds organisms together and creates connections. Inviting you to the workshop are: the dancer and choreographer Doris Uhlich, whose pieces 'Gootopia' and 'Gootopia – The Treatment' feature slime as a material and as a performer, the theatre scholar and dramaturg Sandra Umathum and the slime expert Philomena Theuretzbacher. Together with the participants they try out a range of ways of making contact with slime and explore its various different qualities.
Participants are recommended to bring clothing with them that can tolerate (washable) stains.
Saturday, 1.6.
Locations: FFT Düsseldorf and TMD Theatermuseum Hofgartenhaus Düsseldorf
Location: FFT Düsseldorf
Language: German
Talk with Jascha Sommer and Anne Schneider
In previous years Impulse ACADEMIES have repeatedly focussed on working conditions in the independent performing arts. And there have been some improvements: minimum fees have increased the income of many freelancers, it has become entirely natural to discuss and argue about working conditions, and associations and trade unions adopt a more confident approach to cultural politicians. However, the situation of many freelancers and full-time employees in the sector remains precarious – and even more tense in times when money is short and there is a need to balance the books. Urgently necessary budget increases have not happened or been cancelled, minimum fees and hourly rates are being undermined by undocumented overtime, and, for many workers, anything more than minimal provision for their old age is barely possible.
Work better!?
Working conditions in the independent performing arts
Lectures and table talks by and with Anica Happich, Christoph Rech and Katja Sonnemann
After associations, trade unions and research projects have primarily studied the situation of artists, 'Work better!?' expands its focus to look at the independent theatre system as a whole: what is the financial situation of the theatres and their workers? What do the latest developments in cultural policy mean for the numerous freelancers who are not artists, e.g.
Location: TMD Theatermuseum Hofgartenhaus Düsseldorf
Language: German
Talk with Daniel Richter and Anne Schneider
What might a future archive of the independent performing arts look like? And how might that archive be designed in order not only to conserve the past but also to make it present in sensual form? These are the questions that the Impulse Theater Festival asked in 2021. In an open laboratory process together with academics, performing and visual artists, we explored the future of the Impulse archive at the intersection of theatre, archiving and digital art. Time to take stock. Which different archiving strategies and methods came out of this? Which collection narratives have emerged? What willl the first steps for our own archive look like?
Our Way to the Archive
Archiving workshop with Barbara Jennerwein, Wilma Renfordt, Steffen Wedepohl (Digital Archive of the Independent Performing Arts)
Do you want to preserve your work and the stories and memories associated with it and allow others to see it? But you don't know how to do it, or even where to start? In this workshop the participants willl run through the first steps of archiving together. Everyone willl bring something along with them that they would like to archive: from their own artistic practice or that of others, or something that was part of a process; an object, a document or a data file. Together we will talk about these objects and what they mean and then start to record them in the Digital Archive of the Independent Performing Arts. For this, all participants will need to bring a laptop of their own.
What's missing? – And now?
with Sascha Förster (Director of TMD Theatermuseum Hofgartenhaus Düsseldorf) and Dominik Müller (Curator NRW Festival Archive)
The Impulse Archive forms an essential pillar in the NRW Festival Archive that is currently being set up at the TMD Theatermuseum Hofgartenhaus Düsseldorf. Together we will view materials from selected years of the festival. With you we willl try to pin down what happened and identify gaps where there nothing remains. Do you think certain objects are missing from the collections? Is there no room for your memories? Join us in creating a speculative archiving and documentation workshop: how can gaps be avoided in future? How can we develop documentary tools for curatorial processes that are not evidenced by objects alone? How can personal experience, including that of audiences, be preserved?
A tour of the Impulse ACADEMIES 2018–23
30.5.–1.6. at various locations in Düsseldorf and Cologne
Together with the network FESTIVALFRIENDS, Impulse looks back on the ACADEMIES that have taken place since 2018 and share the knowledge that has emerged from them. What has lasted? How have perspectives on the ACADEMIES’ various themes changed – including remote meetings and international co-productions, artistic methods, archiving practices and working conditions? ACADEMY leaders report on how they view their topic now and revisit formats that encouraged particularly intense exchanges between the participants and fostered collective learning.
ACADEMY #1: ‘MAKE FRIENDS – SHARE KNOWLEDGE’ is presented in co-operation with FESTIVALFRIENDS, an alliance of festivals of the independent performing arts in Germany, and the NRW Landesbüro Freie Darstellende Künste e. V. and the Bundesverband Freie Darstellende Künste e. V. FESTIVALFRIENDS is funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media through the programme ‘Verbindungen fördern’ run by the Bundesverbands Freie Darstellende Künste e. V.
Locations:
FFT Düsseldorf, Konrad-Adenauer-Platz 1, 40210 Düsseldorf
TMD Theatermuseum Hofgartenhaus Düsseldorf, Jägerhofstraße 1, 40479 Düsseldorf
Südstadion, Vorgebirgsstraße 76, 50969 Köln
Costs:
Day pass: 10 € (incl. lunch and shuttle to the SHOWCASE in Cologne)
3-day-ticket: 20 €
The tickets can be booked here on rausgegangen.de.
As part of the cooperation with FESTIVALFRIENDS, there is the possibility of limited travel expenses being covered if required and subject to availability. Applications must be submitted via e-mail to akademie[at]impulsefestival.de.
Location and Opening Hours:
30.5. and 1.6., 10:00–13:00: FFT Düsseldorf
31.5., 10:00–17:00: FFT Düsseldorf
1.6., 14:00–17:00: TMD Theatermuseum Hofgartenhaus Düsseldorf
Portable Archive is an attempt to transpose a theatre performance into an archive that can be reactivated by visitors. Using a range of "filtered" and newly materialised elements from the Futur3 production '1934 – Stimmen' (2020) the project seeks to reconstruct documents and fragments of this piece. The archive aims to immerse visitors in the structure of the theatre work, its questions, contexts and images. Observing the reciprocal effects between the archive and the theatre production is intended to facilitate a re-activation of constitutive elements of theatre-making. Visits to the archive are conducted in dialogue - ideally two at a time.
Thursday, 30.5.
Locations: FFT Düsseldorf and Südstadion, Cologne
Location: FFT Düsseldorf
Language: German
With the ACADEMY host Anne Schneider, the ACADEMY leaders and FESTIVALFRIENDS
Südstadion, Cologne
Language: German
Talk with Kolja Burgschuld and Anne Schneider
In the independent performing arts, collaboration with local communities, individual biographies and in public spaces intersect with international co-productions and touring performances. This talk looks back on the Impulse ACADEMY 2018, which explored the tensions between the local and the global from the perspectives of aesthetics, cultural politics and economics. In a series of excursions, the participants will investigate international trade, the culture industry and football.
Otmar Wagner: Fortuna. Sport Art Politics
In the popular sport of football, being able to play on a national or even international stage represents success and growth. At the same time the histories of many clubs remain rooted in local identities. 'Theatre has to be like Football' is the much-quoted title of a book about independent theatre that performance artist Otmar Wagner enjoys dissecting for a soundtrack he produced for Impulse 2018: with fan chants, original clips from local champions and 1001 cross references from his bookshelves. The visitors will also be able to explore the Südstadion and the checkered history of SC Fortuna Köln with Managing Director Niklas Müller: how can a local identity be successfully reconciled with international success – in football and in independent theatre? The curtain has to go up and the ball has to hit the back of the net!
Friday, 31.5.
Location: FFT Düsseldorf
Language: German
Talk and Workshop: Exercises in Social Intimacy – revisited
By and with: Sibylle Peters, Clara Vaughan, Ansuman Biswas, Phanuel Antwi
In 2021, in a three-day workshop 'Exercises in Social Intimacy', theatre practitioners, dancers, researchers and students from South Africa, Switzerland, Belarus, the United Kingdom and Germany met - both online and offline. After a year of the Covid pandemic, it was still almost impossible to make theatre. Because breathing the same air was too much of a risk. Gathering together in the theatre was too intimate. In the workshop the participants concentrated on this essential but often previously overlooked intimacy of the theatre and saw it as a strength. Despite conforming strictly to the rules of social distancing, they used the tools of performance art to make contact with each other. They persuaded strangers to hug each other through plastic film, stroked people with sticks 1.5 metres long and danced together on Zoom.
In this year's workshop the participants look back and ask: Are we doing theatre differently - now that we've got it back again? Are we still aware of how intimate it is to breathe the same air and to sit side by side with each other? Do we know we should value this intimacy? Has the time of distancing possibly brought us closer?
Location: FFT Düsseldorf
Language: German
Talk with Sandra Umathum and Anne Schneider
Artists in the independent theatre often find and generate their material in and with people from non-artistic contexts. Starting from this observation, the ACADEMY 2018 was based on the principle of the "uncertain encounter." At its heart lay the question of how meeting and working with people from non-artistic fields of life could unsettle established aesthetic approaches and inspire new ones. In 2024 this focus willl be expanded to include what was omitted then: to uncertain encounters between human and more-than-human entities.
Workshop: How to do things with slime
With Philomena Theuretzbacher, Doris Uhlich, Sandra Umathum
This workshop is about slime. Slime is a substance that causes ambivalent reactions. That is neither definitely solid nor liquid. That holds organisms together and creates connections. Inviting you to the workshop are: the dancer and choreographer Doris Uhlich, whose pieces 'Gootopia' and 'Gootopia – The Treatment' feature slime as a material and as a performer, the theatre scholar and dramaturg Sandra Umathum and the slime expert Philomena Theuretzbacher. Together with the participants they try out a range of ways of making contact with slime and explore its various different qualities.
Participants are recommended to bring clothing with them that can tolerate (washable) stains.
Saturday, 1.6.
Locations: FFT Düsseldorf and TMD Theatermuseum Hofgartenhaus Düsseldorf
Location: FFT Düsseldorf
Language: German
Talk with Jascha Sommer and Anne Schneider
In previous years Impulse ACADEMIES have repeatedly focussed on working conditions in the independent performing arts. And there have been some improvements: minimum fees have increased the income of many freelancers, it has become entirely natural to discuss and argue about working conditions, and associations and trade unions adopt a more confident approach to cultural politicians. However, the situation of many freelancers and full-time employees in the sector remains precarious – and even more tense in times when money is short and there is a need to balance the books. Urgently necessary budget increases have not happened or been cancelled, minimum fees and hourly rates are being undermined by undocumented overtime, and, for many workers, anything more than minimal provision for their old age is barely possible.
Work better!?
Working conditions in the independent performing arts
Lectures and table talks by and with Anica Happich, Christoph Rech and Katja Sonnemann
After associations, trade unions and research projects have primarily studied the situation of artists, 'Work better!?' expands its focus to look at the independent theatre system as a whole: what is the financial situation of the theatres and their workers? What do the latest developments in cultural policy mean for the numerous freelancers who are not artists, e.g.
Location: TMD Theatermuseum Hofgartenhaus Düsseldorf
Language: German
Talk with Daniel Richter and Anne Schneider
What might a future archive of the independent performing arts look like? And how might that archive be designed in order not only to conserve the past but also to make it present in sensual form? These are the questions that the Impulse Theater Festival asked in 2021. In an open laboratory process together with academics, performing and visual artists, we explored the future of the Impulse archive at the intersection of theatre, archiving and digital art. Time to take stock. Which different archiving strategies and methods came out of this? Which collection narratives have emerged? What willl the first steps for our own archive look like?
Our Way to the Archive
Archiving workshop with Barbara Jennerwein, Wilma Renfordt, Steffen Wedepohl (Digital Archive of the Independent Performing Arts)
Do you want to preserve your work and the stories and memories associated with it and allow others to see it? But you don't know how to do it, or even where to start? In this workshop the participants willl run through the first steps of archiving together. Everyone willl bring something along with them that they would like to archive: from their own artistic practice or that of others, or something that was part of a process; an object, a document or a data file. Together we will talk about these objects and what they mean and then start to record them in the Digital Archive of the Independent Performing Arts. For this, all participants will need to bring a laptop of their own.
What's missing? – And now?
with Sascha Förster (Director of TMD Theatermuseum Hofgartenhaus Düsseldorf) and Dominik Müller (Curator NRW Festival Archive)
The Impulse Archive forms an essential pillar in the NRW Festival Archive that is currently being set up at the TMD Theatermuseum Hofgartenhaus Düsseldorf. Together we will view materials from selected years of the festival. With you we willl try to pin down what happened and identify gaps where there nothing remains. Do you think certain objects are missing from the collections? Is there no room for your memories? Join us in creating a speculative archiving and documentation workshop: how can gaps be avoided in future? How can we develop documentary tools for curatorial processes that are not evidenced by objects alone? How can personal experience, including that of audiences, be preserved?
A tour of the Impulse ACADEMIES 2018–23
30.5.–1.6. at various locations in Düsseldorf and Cologne
Together with the network FESTIVALFRIENDS, Impulse looks back on the ACADEMIES that have taken place since 2018 and share the knowledge that has emerged from them. What has lasted? How have perspectives on the ACADEMIES’ various themes changed – including remote meetings and international co-productions, artistic methods, archiving practices and working conditions? ACADEMY leaders report on how they view their topic now and revisit formats that encouraged particularly intense exchanges between the participants and fostered collective learning.
ACADEMY #1: ‘MAKE FRIENDS – SHARE KNOWLEDGE’ is presented in co-operation with FESTIVALFRIENDS, an alliance of festivals of the independent performing arts in Germany, and the NRW Landesbüro Freie Darstellende Künste e. V. and the Bundesverband Freie Darstellende Künste e. V. FESTIVALFRIENDS is funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media through the programme ‘Verbindungen fördern’ run by the Bundesverbands Freie Darstellende Künste e. V.
Locations:
FFT Düsseldorf, Konrad-Adenauer-Platz 1, 40210 Düsseldorf
TMD Theatermuseum Hofgartenhaus Düsseldorf, Jägerhofstraße 1, 40479 Düsseldorf
Südstadion, Vorgebirgsstraße 76, 50969 Köln
Costs:
Day pass: 10 € (incl. lunch and shuttle to the SHOWCASE in Cologne)
3-day-ticket: 20 €
The tickets can be booked here on rausgegangen.de.
As part of the cooperation with FESTIVALFRIENDS, there is the possibility of limited travel expenses being covered if required and subject to availability. Applications must be submitted via e-mail to akademie[at]impulsefestival.de.
Location and Opening Hours:
30.5. and 1.6., 10:00–13:00: FFT Düsseldorf
31.5., 10:00–17:00: FFT Düsseldorf
1.6., 14:00–17:00: TMD Theatermuseum Hofgartenhaus Düsseldorf
Portable Archive is an attempt to transpose a theatre performance into an archive that can be reactivated by visitors. Using a range of "filtered" and newly materialised elements from the Futur3 production '1934 – Stimmen' (2020) the project seeks to reconstruct documents and fragments of this piece. The archive aims to immerse visitors in the structure of the theatre work, its questions, contexts and images. Observing the reciprocal effects between the archive and the theatre production is intended to facilitate a re-activation of constitutive elements of theatre-making. Visits to the archive are conducted in dialogue - ideally two at a time.
Thursday, 30.5.
Locations: FFT Düsseldorf and Südstadion, Cologne
Location: FFT Düsseldorf
Language: German
With the ACADEMY host Anne Schneider, the ACADEMY leaders and FESTIVALFRIENDS
Südstadion, Cologne
Language: German
Talk with Kolja Burgschuld and Anne Schneider
In the independent performing arts, collaboration with local communities, individual biographies and in public spaces intersect with international co-productions and touring performances. This talk looks back on the Impulse ACADEMY 2018, which explored the tensions between the local and the global from the perspectives of aesthetics, cultural politics and economics. In a series of excursions, the participants will investigate international trade, the culture industry and football.
Otmar Wagner: Fortuna. Sport Art Politics
In the popular sport of football, being able to play on a national or even international stage represents success and growth. At the same time the histories of many clubs remain rooted in local identities. 'Theatre has to be like Football' is the much-quoted title of a book about independent theatre that performance artist Otmar Wagner enjoys dissecting for a soundtrack he produced for Impulse 2018: with fan chants, original clips from local champions and 1001 cross references from his bookshelves. The visitors will also be able to explore the Südstadion and the checkered history of SC Fortuna Köln with Managing Director Niklas Müller: how can a local identity be successfully reconciled with international success – in football and in independent theatre? The curtain has to go up and the ball has to hit the back of the net!
Friday, 31.5.
Location: FFT Düsseldorf
Language: German
Talk and Workshop: Exercises in Social Intimacy – revisited
By and with: Sibylle Peters, Clara Vaughan, Ansuman Biswas, Phanuel Antwi
In 2021, in a three-day workshop 'Exercises in Social Intimacy', theatre practitioners, dancers, researchers and students from South Africa, Switzerland, Belarus, the United Kingdom and Germany met - both online and offline. After a year of the Covid pandemic, it was still almost impossible to make theatre. Because breathing the same air was too much of a risk. Gathering together in the theatre was too intimate. In the workshop the participants concentrated on this essential but often previously overlooked intimacy of the theatre and saw it as a strength. Despite conforming strictly to the rules of social distancing, they used the tools of performance art to make contact with each other. They persuaded strangers to hug each other through plastic film, stroked people with sticks 1.5 metres long and danced together on Zoom.
In this year's workshop the participants look back and ask: Are we doing theatre differently - now that we've got it back again? Are we still aware of how intimate it is to breathe the same air and to sit side by side with each other? Do we know we should value this intimacy? Has the time of distancing possibly brought us closer?
Location: FFT Düsseldorf
Language: German
Talk with Sandra Umathum and Anne Schneider
Artists in the independent theatre often find and generate their material in and with people from non-artistic contexts. Starting from this observation, the ACADEMY 2018 was based on the principle of the "uncertain encounter." At its heart lay the question of how meeting and working with people from non-artistic fields of life could unsettle established aesthetic approaches and inspire new ones. In 2024 this focus willl be expanded to include what was omitted then: to uncertain encounters between human and more-than-human entities.
Workshop: How to do things with slime
With Philomena Theuretzbacher, Doris Uhlich, Sandra Umathum
This workshop is about slime. Slime is a substance that causes ambivalent reactions. That is neither definitely solid nor liquid. That holds organisms together and creates connections. Inviting you to the workshop are: the dancer and choreographer Doris Uhlich, whose pieces 'Gootopia' and 'Gootopia – The Treatment' feature slime as a material and as a performer, the theatre scholar and dramaturg Sandra Umathum and the slime expert Philomena Theuretzbacher. Together with the participants they try out a range of ways of making contact with slime and explore its various different qualities.
Participants are recommended to bring clothing with them that can tolerate (washable) stains.
Saturday, 1.6.
Locations: FFT Düsseldorf and TMD Theatermuseum Hofgartenhaus Düsseldorf
Location: FFT Düsseldorf
Language: German
Talk with Jascha Sommer and Anne Schneider
In previous years Impulse ACADEMIES have repeatedly focussed on working conditions in the independent performing arts. And there have been some improvements: minimum fees have increased the income of many freelancers, it has become entirely natural to discuss and argue about working conditions, and associations and trade unions adopt a more confident approach to cultural politicians. However, the situation of many freelancers and full-time employees in the sector remains precarious – and even more tense in times when money is short and there is a need to balance the books. Urgently necessary budget increases have not happened or been cancelled, minimum fees and hourly rates are being undermined by undocumented overtime, and, for many workers, anything more than minimal provision for their old age is barely possible.
Work better!?
Working conditions in the independent performing arts
Lectures and table talks by and with Anica Happich, Christoph Rech and Katja Sonnemann
After associations, trade unions and research projects have primarily studied the situation of artists, 'Work better!?' expands its focus to look at the independent theatre system as a whole: what is the financial situation of the theatres and their workers? What do the latest developments in cultural policy mean for the numerous freelancers who are not artists, e.g.
Location: TMD Theatermuseum Hofgartenhaus Düsseldorf
Language: German
Talk with Daniel Richter and Anne Schneider
What might a future archive of the independent performing arts look like? And how might that archive be designed in order not only to conserve the past but also to make it present in sensual form? These are the questions that the Impulse Theater Festival asked in 2021. In an open laboratory process together with academics, performing and visual artists, we explored the future of the Impulse archive at the intersection of theatre, archiving and digital art. Time to take stock. Which different archiving strategies and methods came out of this? Which collection narratives have emerged? What willl the first steps for our own archive look like?
Our Way to the Archive
Archiving workshop with Barbara Jennerwein, Wilma Renfordt, Steffen Wedepohl (Digital Archive of the Independent Performing Arts)
Do you want to preserve your work and the stories and memories associated with it and allow others to see it? But you don't know how to do it, or even where to start? In this workshop the participants willl run through the first steps of archiving together. Everyone willl bring something along with them that they would like to archive: from their own artistic practice or that of others, or something that was part of a process; an object, a document or a data file. Together we will talk about these objects and what they mean and then start to record them in the Digital Archive of the Independent Performing Arts. For this, all participants will need to bring a laptop of their own.
What's missing? – And now?
with Sascha Förster (Director of TMD Theatermuseum Hofgartenhaus Düsseldorf) and Dominik Müller (Curator NRW Festival Archive)
The Impulse Archive forms an essential pillar in the NRW Festival Archive that is currently being set up at the TMD Theatermuseum Hofgartenhaus Düsseldorf. Together we will view materials from selected years of the festival. With you we willl try to pin down what happened and identify gaps where there nothing remains. Do you think certain objects are missing from the collections? Is there no room for your memories? Join us in creating a speculative archiving and documentation workshop: how can gaps be avoided in future? How can we develop documentary tools for curatorial processes that are not evidenced by objects alone? How can personal experience, including that of audiences, be preserved?
A tour of the Impulse ACADEMIES 2018–23
30.5.–1.6. at various locations in Düsseldorf and Cologne
Together with the network FESTIVALFRIENDS, Impulse looks back on the ACADEMIES that have taken place since 2018 and share the knowledge that has emerged from them. What has lasted? How have perspectives on the ACADEMIES’ various themes changed – including remote meetings and international co-productions, artistic methods, archiving practices and working conditions? ACADEMY leaders report on how they view their topic now and revisit formats that encouraged particularly intense exchanges between the participants and fostered collective learning.
ACADEMY #1: ‘MAKE FRIENDS – SHARE KNOWLEDGE’ is presented in co-operation with FESTIVALFRIENDS, an alliance of festivals of the independent performing arts in Germany, and the NRW Landesbüro Freie Darstellende Künste e. V. and the Bundesverband Freie Darstellende Künste e. V. FESTIVALFRIENDS is funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media through the programme ‘Verbindungen fördern’ run by the Bundesverbands Freie Darstellende Künste e. V.
Locations:
FFT Düsseldorf, Konrad-Adenauer-Platz 1, 40210 Düsseldorf
TMD Theatermuseum Hofgartenhaus Düsseldorf, Jägerhofstraße 1, 40479 Düsseldorf
Südstadion, Vorgebirgsstraße 76, 50969 Köln
Costs:
Day pass: 10 € (incl. lunch and shuttle to the SHOWCASE in Cologne)
3-day-ticket: 20 €
The tickets can be booked here on rausgegangen.de.
As part of the cooperation with FESTIVALFRIENDS, there is the possibility of limited travel expenses being covered if required and subject to availability. Applications must be submitted via e-mail to akademie[at]impulsefestival.de.
Location and Opening Hours:
30.5. and 1.6., 10:00–13:00: FFT Düsseldorf
31.5., 10:00–17:00: FFT Düsseldorf
1.6., 14:00–17:00: TMD Theatermuseum Hofgartenhaus Düsseldorf
Portable Archive is an attempt to transpose a theatre performance into an archive that can be reactivated by visitors. Using a range of "filtered" and newly materialised elements from the Futur3 production '1934 – Stimmen' (2020) the project seeks to reconstruct documents and fragments of this piece. The archive aims to immerse visitors in the structure of the theatre work, its questions, contexts and images. Observing the reciprocal effects between the archive and the theatre production is intended to facilitate a re-activation of constitutive elements of theatre-making. Visits to the archive are conducted in dialogue - ideally two at a time.
Thursday, 30.5.
Locations: FFT Düsseldorf and Südstadion, Cologne
Location: FFT Düsseldorf
Language: German
With the ACADEMY host Anne Schneider, the ACADEMY leaders and FESTIVALFRIENDS
Südstadion, Cologne
Language: German
Talk with Kolja Burgschuld and Anne Schneider
In the independent performing arts, collaboration with local communities, individual biographies and in public spaces intersect with international co-productions and touring performances. This talk looks back on the Impulse ACADEMY 2018, which explored the tensions between the local and the global from the perspectives of aesthetics, cultural politics and economics. In a series of excursions, the participants will investigate international trade, the culture industry and football.
Otmar Wagner: Fortuna. Sport Art Politics
In the popular sport of football, being able to play on a national or even international stage represents success and growth. At the same time the histories of many clubs remain rooted in local identities. 'Theatre has to be like Football' is the much-quoted title of a book about independent theatre that performance artist Otmar Wagner enjoys dissecting for a soundtrack he produced for Impulse 2018: with fan chants, original clips from local champions and 1001 cross references from his bookshelves. The visitors will also be able to explore the Südstadion and the checkered history of SC Fortuna Köln with Managing Director Niklas Müller: how can a local identity be successfully reconciled with international success – in football and in independent theatre? The curtain has to go up and the ball has to hit the back of the net!
Friday, 31.5.
Location: FFT Düsseldorf
Language: German
Talk and Workshop: Exercises in Social Intimacy – revisited
By and with: Sibylle Peters, Clara Vaughan, Ansuman Biswas, Phanuel Antwi
In 2021, in a three-day workshop 'Exercises in Social Intimacy', theatre practitioners, dancers, researchers and students from South Africa, Switzerland, Belarus, the United Kingdom and Germany met - both online and offline. After a year of the Covid pandemic, it was still almost impossible to make theatre. Because breathing the same air was too much of a risk. Gathering together in the theatre was too intimate. In the workshop the participants concentrated on this essential but often previously overlooked intimacy of the theatre and saw it as a strength. Despite conforming strictly to the rules of social distancing, they used the tools of performance art to make contact with each other. They persuaded strangers to hug each other through plastic film, stroked people with sticks 1.5 metres long and danced together on Zoom.
In this year's workshop the participants look back and ask: Are we doing theatre differently - now that we've got it back again? Are we still aware of how intimate it is to breathe the same air and to sit side by side with each other? Do we know we should value this intimacy? Has the time of distancing possibly brought us closer?
Location: FFT Düsseldorf
Language: German
Talk with Sandra Umathum and Anne Schneider
Artists in the independent theatre often find and generate their material in and with people from non-artistic contexts. Starting from this observation, the ACADEMY 2018 was based on the principle of the "uncertain encounter." At its heart lay the question of how meeting and working with people from non-artistic fields of life could unsettle established aesthetic approaches and inspire new ones. In 2024 this focus willl be expanded to include what was omitted then: to uncertain encounters between human and more-than-human entities.
Workshop: How to do things with slime
With Philomena Theuretzbacher, Doris Uhlich, Sandra Umathum
This workshop is about slime. Slime is a substance that causes ambivalent reactions. That is neither definitely solid nor liquid. That holds organisms together and creates connections. Inviting you to the workshop are: the dancer and choreographer Doris Uhlich, whose pieces 'Gootopia' and 'Gootopia – The Treatment' feature slime as a material and as a performer, the theatre scholar and dramaturg Sandra Umathum and the slime expert Philomena Theuretzbacher. Together with the participants they try out a range of ways of making contact with slime and explore its various different qualities.
Participants are recommended to bring clothing with them that can tolerate (washable) stains.
Saturday, 1.6.
Locations: FFT Düsseldorf and TMD Theatermuseum Hofgartenhaus Düsseldorf
Location: FFT Düsseldorf
Language: German
Talk with Jascha Sommer and Anne Schneider
In previous years Impulse ACADEMIES have repeatedly focussed on working conditions in the independent performing arts. And there have been some improvements: minimum fees have increased the income of many freelancers, it has become entirely natural to discuss and argue about working conditions, and associations and trade unions adopt a more confident approach to cultural politicians. However, the situation of many freelancers and full-time employees in the sector remains precarious – and even more tense in times when money is short and there is a need to balance the books. Urgently necessary budget increases have not happened or been cancelled, minimum fees and hourly rates are being undermined by undocumented overtime, and, for many workers, anything more than minimal provision for their old age is barely possible.
Work better!?
Working conditions in the independent performing arts
Lectures and table talks by and with Anica Happich, Christoph Rech and Katja Sonnemann
After associations, trade unions and research projects have primarily studied the situation of artists, 'Work better!?' expands its focus to look at the independent theatre system as a whole: what is the financial situation of the theatres and their workers? What do the latest developments in cultural policy mean for the numerous freelancers who are not artists, e.g.
Location: TMD Theatermuseum Hofgartenhaus Düsseldorf
Language: German
Talk with Daniel Richter and Anne Schneider
What might a future archive of the independent performing arts look like? And how might that archive be designed in order not only to conserve the past but also to make it present in sensual form? These are the questions that the Impulse Theater Festival asked in 2021. In an open laboratory process together with academics, performing and visual artists, we explored the future of the Impulse archive at the intersection of theatre, archiving and digital art. Time to take stock. Which different archiving strategies and methods came out of this? Which collection narratives have emerged? What willl the first steps for our own archive look like?
Our Way to the Archive
Archiving workshop with Barbara Jennerwein, Wilma Renfordt, Steffen Wedepohl (Digital Archive of the Independent Performing Arts)
Do you want to preserve your work and the stories and memories associated with it and allow others to see it? But you don't know how to do it, or even where to start? In this workshop the participants willl run through the first steps of archiving together. Everyone willl bring something along with them that they would like to archive: from their own artistic practice or that of others, or something that was part of a process; an object, a document or a data file. Together we will talk about these objects and what they mean and then start to record them in the Digital Archive of the Independent Performing Arts. For this, all participants will need to bring a laptop of their own.
What's missing? – And now?
with Sascha Förster (Director of TMD Theatermuseum Hofgartenhaus Düsseldorf) and Dominik Müller (Curator NRW Festival Archive)
The Impulse Archive forms an essential pillar in the NRW Festival Archive that is currently being set up at the TMD Theatermuseum Hofgartenhaus Düsseldorf. Together we will view materials from selected years of the festival. With you we willl try to pin down what happened and identify gaps where there nothing remains. Do you think certain objects are missing from the collections? Is there no room for your memories? Join us in creating a speculative archiving and documentation workshop: how can gaps be avoided in future? How can we develop documentary tools for curatorial processes that are not evidenced by objects alone? How can personal experience, including that of audiences, be preserved?
For decades now, public swimming pools in Mülheim an der Ruhr have been killed off through lack of funding or abandoned. 2024 was even in danger of becoming a summer without a single open-air pool. At the same time the market in private pools is booming: those who can afford it are seeking comfort and security in their own gardens.
As a counter proposal to this privatisation of leisure time, the Impulse Theater Festival in association with artists and Ringlokschuppen Ruhr will open a summer pool for eleven days in the MüGa-Park. The group Conte Potuto will construct a pool of dreams: with almost no water, but filled with the visitors’ wishes and ideas. TachoTinta play on dry land with an underwater rugby team, and the Tigers’ Kitchen not only produces fries but also slushy pop songs.
Together with local initiatives and sports clubs, the artists present actions and conversations exploring issues around open-air swimming pools: who is allowed in, who has to stay outside? What sort of encounters are possible here? And which social conflicts can be seen at public pools? SCHWIMM CITY looks the increasing polarisation of society squarely in the eye and counters it with shared pleasure. Because one thing is certain: everyone can agree on the swimming pool snack: fries. They’re vegan, halal, kosher, gluten- and lactose-free.
Entry is free of charge, no registration required.
If you like, bring swimwear and a towel. But all other outfits are just as welcome!
As part of the 'ExtraSchicht' (1.6.) free admission only with registration by 31.5. at stadtprojekt[at]impulsefestival.de.
Thursday, 30.5., open 12:00–20:00
The artists of the Austrian collective Conte Potuto will build and operate SCHWIMM CITY. They take care of the pool, distribute sun loungers and sun shades - an all-round service focussing on the guests' needs. If it was up to Conte Potuto, people should have the right to be idle in public!
TIGERS’ KITCHEN are the actor and chef Nadja Duesterberg and the musician and performer Svea Kischmeier. At SCHWIMM CITY they run a snack bar that is also a radio station. Radio Pommes broadcasts every day online from 14:00 to 18:00 h. At the end of each working day and broadcast, TIGERS’ KITCHEN perform a slushy pop song in their snack bar that they have produced in the course of the day together with their customers.
An act of celebration with fries and ice lollies!
At the "Hellblaue Stunde", or twilight, the open-air pool provides an opportunity for speculation. Swimming pool and water sport experts are invited to come and talk, and to discuss what a pool for everyone might look like and what is needed to create a dream pool of the future.
These twilight talks willl be broadcast live online on Radio Pommes by TIGERS’ KITCHEN. The artists of Conte Potuto will pick up on ideas from the conversations and include these in the process of designing SCHWIMM CITY.
Different body images and clichés come together in the outdoor pool. '4ever young' is a staged fashion show with various bathing and outdoor pool accessories from different decades. Summer pop songs from the 80s and 90s serve as the soundtrack. How do social norms and ideas influence our perception of our bodies? What has changed over the years? And where are we today?
Underwater rugby is a fascinating niche sport that was supposedly invented in Mülheim an der Ruhr. In Overwater Rugby: Club Darlington e.V., the dance company TachoTinta plays with underwater rugby players on dry land. To do this, the rules have to be changed and new groupings have to be formed – and sometimes the referee also has to be contradicted. Training turns into choreography and the contest turns into a dance.
At the end of each working day, TIGERS’ KITCHEN perform a slushy pop song in their snack bar that they have produced in the course of the day together with their customers. Open Mic for all fans of fries and pop
On the opening day of SCHWIMM CITY, Conte Potuto invite you to a concert. The Viennese band AUTOR combines tried-and-trusted punk influences with catchy melodies and cryptic lyrics. Their music combines the rawness of the DIY music scene with nonchalance and plays with the grey areas in between poetry and punk.
Friday, 31.5., open 12:00–18:00
The artists of the Austrian collective Conte Potuto will build and operate SCHWIMM CITY. They take care of the pool, distribute sun loungers and sun shades - an all-round service focussing on the guests' needs. If it was up to Conte Potuto, people should have the right to be idle in public!
TIGERS’ KITCHEN are the actor and chef Nadja Duesterberg and the musician and performer Svea Kischmeier. At SCHWIMM CITY they run a snack bar that is also a radio station. Radio Pommes broadcasts every day online from 14:00 to 18:00 h. At the end of each working day and broadcast, TIGERS’ KITCHEN perform a slushy pop song in their snack bar that they have produced in the course of the day together with their customers.
At the "Hellblaue Stunde", or twilight, the open-air pool provides an opportunity for speculation. Swimming pool and water sport experts are invited to come and talk, and to discuss what a pool for everyone might look like and what is needed to create a dream pool of the future.
These twilight talks willl be broadcast live online on Radio Pommes by TIGERS’ KITCHEN. The artists of Conte Potuto will pick up on ideas from the conversations and include these in the process of designing SCHWIMM CITY.
Different body images and clichés come together in the outdoor pool. '4ever young' is a staged fashion show with various bathing and outdoor pool accessories from different decades. Summer pop songs from the 80s and 90s serve as the soundtrack. How do social norms and ideas influence our perception of our bodies? What has changed over the years? And where are we today?
At the end of each working day, TIGERS’ KITCHEN perform a slushy pop song in their snack bar that they have produced in the course of the day together with their customers. Open Mic for all fans of fries and pop
Saturday, 1.6., 18:00–23:00
SCHWIMM CITY opens as part of 'ExtraSchicht – Die Nacht der Industriekultur'
The 'ExtraSchicht – Night of Industrial Culture' has been staging former industrial plants, museums and historical monuments in the Ruhr region since 2001. Traditionally, the Ringlokschuppen Ruhr is also part of the programme. The programme includes a long night in the SCHWIMM CITY with theatre, comedy, concerts and DJs from 'ExtraSchicht'.
Free admission to SCHWIMM CITY on this day only with registration by 31 May at email hidden; JavaScript is required.
Paid tickets for the entire 'ExtraSchicht' programme with all venues at extraschicht.de.
The artists of the Austrian collective Conte Potuto will build and operate SCHWIMM CITY. They take care of the pool, distribute sun loungers and sun shades - an all-round service focussing on the guests' needs. If it was up to Conte Potuto, people should have the right to be idle in public! TIGERS’ KITCHEN are the actor and chef Nadja Duesterberg and the musician and performer Svea Kischmeier. At SCHWIMM CITY they run a snack bar that is also a radio station.
Different body images and clichés come together in the outdoor pool. '4ever young' is a staged fashion show with various bathing and outdoor pool accessories from different decades. Summer pop songs from the 80s and 90s serve as the soundtrack. How do social norms and ideas influence our perception of our bodies? What has changed over the years? And where are we today?
Underwater rugby is a fascinating niche sport that was supposedly invented in Mülheim an der Ruhr. In Overwater Rugby: Club Darlington e.V., the dance company TachoTinta plays with underwater rugby players on dry land. To do this, the rules have to be changed and new groupings have to be formed - and sometimes the referee also has to be contradicted. Training turns into choreography and the contest turns into a dance.
Sunday, 2.6., open 12:00–18:00 geöffnet
Family Sunday in co-operation with 'Sport im Park', Silent University Ruhr and the vier.zentrale
The artists of the Austrian collective Conte Potuto will build and operate SCHWIMM CITY. They take care of the pool, distribute sun loungers and sun shades - an all-round service focussing on the guests' needs. If it was up to Conte Potuto, people should have the right to be idle in public!
TIGERS’ KITCHEN are the actor and chef Nadja Duesterberg and the musician and performer Svea Kischmeier. At SCHWIMM CITY they run a snack bar that is also a radio station. Radio Pommes broadcasts every day online from 14:00 to 18:00 h. At the end of each working day and broadcast, TIGERS’ KITCHEN perform a slushy pop song in their snack bar that they have produced in the course of the day together with their customers.
How do children imagine the perfect open-air swimming pool? Artists from Mülheim an der Ruhr invite children to paint and make the pool of their dreams with them (or other ideas).
Try-out training session for children. They provide dance-based insights into the fascinating sport of underwater rugby, but without water. What might it feel like underwater when it's already so much fun on the grass? Just come along and join in.
At the "Hellblaue Stunde", or twilight, the open-air pool provides an opportunity for speculation. Swimming pool and water sport experts are invited to come and talk, and to discuss what a pool for everyone might look like and what is needed to create a dream pool of the future.
These twilight talks willl be broadcast live online on Radio Pommes by TIGERS’ KITCHEN. The artists of Conte Potuto will pick up on ideas from the conversations and include these in the process of designing SCHWIMM CITY.
At the end of each working day, TIGERS’ KITCHEN perform a pop song in their snack bar that they have produced in the course of the day together with their customers. On Family Sunday, children and young people in particular are invited to come to the snack bar where they can sing the song and help to arrange it.
Monday, 3.6., open 12:00–18:00
The artists of the Austrian collective Conte Potuto will build and operate SCHWIMM CITY. They take care of the pool, distribute sun loungers and sun shades - an all-round service focussing on the guests' needs. If it was up to Conte Potuto, people should have the right to be idle in public!
TIGERS’ KITCHEN are the actor and chef Nadja Duesterberg and the musician and performer Svea Kischmeier. At SCHWIMM CITY they run a snack bar that is also a radio station. Radio Pommes broadcasts every day online from 14:00 to 18:00 h. At the end of each working day and broadcast, TIGERS’ KITCHEN perform a slushy pop song in their snack bar that they have produced in the course of the day together with their customers.
At the end of each working day, TIGERS’ KITCHEN perform a slushy pop song in their snack bar that they have produced in the course of the day together with their customers. Open Mic for all fans of fries and pop!
Tuesday, 4.6. – Women's Day
9:30–16:00 women only, 16:00–18:00 open for everyone
The artists of the Austrian collective Conte Potuto will build and operate SCHWIMM CITY. They take care of the pool, distribute sun loungers and sun shades – an all-round service focussing on the guests' needs. If it was up to Conte Potuto, people should have the right to be idle in public!
The MUT-Café's international women's group meets on Tuesdays for regular exchanges at the vier.zentrale. On 4 June they will hold their communal breakfast at the MüGa as guests at SCHWIMM CITY.
TIGERS’ KITCHEN are the actor and chef Nadja Duesterberg and the musician and performer Svea Kischmeier. At SCHWIMM CITY they run a snack bar that is also a radio station. Radio Pommes broadcasts every day online from 14:00 to 18:00 h. At the end of each working day and broadcast, TIGERS’ KITCHEN perform a slushy pop song in their snack bar that they have produced in the course of the day together with their customers.
At the "Hellblaue Stunde", or twilight, the open-air pool provides an opportunity for speculation. Swimming pool and water sport experts are invited to come and talk, and to discuss what a pool for everyone might look like and what is needed to create a dream pool of the future.
These twilight talks willl be broadcast live online on Radio Pommes by TIGERS’ KITCHEN. The artists of Conte Potuto will pick up on ideas from the conversations and include these in the process of designing SCHWIMM CITY.
At the end of each working day, TIGERS’ KITCHEN perform a slushy pop song in their snack bar that they have produced in the course of the day together with their customers. Open Mic for all fans of fries and pop!
Wednesday, 5.6., open 12:00–18:00
The artists of the Austrian collective Conte Potuto will build and operate SCHWIMM CITY. They take care of the pool, distribute sun loungers and sun shades - an all-round service focussing on the guests' needs. If it was up to Conte Potuto, people should have the right to be idle in public!
TIGERS’ KITCHEN are the actor and chef Nadja Duesterberg and the musician and performer Svea Kischmeier. At SCHWIMM CITY they run a snack bar that is also a radio station. Radio Pommes broadcasts every day online from 14:00 to 18:00 h. At the end of each working day and broadcast, TIGERS’ KITCHEN perform a slushy pop song in their snack bar that they have produced in the course of the day together with their customers.
At the "Hellblaue Stunde", or twilight, the open-air pool provides an opportunity for speculation. Swimming pool and water sport experts are invited to come and talk, and to discuss what a pool for everyone might look like and what is needed to create a dream pool of the future.
These twilight talks willl be broadcast live online on Radio Pommes by TIGERS’ KITCHEN. The artists of Conte Potuto will pick up on ideas from the conversations and include these in the process of designing SCHWIMM CITY.
At the end of each working day, TIGERS’ KITCHEN perform a slushy pop song in their snack bar that they have produced in the course of the day together with their customers. Open Mic for all fans of fries and pop!
Thursday, 6.6., open 12:00–18:00
The artists of the Austrian collective Conte Potuto will build and operate SCHWIMM CITY. They take care of the pool, distribute sun loungers and sun shades - an all-round service focussing on the guests' needs. If it was up to Conte Potuto, people should have the right to be idle in public!
TIGERS’ KITCHEN are the actor and chef Nadja Duesterberg and the musician and performer Svea Kischmeier. At SCHWIMM CITY they run a snack bar that is also a radio station. Radio Pommes broadcasts every day online from 14:00 to 18:00 h. At the end of each working day and broadcast, TIGERS’ KITCHEN perform a slushy pop song in their snack bar that they have produced in the course of the day together with their customers.
At the "Hellblaue Stunde", or twilight, the open-air pool provides an opportunity for speculation. Swimming pool and water sport experts are invited to come and talk, and to discuss what a pool for everyone might look like and what is needed to create a dream pool of the future.
These twilight talks willl be broadcast live online on Radio Pommes by TIGERS’ KITCHEN. The artists of Conte Potuto will pick up on ideas from the conversations and include these in the process of designing SCHWIMM CITY.
At the end of each working day, TIGERS’ KITCHEN perform a slushy pop song in their snack bar that they have produced in the course of the day together with their customers. Open Mic for all fans of fries and pop!
Friday, 7.6., open 12:00–22:00
The artists of the Austrian collective Conte Potuto will build and operate SCHWIMM CITY. They take care of the pool, distribute sun loungers and sun shades - an all-round service focussing on the guests' needs. If it was up to Conte Potuto, people should have the right to be idle in public!
TIGERS’ KITCHEN are the actor and chef Nadja Duesterberg and the musician and performer Svea Kischmeier. At SCHWIMM CITY they run a snack bar that is also a radio station. Radio Pommes broadcasts every day online from 14:00 to 18:00 h. At the end of each working day and broadcast, TIGERS’ KITCHEN perform a slushy pop song in their snack bar that they have produced in the course of the day together with their customers.
The volunteer-run International Women's Café has been open in Mülheim since 2020 with the support of PLANB Ruhr e.V. and funding from "KOMM-AN NRW". At SCHWIMM CITY the International Women's Café invites everyone, with or without a refugee background, to an open meeting and picnic. Whoever wishes can bring food and drink with them. However, guests without any provisions will also be warmly welcomed.
At the "Hellblaue Stunde", or twilight, the open-air pool provides an opportunity for speculation. Swimming pool and water sport experts are invited to come and talk, and to discuss what a pool for everyone might look like and what is needed to create a dream pool of the future.
These twilight talks willl be broadcast live online on Radio Pommes by TIGERS’ KITCHEN. The artists of Conte Potuto will pick up on ideas from the conversations and include these in the process of designing SCHWIMM CITY.
At the end of each working day, TIGERS’ KITCHEN perform a slushy pop song in their snack bar that they have produced in the course of the day together with their customers. Open Mic for all fans of fries and pop!
Concert and Dance Night for all swimming pool employees, sport swimmers and other keen dancers
Saturday, 8.6., open 12:00–18:00
The artists of the Austrian collective Conte Potuto will build and operate SCHWIMM CITY. They take care of the pool, distribute sun loungers and sun shades - an all-round service focussing on the guests' needs. If it was up to Conte Potuto, people should have the right to be idle in public!
TIGERS’ KITCHEN are the actor and chef Nadja Duesterberg and the musician and performer Svea Kischmeier. At SCHWIMM CITY they run a snack bar that is also a radio station. Radio Pommes broadcasts every day online from 14:00 to 18:00 h. At the end of each working day and broadcast, TIGERS’ KITCHEN perform a slushy pop song in their snack bar that they have produced in the course of the day together with their customers.
In addition to his artistic work as a performer, the Australian Damian Rebgetz is also a very good swimmer. In Germany he not only acts on numerous independent and city theatre stages, he has also spent a whole summer working as a lifeguard at a Berlin open-air pool. He has created a musical lecture-performance on the basis of his various working experiences. How do you become a lifeguard in Germany? What rules apply in swimming pools? What is a walk-through pool and how should it be filled? How can you best keep an eye on all the bathers, who is allowed to dive from the diving tower and what does this have to do with theatre? In Mülheim 'Guy Working at a Pool' will be seen in a version specially re-worked for SCHWIMM CITY.
Different body images and clichés come together in the outdoor pool. '4ever young' is a staged fashion show with various bathing and outdoor pool accessories from different decades. Summer pop songs from the 80s and 90s serve as the soundtrack. How do social norms and ideas influence our perception of our bodies? What has changed over the years? And where are we today?
At the "Hellblaue Stunde", or twilight, the open-air pool provides an opportunity for speculation. Swimming pool and water sport experts are invited to come and talk, and to discuss what a pool for everyone might look like and what is needed to create a dream pool of the future.
These twilight talks willl be broadcast live online on Radio Pommes by TIGERS’ KITCHEN. The artists of Conte Potuto will pick up on ideas from the conversations and include these in the process of designing SCHWIMM CITY.
Underwater rugby is a fascinating niche sport that was supposedly invented in Mülheim an der Ruhr. In Overwater Rugby: Club Darlington e.V., the dance company TachoTinta plays with underwater rugby players on dry land. To do this, the rules have to be changed and new groupings have to be formed – and sometimes the referee also has to be contradicted. Training turns into choreography and the contest turns into a dance.
In addition to his artistic work as a performer, the Australian Damian Rebgetz is also a very good swimmer. In Germany he not only acts on numerous independent and city theatre stages, he has also spent a whole summer working as a lifeguard at a Berlin open-air pool. He has created a musical lecture-performance on the basis of his various working experiences. How do you become a lifeguard in Germany? What rules apply in swimming pools? What is a walk-through pool and how should it be filled? How can you best keep an eye on all the bathers, who is allowed to dive from the diving tower and what does this have to do with theatre? In Mülheim 'Guy Working at a Pool' will be seen in a version specially re-worked for SCHWIMM CITY.
At the end of each working day, TIGERS’ KITCHEN perform a slushy pop song in their snack bar that they have produced in the course of the day together with their customers. Open Mic for all fans of fries and pop!
Sunday, 9.6., open 12:00–22:00
The artists of the Austrian collective Conte Potuto will build and operate SCHWIMM CITY. They take care of the pool, distribute sun loungers and sun shades - an all-round service focussing on the guests' needs. If it was up to Conte Potuto, people should have the right to be idle in public!
TIGERS’ KITCHEN are the actor and chef Nadja Duesterberg and the musician and performer Svea Kischmeier. At SCHWIMM CITY they run a snack bar that is also a radio station. Radio Pommes broadcasts every day online from 14:00 to 18:00 h. At the end of each working day and broadcast, TIGERS’ KITCHEN perform a slushy pop song in their snack bar that they have produced in the course of the day together with their customers.
In addition to his artistic work as a performer, the Australian Damian Rebgetz is also a very good swimmer. In Germany he not only acts on numerous independent and city theatre stages, he has also spent a whole summer working as a lifeguard at a Berlin open-air pool. He has created a musical lecture-performance on the basis of his various working experiences. How do you become a lifeguard in Germany? What rules apply in swimming pools? What is a walk-through pool and how should it be filled? How can you best keep an eye on all the bathers, who is allowed to dive from the diving tower and what does this have to do with theatre? In Mülheim 'Guy Working at a Pool' will be seen in a version specially re-worked for SCHWIMM CITY.
Different body images and clichés come together in the outdoor pool. '4ever young' is a staged fashion show with various bathing and outdoor pool accessories from different decades. Summer pop songs from the 80s and 90s serve as the soundtrack. How do social norms and ideas influence our perception of our bodies? What has changed over the years? And where are we today?
Underwater rugby is a fascinating niche sport that was supposedly invented in Mülheim an der Ruhr. In Overwater Rugby: Club Darlington e.V., the dance company TachoTinta plays with underwater rugby players on dry land. To do this, the rules have to be changed and new groupings have to be formed – and sometimes the referee also has to be contradicted. Training turns into choreography and the contest turns into a dance.
In addition to his artistic work as a performer, the Australian Damian Rebgetz is also a very good swimmer. In Germany he not only acts on numerous independent and city theatre stages, he has also spent a whole summer working as a lifeguard at a Berlin open-air pool. He has created a musical lecture-performance on the basis of his various working experiences. How do you become a lifeguard in Germany? What rules apply in swimming pools? What is a walk-through pool and how should it be filled? How can you best keep an eye on all the bathers, who is allowed to dive from the diving tower and what does this have to do with theatre? In Mülheim 'Guy Working at a Pool' will be seen in a version specially re-worked for SCHWIMM CITY.
Finally, there will be a foam party with DJ Lenz, songs by Damian Rebgetz and a pop parade by TIGERS' KITCHEN. The performance ‘4ever young’ by HARTMANNMUELLER will be shown again. Corks will pop, endings and new beginnings will be celebrated, and SCHWIMM CITY is transformed into the setting for a banging finale.
Vienna during the Second World War: the audience follows the fate of eight homosexuals who suffered repression and persecution under the Nazi regime. Moving breathlessly from one precisely-detailed room to the next, alternating between victims and perpetrators. However, no one can see all 160 of these nightmarish scenes: everyone has their own individual route.
Dates:
30.05., 19:00–22:00
31.05., 19:00–22:00
01.06., 19:00–22:00
04.06., 17:30–20:30
05.06., 17:30–20:30
06.06., 17:30–20:30
Venue: brut nordwest, Vienna (Austria)
Language: German
Tickets are available from brut wien.
The promenade starts at the heart of its setting: in the canteen of a porcelain factory. At night this turns into a secret shebeen, a safe place for homosexuals and trans people to meet. But the Nazis soon get wind of their activities …
From here the audience have to decide for themselves which of the two dozen characters they want to follow through the labyrinth of darkened rooms and when they want to swap to the next one. The audience enters a vortex of fiction and reality. This principle has made Nesterval stars of the Viennese theatre scene: they make theatre for people who think theatre is actually too boring. Immersive settings in disused buildings immediately involve the public and create experiences that are addictive. In their home city, Nesterval’s plays are sold out within minutes.
But the subject is serious: „Der Rosa Winkel – Die Geschichte der Namenlosen“, a revised version of DIE NAMENLOSEN, is both a memorial and a warning. Its historical narrative predetermines how the production will turn out: it begins sadly and rapidly becomes desperate. An evening of theatre that has after effects.
“The Viennese company Nesterval once again draws its audience into an unsettling story. They don’t just stare but share the thoughts, lives and emotions of the characters.” Margarete Affenzeller, Der Standard
Artistic Director, Direction: Martin Finnland
Book: Teresa Löfberg
Stage Design: Andrea Konrad
Costume Design: Dritan Kosovrasti
Choreography: Marcelo Doño
Dramaturgy: Tove Grün
Assistant Director: Laura Athanasiadis
Co-Authors: Martin Finnland, Gisa Fellerer, Lorenz Tröbinger
Co-Conceiver, Applications, Archive: Martin Walanka
Production: Emilie Kleinszig, Sabine Anders
Secondary Direction: Lorenz Tröbinger
Technical Director: Lukas “Lupo” Saller
Set Construction: Andreas Holzmann (Vienna Decoration Company), Walter Winkelmüller
Composition Songs and Score: Julian Muldoon
Song Lyrics: Sarah Muldoon
Sound Design: Alkis Vlassakakis
Assistant Play Development: Gisa Fellerer
Research Advisors: Andreas Brunner, Jürgen Pettinger
Magic Consultant: Raphael Macho
Design Team: Ruth Grau, Willy Mutzenpachner, Milo Marx, Lorenz Hötzeneder
Graphics: Rita Brandneulinger
Website: Gisa Fellerer
Communications: Christopher Wurmdobler
Photography: Alexandra Thompson
Trailer: Sabine Anders (Director), Lukas Grubba (Camera), Sabrina Winkler (Editor, Grading)
Co-operations: Lukas Kirisits
Bookkeeping, Office: Doris Panzer
Technicians: Plan B, Till Gatermann
Stage Management: Ela Lankes, Sabine Anders, Sebastian Kieberl
Bar: Luki Kirisits, Markus Gorfer
Contact for touring enquiries: Martin Finnland, email hidden; JavaScript is required
With: Christopher Wurmdobler, Martin Finnland, Gisa Fellerer, Chiara Seide, Stefan Pauser, Mio Riedl, Romy Hrubeš, Willy Mutzenpachner, Rita Brandneulinger, Johannes Scheutz, Sven Diestel, Gellert Gerson Butter, Martin Walanka, Laura Hermann, Aston Matters, Lorenz Tröbinger, Peter Kraus, Julia Fuchs, Alkis Vlassakakis, Hisham Morscher, Ela Lankes, Sabine Anders, Sebastian Kieberl, Denice Bourbon, Simon Stockinger, Anne Wieben, Norbert Fiedler, Alexandra Thompson, Bernhard Hablé, Eva Deutsch, Jürgen Pettinger, Luki Kirisits, Markus Gorfer
Special thanks to Peter Hörmanseder (sound recordings), Peter Holub, Johannes Felber and the Friends of Nesterval (especially Andrea and Valerie Lenk, Andreas Kauba, Clemens and Katharina Pallitsch, Edmund Weninger, Kaya Alina Knapp, Maria Sibilia, Markus Kellner, Martin Hinterndorfer, Michael Brandtner and Michael Marker) and also to Nikolaus Vogler (PKHV Attorneys at Law), René Lipkovich (Siart Lipkovich & Team) and Helmut Patterer (PRBS Patterer e.U.).
With generous support from the City of Vienna Department of Culture (MA7), the Austrian Federal Ministry for Arts, Culture, the Civil Service and Sport, the National Fund of the Republic of Austria and the Future Fund of the Republic of Austria as well as Vienna Decoration Company, Magenta, ZANTHO, Pedacola, Trumer Privatbrauerei, Vöslauer, Mietmöbel Föhr.
Nesterval sees itself as a queer folk theatre that translates, overwrites and deconstructs classics of literary and theatre history into the present. Each production is centred around a delight in play, the creation of a space for theatrical experiences and the inclusion of the audience in immersive theatre. Room for interactive manoeuvre is created through empathy, through surprising casting choices and also through conversations after the show. Nesterval consistently foregrounds a queer technique of self-empowerment, in which the pleasurable level of play always has a political dimension, raising and processing socio-political issues. The plays are always based on epoch-making experiences within the dynasty of the fictitious Nesterval family. All of the more than 25 productions so far been presented in Austria and internationally have been site-specific in nature and made reference to the cultural, social and historical background of each particular venue. The ensemble consists of around 20 performers, drag artists and actors who tell the history of the Nesterval family in a variety of combinations. Nesterval has already been nominated for Vienna’s Nestroy Theatre Prize on three occasions, most recently in 2023 for DIE NAMENLOSEN. Nesterval won a Nestroy Prize in 2020 for ‘Der Kreisky Test’. The Hamburg version of DIE NAMENLOSEN was shortlisted for the Nachtkritik Theatertreffen 2024.
Smiley is the first trans woman in India who has been able to get the name and gender in her passport changed. But she wanted more: a sense of belonging, justice and protection from hostility. In 2018 she fled the strengthening Hindu fascism for Switzerland. Personable, approachable and full of humour, she takes the audience along on her journey to freedom.
Language: German and English with German and English surtitles
Tickets for all Impulse events are also available from our ticket shop.
Smiley shares her story in order to give other people courage. She tells us how being an activist enabled her to open doors for her Indian trans sisters. How she begged in the streets to pay for her first gender reassignment operation. Towards the end, Smiley stands in the spotlight, wrapped in a golden gown. She spreads out her arms and imagines flying above the stage. The hungry caterpillar that she always talks of with a chuckle has turned into a butterfly. She has achieved a great deal of what she has fought for. But how will the butterfly pay its bills if it doesn’t always want to live off social security?
Smiley’s life story is full of highs and lows. In projections she shows photos of her new boyfriend in Switzerland, but also hate posts from people who threaten to rape and murder her because she has published a photo of herself in a bra. She tells of pain and shows her scars. And she makes the audience laugh over and over again.
Artistic Direction and Performance: Living Smile Vidya
Mentoring: Marcel Schwald
Video: Moritz Flachsmann
Costumes: Diana Ammann
Costumes Intern: Lucia Müller
Sound: Silvan Koch
Voice on Video: Suzí Feliz Das Neves
Subtitles: Anton Kuzema
Lighting, Technical Direction: Thomas Kohler
Artistic Support: Beatrice Fleischlin
Production: Das Theaterkolleg (Mirjam Berger, Christina Teuber, Patric Gehrig)
Contact for touring enquiries: Mirjam Berger, Das Theaterkolleg, email hidden; JavaScript is required
A co-production between Treibstoff Theatertage Basel, Tojo Theater, Bern and Südpol, Lucerne. Funded by City of Bern Culture, the Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia, the Albert Koechlin Stiftung, the Ruth und Paul Wallach-Stiftung and the Schweizerische Interpretenstiftung SIS.
Diana Ammann lives in Basel and works as a freelance costume designer. She studied Fashion Design at Basel Academy of Art and Design. She then spent two years working as a Costume Assistant at the Münchner Kammerspiele. She has worked as a self-employed costume designer for theatre and film since 2008. dianammann.blogspot.com
Moritz Flachsmann studied Animation at Lucerne University and works as a sound editor, editor, cameraman and animator. He produces installations, video productions, live visuals, events and concepts with his collective packungsbeilage. Flachsmann lives in Basel and works internationally. www.packungsbeilage.tv
In her performances Beatrice Fleischlin attempts to formulate an in-between existence: her stage figures oscillate between autobiography and fiction. She devises performance works in collaboration with a range of artists and works on projects by colleagues as a supportive accomplice. She has maintained a long-term collaboration with Anja Meser. In 2021 fleischlin/meser was presented with a swiss performing arts award by the Federal Ministry of Culture. www.produktionsdock.ch/en/artists/beatrice-fleischlin
Silvan Koch lives in Lucerne and works as a musician, composer and pianist in the independent theatre and film scene. He has composed the music for works including ‘Sex-Stück’ (Beatrice Fleischlin) and numerous films. www.silvankoch.ch
Living Smile Vidya was born in India and is an actress, hospital clown and author. She was the first trans woman in India to be legally allowed to change her name and gender. In 2014 she was awarded a scholarship to study at the International School of Performing Arts in London, after which she founded India’s first trans theatre collective Panmai Theatre in Chennai. Since 2018 Living Smile Vidya has lived in Eschenbach, having fled to Switzerland after attempts were made on her life in response to her political activities. https://youtu.be/8Mq3xy6w_V8 / https://vimeo.com/755149666
Marcel Schwald lives in Basel and works as a freelance theatre director, dramaturg and performer. His works have been presented at theatres and festivals in Switzerland and beyond. Since 2019 he has been a full-time member of the performance collective Reines Prochaines & Friends, which won the Basel Culture Prize for 2022. www.marcelschwald.com
Das Theaterkolleg is a Central Swiss production office for theatre, dance and performance based in Lucerne that was founded in 2022 by seven Lucerne independent collectives. Das Theaterkolleg is currently run by Mirjam Berger and Patric Gehrig.
Jean-Gaspard Deburau invented modern mime in Paris in 1830. The character of Pierrot enabled him to rise from being a poor immigrant unable to speak French to become a celebrated theatrical star. OLD WHITE CLOWNS tells the story of his life, his art and his time – with total physical commitment and a lot of humour.
Language: German, English and French with German and English subtitles
Physical introduction
1.6., 20:00, with Romi Okewu
2.6., 17:00, with Renato Spardelotto
One hour before the performance begins, the audience is invited to tune in to the performance in a "physical introduction".
This takes place in cooperation with the Centre for Contemporary Dance at the Cologne University of Music and Dance. No registration or prior knowledge required.
Tickets for all Impulse events are also available from our ticket shop.
Max Merker has studied mime. When he plays Pierrot, he makes objects, obstacles and pitfalls appear before the audience’s eyes that do not actually exist. Like the forebears of his genre, he spends a long time acting wordlessly. By contrast, Emma Murray and Téné Ouelgo lend Deburau the voice he never had in public during his lifetime. Speech was forbidden on the stage of his theatre. The censor was afraid of political speeches, while serious theatres were afraid of competition.
Deburau acted for the working class, the poor and for criminals. He felt at ease with them because they could see themselves in him: sad, hungry and without a hope. Always the loser in the end. It was from this self-image that he created the character of Pierrot. And therefore OLD WHITE CLOWNS is also a story about the visible and invisible power structures that still exist today: on stage, in European history and in ourselves.
With: Max Merker, Emma Murray, Téné Ouelgo
Concept, Direction: Max Merker
Concept, Dramaturgy: Martin Bieri
Outside Eye: Viviane Pavillon
Movement Coaching: Emma Murray
Costumes: Nic Tillein
Scenography: Damian Hitz
Lighting: Patrick Hunka
Diversity Advisors: Henri-Michel Yéré, Anisha Imhasly
Musical Advisor: Michel Schröder
Assistant Director, Surtitles: Jarina Müller
Production Manager: Ramun Bernetta
Contact for touring enquiries: Ramun Bernetta, email hidden; JavaScript is required
A production by Max Merker and Bernetta Theaterproduktionen in co-production with the Fabriktheater Rote Fabrik, Zürich and Kleintheater Luzern. In partnership with ThiK, Theater im Kornhaus Baden. With support from the City of Zurich, Culture Department, the Canton of Zurich, Migros Culture Percentage, the Ernst Göhner Stiftung, the Stanley Thomas Johnson Foundation, the Elisabeth Weber-Stiftung and the Walter Haefner Stiftung.
Martin Bieri lives and works in Bern. He is an author, dramaturg and journalist. He studied Theatre Studies and Art History and wrote his Doctorate on contemporary theatre and landscape theory. He has worked as a dramaturg with Luzerner Theater, Theater Neumarkt Zürich, Theater St. Gallen and the independent groups Schauplatz International (Bern/Berlin) and ultra (Geneva/Lucerne). As a playwright, he has regularly collaborated with Ariane von Graffenried and Andri Beyeler. As a journalist, he writes about art, history and football for newspapers and magazines in Switzerland and Germany. His plays and poems have won several literary prizes. He has maintained a long-term collaboration with the director Max Merker. www.martinbieri.net
Max Merker lives in Zürich. He studied Philosophy and German Literature in Berlin and Freiburg im Breisgau, and graduated in Acting and Physical Theatre from Folkwang University in Essen. His graduation piece with the dancer Héloïse Fournier was awarded the Folkwang Prize and shown at numerous festivals. Merker works as an actor and director at city theatres and in the independent sector, for example at Bühnen Bern, Luzerner Theater and the Fabriktheater Rote Fabrik in Zurich. He produces multi-lingual and cross-art form evenings in a range of groupings. His works have been invited to a variety of festivals, including the Swiss Theatertreffen and the Heidelberger Stückemarkt. He has maintained long-term collaborations with the dramaturg Martin Bieri, the actor Aaron Hitz and the production manager Ramun Bernetta. www.bernetta.net/maxmerker
Emma Murray is a dancer and choreographer from New Zealand who lives in Bern. At the age of 19 she was a soloist with the Royal New Zealand Ballet. Since 1997 she has lived and worked in Europe. She danced at Stadttheater Bern for eight years since before becoming a freelance artist working in choreography, theatre, performance and dance. From 2013 to 2015 she was Associated Artist at Dampfzentrale Bern and a YAA! (Young Associated Artist) with Pro Helvetia, which co-produced several of her works. Murray has created many evening-length pieces including ‘My Body is an Island’ (2008), ‘naturalcauses’ (2011), ‘the way you look tonight’ (2014), ‘Motherfuckers’, ‘PARTICIPATION’ (2017) and, in collaboration with the visual artist Latefa Wiersch, ‘nepasdedeux’, ‘MONSTERHOOD’ (2019) and ‘PUDDING CLUB’ (2022). She completed a Masters in Contemporary Art Practice (CAP) at Bern University of the Arts (2020). www.bernetta.net/emmamurray / www.emmamurray.ch
Téné Ouelgo is an actor, educator and drum teacher. From 2002 to 2006 he trained in acting, music and dance and as a theatre educator in Ouagadougou. He came to Germany for the first time in 2009. From 2009 to 2013 he held a range of engagements as a dance, msuci and theatre educator for school and leisure projects in Europe and Africa and as a guest at the Mainfranken Theater Würzburg. From 2013 to 2017 he was a full-time ensemble member at the Theater Altenburg-Gera in Thuringia. He was nominated for the German Theatre Prize Der Faust as Best Performer in 2017. Since 2017 he has lived in Basel and worked freelance. Projects have included the series of readings ‘Africa is no Country’ and the stage play ‘Dr. Ueli’. He was engaged as a performer for the exhibition ‘SUPER – Die zweite Schöpfung’ at the Museum für Kommunikation Bern and in ‘Die Schokoladenwaffenfabrik’ by Philippe Heule at the Rote Fabrik Zurich in 2021. In 2022 he directed and acted in ‘2042 – Ein Spiellabor für Zukünfte’ at Schlachthaus Theater Bern. Ouelgo is a founder member and President of the company Arts sans Frontière and a founder member of Zama Kultur and the Association Art et Développement de Ouagadougou (AADO). www.ouelgo-tene.com
Meryem Erkuş doesn’t just curate exhibitions in the project space GOLD+BETON on Ebertplatz, but also organises mind-blowing parties in Cologne. For the Impulse Theater Festival she has put together a line-up that will turn the TanzFaktur into a TanzKlub for one night.
Entry is free of charge.
For decades now, public swimming pools in Mülheim an der Ruhr have been killed off through lack of funding or abandoned. 2024 was even in danger of becoming a summer without a single open-air pool. At the same time the market in private pools is booming: those who can afford it are seeking comfort and security in their own gardens.
As a counter proposal to this privatisation of leisure time, the Impulse Theater Festival in association with artists and Ringlokschuppen Ruhr will open a summer pool for eleven days in the MüGa-Park. The group Conte Potuto will construct a pool of dreams: with almost no water, but filled with the visitors’ wishes and ideas. TachoTinta play on dry land with an underwater rugby team, and the Tigers’ Kitchen not only produces fries but also slushy pop songs.
Together with local initiatives and sports clubs, the artists present actions and conversations exploring issues around open-air swimming pools: who is allowed in, who has to stay outside? What sort of encounters are possible here? And which social conflicts can be seen at public pools? SCHWIMM CITY looks the increasing polarisation of society squarely in the eye and counters it with shared pleasure. Because one thing is certain: everyone can agree on the swimming pool snack: fries. They’re vegan, halal, kosher, gluten- and lactose-free.
Entry is free of charge, no registration required.
If you like, bring swimwear and a towel. But all other outfits are just as welcome!
As part of the 'ExtraSchicht' (1.6.) free admission only with registration by 31.5. at stadtprojekt[at]impulsefestival.de.
Thursday, 30.5., open 12:00–20:00
The artists of the Austrian collective Conte Potuto will build and operate SCHWIMM CITY. They take care of the pool, distribute sun loungers and sun shades - an all-round service focussing on the guests' needs. If it was up to Conte Potuto, people should have the right to be idle in public!
TIGERS’ KITCHEN are the actor and chef Nadja Duesterberg and the musician and performer Svea Kischmeier. At SCHWIMM CITY they run a snack bar that is also a radio station. Radio Pommes broadcasts every day online from 14:00 to 18:00 h. At the end of each working day and broadcast, TIGERS’ KITCHEN perform a slushy pop song in their snack bar that they have produced in the course of the day together with their customers.
An act of celebration with fries and ice lollies!
At the "Hellblaue Stunde", or twilight, the open-air pool provides an opportunity for speculation. Swimming pool and water sport experts are invited to come and talk, and to discuss what a pool for everyone might look like and what is needed to create a dream pool of the future.
These twilight talks willl be broadcast live online on Radio Pommes by TIGERS’ KITCHEN. The artists of Conte Potuto will pick up on ideas from the conversations and include these in the process of designing SCHWIMM CITY.
Different body images and clichés come together in the outdoor pool. '4ever young' is a staged fashion show with various bathing and outdoor pool accessories from different decades. Summer pop songs from the 80s and 90s serve as the soundtrack. How do social norms and ideas influence our perception of our bodies? What has changed over the years? And where are we today?
Underwater rugby is a fascinating niche sport that was supposedly invented in Mülheim an der Ruhr. In Overwater Rugby: Club Darlington e.V., the dance company TachoTinta plays with underwater rugby players on dry land. To do this, the rules have to be changed and new groupings have to be formed – and sometimes the referee also has to be contradicted. Training turns into choreography and the contest turns into a dance.
At the end of each working day, TIGERS’ KITCHEN perform a slushy pop song in their snack bar that they have produced in the course of the day together with their customers. Open Mic for all fans of fries and pop
On the opening day of SCHWIMM CITY, Conte Potuto invite you to a concert. The Viennese band AUTOR combines tried-and-trusted punk influences with catchy melodies and cryptic lyrics. Their music combines the rawness of the DIY music scene with nonchalance and plays with the grey areas in between poetry and punk.
Friday, 31.5., open 12:00–18:00
The artists of the Austrian collective Conte Potuto will build and operate SCHWIMM CITY. They take care of the pool, distribute sun loungers and sun shades - an all-round service focussing on the guests' needs. If it was up to Conte Potuto, people should have the right to be idle in public!
TIGERS’ KITCHEN are the actor and chef Nadja Duesterberg and the musician and performer Svea Kischmeier. At SCHWIMM CITY they run a snack bar that is also a radio station. Radio Pommes broadcasts every day online from 14:00 to 18:00 h. At the end of each working day and broadcast, TIGERS’ KITCHEN perform a slushy pop song in their snack bar that they have produced in the course of the day together with their customers.
At the "Hellblaue Stunde", or twilight, the open-air pool provides an opportunity for speculation. Swimming pool and water sport experts are invited to come and talk, and to discuss what a pool for everyone might look like and what is needed to create a dream pool of the future.
These twilight talks willl be broadcast live online on Radio Pommes by TIGERS’ KITCHEN. The artists of Conte Potuto will pick up on ideas from the conversations and include these in the process of designing SCHWIMM CITY.
Different body images and clichés come together in the outdoor pool. '4ever young' is a staged fashion show with various bathing and outdoor pool accessories from different decades. Summer pop songs from the 80s and 90s serve as the soundtrack. How do social norms and ideas influence our perception of our bodies? What has changed over the years? And where are we today?
At the end of each working day, TIGERS’ KITCHEN perform a slushy pop song in their snack bar that they have produced in the course of the day together with their customers. Open Mic for all fans of fries and pop
Saturday, 1.6., 18:00–23:00
SCHWIMM CITY opens as part of 'ExtraSchicht – Die Nacht der Industriekultur'
The 'ExtraSchicht – Night of Industrial Culture' has been staging former industrial plants, museums and historical monuments in the Ruhr region since 2001. Traditionally, the Ringlokschuppen Ruhr is also part of the programme. The programme includes a long night in the SCHWIMM CITY with theatre, comedy, concerts and DJs from 'ExtraSchicht'.
Free admission to SCHWIMM CITY on this day only with registration by 31 May at email hidden; JavaScript is required.
Paid tickets for the entire 'ExtraSchicht' programme with all venues at extraschicht.de.
The artists of the Austrian collective Conte Potuto will build and operate SCHWIMM CITY. They take care of the pool, distribute sun loungers and sun shades - an all-round service focussing on the guests' needs. If it was up to Conte Potuto, people should have the right to be idle in public! TIGERS’ KITCHEN are the actor and chef Nadja Duesterberg and the musician and performer Svea Kischmeier. At SCHWIMM CITY they run a snack bar that is also a radio station.
Different body images and clichés come together in the outdoor pool. '4ever young' is a staged fashion show with various bathing and outdoor pool accessories from different decades. Summer pop songs from the 80s and 90s serve as the soundtrack. How do social norms and ideas influence our perception of our bodies? What has changed over the years? And where are we today?
Underwater rugby is a fascinating niche sport that was supposedly invented in Mülheim an der Ruhr. In Overwater Rugby: Club Darlington e.V., the dance company TachoTinta plays with underwater rugby players on dry land. To do this, the rules have to be changed and new groupings have to be formed - and sometimes the referee also has to be contradicted. Training turns into choreography and the contest turns into a dance.
Sunday, 2.6., open 12:00–18:00 geöffnet
Family Sunday in co-operation with 'Sport im Park', Silent University Ruhr and the vier.zentrale
The artists of the Austrian collective Conte Potuto will build and operate SCHWIMM CITY. They take care of the pool, distribute sun loungers and sun shades - an all-round service focussing on the guests' needs. If it was up to Conte Potuto, people should have the right to be idle in public!
TIGERS’ KITCHEN are the actor and chef Nadja Duesterberg and the musician and performer Svea Kischmeier. At SCHWIMM CITY they run a snack bar that is also a radio station. Radio Pommes broadcasts every day online from 14:00 to 18:00 h. At the end of each working day and broadcast, TIGERS’ KITCHEN perform a slushy pop song in their snack bar that they have produced in the course of the day together with their customers.
How do children imagine the perfect open-air swimming pool? Artists from Mülheim an der Ruhr invite children to paint and make the pool of their dreams with them (or other ideas).
Try-out training session for children. They provide dance-based insights into the fascinating sport of underwater rugby, but without water. What might it feel like underwater when it's already so much fun on the grass? Just come along and join in.
At the "Hellblaue Stunde", or twilight, the open-air pool provides an opportunity for speculation. Swimming pool and water sport experts are invited to come and talk, and to discuss what a pool for everyone might look like and what is needed to create a dream pool of the future.
These twilight talks willl be broadcast live online on Radio Pommes by TIGERS’ KITCHEN. The artists of Conte Potuto will pick up on ideas from the conversations and include these in the process of designing SCHWIMM CITY.
At the end of each working day, TIGERS’ KITCHEN perform a pop song in their snack bar that they have produced in the course of the day together with their customers. On Family Sunday, children and young people in particular are invited to come to the snack bar where they can sing the song and help to arrange it.
Monday, 3.6., open 12:00–18:00
The artists of the Austrian collective Conte Potuto will build and operate SCHWIMM CITY. They take care of the pool, distribute sun loungers and sun shades - an all-round service focussing on the guests' needs. If it was up to Conte Potuto, people should have the right to be idle in public!
TIGERS’ KITCHEN are the actor and chef Nadja Duesterberg and the musician and performer Svea Kischmeier. At SCHWIMM CITY they run a snack bar that is also a radio station. Radio Pommes broadcasts every day online from 14:00 to 18:00 h. At the end of each working day and broadcast, TIGERS’ KITCHEN perform a slushy pop song in their snack bar that they have produced in the course of the day together with their customers.
At the end of each working day, TIGERS’ KITCHEN perform a slushy pop song in their snack bar that they have produced in the course of the day together with their customers. Open Mic for all fans of fries and pop!
Tuesday, 4.6. – Women's Day
9:30–16:00 women only, 16:00–18:00 open for everyone
The artists of the Austrian collective Conte Potuto will build and operate SCHWIMM CITY. They take care of the pool, distribute sun loungers and sun shades – an all-round service focussing on the guests' needs. If it was up to Conte Potuto, people should have the right to be idle in public!
The MUT-Café's international women's group meets on Tuesdays for regular exchanges at the vier.zentrale. On 4 June they will hold their communal breakfast at the MüGa as guests at SCHWIMM CITY.
TIGERS’ KITCHEN are the actor and chef Nadja Duesterberg and the musician and performer Svea Kischmeier. At SCHWIMM CITY they run a snack bar that is also a radio station. Radio Pommes broadcasts every day online from 14:00 to 18:00 h. At the end of each working day and broadcast, TIGERS’ KITCHEN perform a slushy pop song in their snack bar that they have produced in the course of the day together with their customers.
At the "Hellblaue Stunde", or twilight, the open-air pool provides an opportunity for speculation. Swimming pool and water sport experts are invited to come and talk, and to discuss what a pool for everyone might look like and what is needed to create a dream pool of the future.
These twilight talks willl be broadcast live online on Radio Pommes by TIGERS’ KITCHEN. The artists of Conte Potuto will pick up on ideas from the conversations and include these in the process of designing SCHWIMM CITY.
At the end of each working day, TIGERS’ KITCHEN perform a slushy pop song in their snack bar that they have produced in the course of the day together with their customers. Open Mic for all fans of fries and pop!
Wednesday, 5.6., open 12:00–18:00
The artists of the Austrian collective Conte Potuto will build and operate SCHWIMM CITY. They take care of the pool, distribute sun loungers and sun shades - an all-round service focussing on the guests' needs. If it was up to Conte Potuto, people should have the right to be idle in public!
TIGERS’ KITCHEN are the actor and chef Nadja Duesterberg and the musician and performer Svea Kischmeier. At SCHWIMM CITY they run a snack bar that is also a radio station. Radio Pommes broadcasts every day online from 14:00 to 18:00 h. At the end of each working day and broadcast, TIGERS’ KITCHEN perform a slushy pop song in their snack bar that they have produced in the course of the day together with their customers.
At the "Hellblaue Stunde", or twilight, the open-air pool provides an opportunity for speculation. Swimming pool and water sport experts are invited to come and talk, and to discuss what a pool for everyone might look like and what is needed to create a dream pool of the future.
These twilight talks willl be broadcast live online on Radio Pommes by TIGERS’ KITCHEN. The artists of Conte Potuto will pick up on ideas from the conversations and include these in the process of designing SCHWIMM CITY.
At the end of each working day, TIGERS’ KITCHEN perform a slushy pop song in their snack bar that they have produced in the course of the day together with their customers. Open Mic for all fans of fries and pop!
Thursday, 6.6., open 12:00–18:00
The artists of the Austrian collective Conte Potuto will build and operate SCHWIMM CITY. They take care of the pool, distribute sun loungers and sun shades - an all-round service focussing on the guests' needs. If it was up to Conte Potuto, people should have the right to be idle in public!
TIGERS’ KITCHEN are the actor and chef Nadja Duesterberg and the musician and performer Svea Kischmeier. At SCHWIMM CITY they run a snack bar that is also a radio station. Radio Pommes broadcasts every day online from 14:00 to 18:00 h. At the end of each working day and broadcast, TIGERS’ KITCHEN perform a slushy pop song in their snack bar that they have produced in the course of the day together with their customers.
At the "Hellblaue Stunde", or twilight, the open-air pool provides an opportunity for speculation. Swimming pool and water sport experts are invited to come and talk, and to discuss what a pool for everyone might look like and what is needed to create a dream pool of the future.
These twilight talks willl be broadcast live online on Radio Pommes by TIGERS’ KITCHEN. The artists of Conte Potuto will pick up on ideas from the conversations and include these in the process of designing SCHWIMM CITY.
At the end of each working day, TIGERS’ KITCHEN perform a slushy pop song in their snack bar that they have produced in the course of the day together with their customers. Open Mic for all fans of fries and pop!
Friday, 7.6., open 12:00–22:00
The artists of the Austrian collective Conte Potuto will build and operate SCHWIMM CITY. They take care of the pool, distribute sun loungers and sun shades - an all-round service focussing on the guests' needs. If it was up to Conte Potuto, people should have the right to be idle in public!
TIGERS’ KITCHEN are the actor and chef Nadja Duesterberg and the musician and performer Svea Kischmeier. At SCHWIMM CITY they run a snack bar that is also a radio station. Radio Pommes broadcasts every day online from 14:00 to 18:00 h. At the end of each working day and broadcast, TIGERS’ KITCHEN perform a slushy pop song in their snack bar that they have produced in the course of the day together with their customers.
The volunteer-run International Women's Café has been open in Mülheim since 2020 with the support of PLANB Ruhr e.V. and funding from "KOMM-AN NRW". At SCHWIMM CITY the International Women's Café invites everyone, with or without a refugee background, to an open meeting and picnic. Whoever wishes can bring food and drink with them. However, guests without any provisions will also be warmly welcomed.
At the "Hellblaue Stunde", or twilight, the open-air pool provides an opportunity for speculation. Swimming pool and water sport experts are invited to come and talk, and to discuss what a pool for everyone might look like and what is needed to create a dream pool of the future.
These twilight talks willl be broadcast live online on Radio Pommes by TIGERS’ KITCHEN. The artists of Conte Potuto will pick up on ideas from the conversations and include these in the process of designing SCHWIMM CITY.
At the end of each working day, TIGERS’ KITCHEN perform a slushy pop song in their snack bar that they have produced in the course of the day together with their customers. Open Mic for all fans of fries and pop!
Concert and Dance Night for all swimming pool employees, sport swimmers and other keen dancers
Saturday, 8.6., open 12:00–18:00
The artists of the Austrian collective Conte Potuto will build and operate SCHWIMM CITY. They take care of the pool, distribute sun loungers and sun shades - an all-round service focussing on the guests' needs. If it was up to Conte Potuto, people should have the right to be idle in public!
TIGERS’ KITCHEN are the actor and chef Nadja Duesterberg and the musician and performer Svea Kischmeier. At SCHWIMM CITY they run a snack bar that is also a radio station. Radio Pommes broadcasts every day online from 14:00 to 18:00 h. At the end of each working day and broadcast, TIGERS’ KITCHEN perform a slushy pop song in their snack bar that they have produced in the course of the day together with their customers.
In addition to his artistic work as a performer, the Australian Damian Rebgetz is also a very good swimmer. In Germany he not only acts on numerous independent and city theatre stages, he has also spent a whole summer working as a lifeguard at a Berlin open-air pool. He has created a musical lecture-performance on the basis of his various working experiences. How do you become a lifeguard in Germany? What rules apply in swimming pools? What is a walk-through pool and how should it be filled? How can you best keep an eye on all the bathers, who is allowed to dive from the diving tower and what does this have to do with theatre? In Mülheim 'Guy Working at a Pool' will be seen in a version specially re-worked for SCHWIMM CITY.
Different body images and clichés come together in the outdoor pool. '4ever young' is a staged fashion show with various bathing and outdoor pool accessories from different decades. Summer pop songs from the 80s and 90s serve as the soundtrack. How do social norms and ideas influence our perception of our bodies? What has changed over the years? And where are we today?
At the "Hellblaue Stunde", or twilight, the open-air pool provides an opportunity for speculation. Swimming pool and water sport experts are invited to come and talk, and to discuss what a pool for everyone might look like and what is needed to create a dream pool of the future.
These twilight talks willl be broadcast live online on Radio Pommes by TIGERS’ KITCHEN. The artists of Conte Potuto will pick up on ideas from the conversations and include these in the process of designing SCHWIMM CITY.
Underwater rugby is a fascinating niche sport that was supposedly invented in Mülheim an der Ruhr. In Overwater Rugby: Club Darlington e.V., the dance company TachoTinta plays with underwater rugby players on dry land. To do this, the rules have to be changed and new groupings have to be formed – and sometimes the referee also has to be contradicted. Training turns into choreography and the contest turns into a dance.
In addition to his artistic work as a performer, the Australian Damian Rebgetz is also a very good swimmer. In Germany he not only acts on numerous independent and city theatre stages, he has also spent a whole summer working as a lifeguard at a Berlin open-air pool. He has created a musical lecture-performance on the basis of his various working experiences. How do you become a lifeguard in Germany? What rules apply in swimming pools? What is a walk-through pool and how should it be filled? How can you best keep an eye on all the bathers, who is allowed to dive from the diving tower and what does this have to do with theatre? In Mülheim 'Guy Working at a Pool' will be seen in a version specially re-worked for SCHWIMM CITY.
At the end of each working day, TIGERS’ KITCHEN perform a slushy pop song in their snack bar that they have produced in the course of the day together with their customers. Open Mic for all fans of fries and pop!
Sunday, 9.6., open 12:00–22:00
The artists of the Austrian collective Conte Potuto will build and operate SCHWIMM CITY. They take care of the pool, distribute sun loungers and sun shades - an all-round service focussing on the guests' needs. If it was up to Conte Potuto, people should have the right to be idle in public!
TIGERS’ KITCHEN are the actor and chef Nadja Duesterberg and the musician and performer Svea Kischmeier. At SCHWIMM CITY they run a snack bar that is also a radio station. Radio Pommes broadcasts every day online from 14:00 to 18:00 h. At the end of each working day and broadcast, TIGERS’ KITCHEN perform a slushy pop song in their snack bar that they have produced in the course of the day together with their customers.
In addition to his artistic work as a performer, the Australian Damian Rebgetz is also a very good swimmer. In Germany he not only acts on numerous independent and city theatre stages, he has also spent a whole summer working as a lifeguard at a Berlin open-air pool. He has created a musical lecture-performance on the basis of his various working experiences. How do you become a lifeguard in Germany? What rules apply in swimming pools? What is a walk-through pool and how should it be filled? How can you best keep an eye on all the bathers, who is allowed to dive from the diving tower and what does this have to do with theatre? In Mülheim 'Guy Working at a Pool' will be seen in a version specially re-worked for SCHWIMM CITY.
Different body images and clichés come together in the outdoor pool. '4ever young' is a staged fashion show with various bathing and outdoor pool accessories from different decades. Summer pop songs from the 80s and 90s serve as the soundtrack. How do social norms and ideas influence our perception of our bodies? What has changed over the years? And where are we today?
Underwater rugby is a fascinating niche sport that was supposedly invented in Mülheim an der Ruhr. In Overwater Rugby: Club Darlington e.V., the dance company TachoTinta plays with underwater rugby players on dry land. To do this, the rules have to be changed and new groupings have to be formed – and sometimes the referee also has to be contradicted. Training turns into choreography and the contest turns into a dance.
In addition to his artistic work as a performer, the Australian Damian Rebgetz is also a very good swimmer. In Germany he not only acts on numerous independent and city theatre stages, he has also spent a whole summer working as a lifeguard at a Berlin open-air pool. He has created a musical lecture-performance on the basis of his various working experiences. How do you become a lifeguard in Germany? What rules apply in swimming pools? What is a walk-through pool and how should it be filled? How can you best keep an eye on all the bathers, who is allowed to dive from the diving tower and what does this have to do with theatre? In Mülheim 'Guy Working at a Pool' will be seen in a version specially re-worked for SCHWIMM CITY.
Finally, there will be a foam party with DJ Lenz, songs by Damian Rebgetz and a pop parade by TIGERS' KITCHEN. The performance ‘4ever young’ by HARTMANNMUELLER will be shown again. Corks will pop, endings and new beginnings will be celebrated, and SCHWIMM CITY is transformed into the setting for a banging finale.
Jean-Gaspard Deburau invented modern mime in Paris in 1830. The character of Pierrot enabled him to rise from being a poor immigrant unable to speak French to become a celebrated theatrical star. OLD WHITE CLOWNS tells the story of his life, his art and his time – with total physical commitment and a lot of humour.
Language: German, English and French with German and English subtitles
Physical introduction
1.6., 20:00, with Romi Okewu
2.6., 17:00, with Renato Spardelotto
One hour before the performance begins, the audience is invited to tune in to the performance in a "physical introduction".
This takes place in cooperation with the Centre for Contemporary Dance at the Cologne University of Music and Dance. No registration or prior knowledge required.
Tickets for all Impulse events are also available from our ticket shop.
Max Merker has studied mime. When he plays Pierrot, he makes objects, obstacles and pitfalls appear before the audience’s eyes that do not actually exist. Like the forebears of his genre, he spends a long time acting wordlessly. By contrast, Emma Murray and Téné Ouelgo lend Deburau the voice he never had in public during his lifetime. Speech was forbidden on the stage of his theatre. The censor was afraid of political speeches, while serious theatres were afraid of competition.
Deburau acted for the working class, the poor and for criminals. He felt at ease with them because they could see themselves in him: sad, hungry and without a hope. Always the loser in the end. It was from this self-image that he created the character of Pierrot. And therefore OLD WHITE CLOWNS is also a story about the visible and invisible power structures that still exist today: on stage, in European history and in ourselves.
With: Max Merker, Emma Murray, Téné Ouelgo
Concept, Direction: Max Merker
Concept, Dramaturgy: Martin Bieri
Outside Eye: Viviane Pavillon
Movement Coaching: Emma Murray
Costumes: Nic Tillein
Scenography: Damian Hitz
Lighting: Patrick Hunka
Diversity Advisors: Henri-Michel Yéré, Anisha Imhasly
Musical Advisor: Michel Schröder
Assistant Director, Surtitles: Jarina Müller
Production Manager: Ramun Bernetta
Contact for touring enquiries: Ramun Bernetta, email hidden; JavaScript is required
A production by Max Merker and Bernetta Theaterproduktionen in co-production with the Fabriktheater Rote Fabrik, Zürich and Kleintheater Luzern. In partnership with ThiK, Theater im Kornhaus Baden. With support from the City of Zurich, Culture Department, the Canton of Zurich, Migros Culture Percentage, the Ernst Göhner Stiftung, the Stanley Thomas Johnson Foundation, the Elisabeth Weber-Stiftung and the Walter Haefner Stiftung.
Martin Bieri lives and works in Bern. He is an author, dramaturg and journalist. He studied Theatre Studies and Art History and wrote his Doctorate on contemporary theatre and landscape theory. He has worked as a dramaturg with Luzerner Theater, Theater Neumarkt Zürich, Theater St. Gallen and the independent groups Schauplatz International (Bern/Berlin) and ultra (Geneva/Lucerne). As a playwright, he has regularly collaborated with Ariane von Graffenried and Andri Beyeler. As a journalist, he writes about art, history and football for newspapers and magazines in Switzerland and Germany. His plays and poems have won several literary prizes. He has maintained a long-term collaboration with the director Max Merker. www.martinbieri.net
Max Merker lives in Zürich. He studied Philosophy and German Literature in Berlin and Freiburg im Breisgau, and graduated in Acting and Physical Theatre from Folkwang University in Essen. His graduation piece with the dancer Héloïse Fournier was awarded the Folkwang Prize and shown at numerous festivals. Merker works as an actor and director at city theatres and in the independent sector, for example at Bühnen Bern, Luzerner Theater and the Fabriktheater Rote Fabrik in Zurich. He produces multi-lingual and cross-art form evenings in a range of groupings. His works have been invited to a variety of festivals, including the Swiss Theatertreffen and the Heidelberger Stückemarkt. He has maintained long-term collaborations with the dramaturg Martin Bieri, the actor Aaron Hitz and the production manager Ramun Bernetta. www.bernetta.net/maxmerker
Emma Murray is a dancer and choreographer from New Zealand who lives in Bern. At the age of 19 she was a soloist with the Royal New Zealand Ballet. Since 1997 she has lived and worked in Europe. She danced at Stadttheater Bern for eight years since before becoming a freelance artist working in choreography, theatre, performance and dance. From 2013 to 2015 she was Associated Artist at Dampfzentrale Bern and a YAA! (Young Associated Artist) with Pro Helvetia, which co-produced several of her works. Murray has created many evening-length pieces including ‘My Body is an Island’ (2008), ‘naturalcauses’ (2011), ‘the way you look tonight’ (2014), ‘Motherfuckers’, ‘PARTICIPATION’ (2017) and, in collaboration with the visual artist Latefa Wiersch, ‘nepasdedeux’, ‘MONSTERHOOD’ (2019) and ‘PUDDING CLUB’ (2022). She completed a Masters in Contemporary Art Practice (CAP) at Bern University of the Arts (2020). www.bernetta.net/emmamurray / www.emmamurray.ch
Téné Ouelgo is an actor, educator and drum teacher. From 2002 to 2006 he trained in acting, music and dance and as a theatre educator in Ouagadougou. He came to Germany for the first time in 2009. From 2009 to 2013 he held a range of engagements as a dance, msuci and theatre educator for school and leisure projects in Europe and Africa and as a guest at the Mainfranken Theater Würzburg. From 2013 to 2017 he was a full-time ensemble member at the Theater Altenburg-Gera in Thuringia. He was nominated for the German Theatre Prize Der Faust as Best Performer in 2017. Since 2017 he has lived in Basel and worked freelance. Projects have included the series of readings ‘Africa is no Country’ and the stage play ‘Dr. Ueli’. He was engaged as a performer for the exhibition ‘SUPER – Die zweite Schöpfung’ at the Museum für Kommunikation Bern and in ‘Die Schokoladenwaffenfabrik’ by Philippe Heule at the Rote Fabrik Zurich in 2021. In 2022 he directed and acted in ‘2042 – Ein Spiellabor für Zukünfte’ at Schlachthaus Theater Bern. Ouelgo is a founder member and President of the company Arts sans Frontière and a founder member of Zama Kultur and the Association Art et Développement de Ouagadougou (AADO). www.ouelgo-tene.com
For decades now, public swimming pools in Mülheim an der Ruhr have been killed off through lack of funding or abandoned. 2024 was even in danger of becoming a summer without a single open-air pool. At the same time the market in private pools is booming: those who can afford it are seeking comfort and security in their own gardens.
As a counter proposal to this privatisation of leisure time, the Impulse Theater Festival in association with artists and Ringlokschuppen Ruhr will open a summer pool for eleven days in the MüGa-Park. The group Conte Potuto will construct a pool of dreams: with almost no water, but filled with the visitors’ wishes and ideas. TachoTinta play on dry land with an underwater rugby team, and the Tigers’ Kitchen not only produces fries but also slushy pop songs.
Together with local initiatives and sports clubs, the artists present actions and conversations exploring issues around open-air swimming pools: who is allowed in, who has to stay outside? What sort of encounters are possible here? And which social conflicts can be seen at public pools? SCHWIMM CITY looks the increasing polarisation of society squarely in the eye and counters it with shared pleasure. Because one thing is certain: everyone can agree on the swimming pool snack: fries. They’re vegan, halal, kosher, gluten- and lactose-free.
Entry is free of charge, no registration required.
If you like, bring swimwear and a towel. But all other outfits are just as welcome!
As part of the 'ExtraSchicht' (1.6.) free admission only with registration by 31.5. at stadtprojekt[at]impulsefestival.de.
Thursday, 30.5., open 12:00–20:00
The artists of the Austrian collective Conte Potuto will build and operate SCHWIMM CITY. They take care of the pool, distribute sun loungers and sun shades - an all-round service focussing on the guests' needs. If it was up to Conte Potuto, people should have the right to be idle in public!
TIGERS’ KITCHEN are the actor and chef Nadja Duesterberg and the musician and performer Svea Kischmeier. At SCHWIMM CITY they run a snack bar that is also a radio station. Radio Pommes broadcasts every day online from 14:00 to 18:00 h. At the end of each working day and broadcast, TIGERS’ KITCHEN perform a slushy pop song in their snack bar that they have produced in the course of the day together with their customers.
An act of celebration with fries and ice lollies!
At the "Hellblaue Stunde", or twilight, the open-air pool provides an opportunity for speculation. Swimming pool and water sport experts are invited to come and talk, and to discuss what a pool for everyone might look like and what is needed to create a dream pool of the future.
These twilight talks willl be broadcast live online on Radio Pommes by TIGERS’ KITCHEN. The artists of Conte Potuto will pick up on ideas from the conversations and include these in the process of designing SCHWIMM CITY.
Different body images and clichés come together in the outdoor pool. '4ever young' is a staged fashion show with various bathing and outdoor pool accessories from different decades. Summer pop songs from the 80s and 90s serve as the soundtrack. How do social norms and ideas influence our perception of our bodies? What has changed over the years? And where are we today?
Underwater rugby is a fascinating niche sport that was supposedly invented in Mülheim an der Ruhr. In Overwater Rugby: Club Darlington e.V., the dance company TachoTinta plays with underwater rugby players on dry land. To do this, the rules have to be changed and new groupings have to be formed – and sometimes the referee also has to be contradicted. Training turns into choreography and the contest turns into a dance.
At the end of each working day, TIGERS’ KITCHEN perform a slushy pop song in their snack bar that they have produced in the course of the day together with their customers. Open Mic for all fans of fries and pop
On the opening day of SCHWIMM CITY, Conte Potuto invite you to a concert. The Viennese band AUTOR combines tried-and-trusted punk influences with catchy melodies and cryptic lyrics. Their music combines the rawness of the DIY music scene with nonchalance and plays with the grey areas in between poetry and punk.
Friday, 31.5., open 12:00–18:00
The artists of the Austrian collective Conte Potuto will build and operate SCHWIMM CITY. They take care of the pool, distribute sun loungers and sun shades - an all-round service focussing on the guests' needs. If it was up to Conte Potuto, people should have the right to be idle in public!
TIGERS’ KITCHEN are the actor and chef Nadja Duesterberg and the musician and performer Svea Kischmeier. At SCHWIMM CITY they run a snack bar that is also a radio station. Radio Pommes broadcasts every day online from 14:00 to 18:00 h. At the end of each working day and broadcast, TIGERS’ KITCHEN perform a slushy pop song in their snack bar that they have produced in the course of the day together with their customers.
At the "Hellblaue Stunde", or twilight, the open-air pool provides an opportunity for speculation. Swimming pool and water sport experts are invited to come and talk, and to discuss what a pool for everyone might look like and what is needed to create a dream pool of the future.
These twilight talks willl be broadcast live online on Radio Pommes by TIGERS’ KITCHEN. The artists of Conte Potuto will pick up on ideas from the conversations and include these in the process of designing SCHWIMM CITY.
Different body images and clichés come together in the outdoor pool. '4ever young' is a staged fashion show with various bathing and outdoor pool accessories from different decades. Summer pop songs from the 80s and 90s serve as the soundtrack. How do social norms and ideas influence our perception of our bodies? What has changed over the years? And where are we today?
At the end of each working day, TIGERS’ KITCHEN perform a slushy pop song in their snack bar that they have produced in the course of the day together with their customers. Open Mic for all fans of fries and pop
Saturday, 1.6., 18:00–23:00
SCHWIMM CITY opens as part of 'ExtraSchicht – Die Nacht der Industriekultur'
The 'ExtraSchicht – Night of Industrial Culture' has been staging former industrial plants, museums and historical monuments in the Ruhr region since 2001. Traditionally, the Ringlokschuppen Ruhr is also part of the programme. The programme includes a long night in the SCHWIMM CITY with theatre, comedy, concerts and DJs from 'ExtraSchicht'.
Free admission to SCHWIMM CITY on this day only with registration by 31 May at email hidden; JavaScript is required.
Paid tickets for the entire 'ExtraSchicht' programme with all venues at extraschicht.de.
The artists of the Austrian collective Conte Potuto will build and operate SCHWIMM CITY. They take care of the pool, distribute sun loungers and sun shades - an all-round service focussing on the guests' needs. If it was up to Conte Potuto, people should have the right to be idle in public! TIGERS’ KITCHEN are the actor and chef Nadja Duesterberg and the musician and performer Svea Kischmeier. At SCHWIMM CITY they run a snack bar that is also a radio station.
Different body images and clichés come together in the outdoor pool. '4ever young' is a staged fashion show with various bathing and outdoor pool accessories from different decades. Summer pop songs from the 80s and 90s serve as the soundtrack. How do social norms and ideas influence our perception of our bodies? What has changed over the years? And where are we today?
Underwater rugby is a fascinating niche sport that was supposedly invented in Mülheim an der Ruhr. In Overwater Rugby: Club Darlington e.V., the dance company TachoTinta plays with underwater rugby players on dry land. To do this, the rules have to be changed and new groupings have to be formed - and sometimes the referee also has to be contradicted. Training turns into choreography and the contest turns into a dance.
Sunday, 2.6., open 12:00–18:00 geöffnet
Family Sunday in co-operation with 'Sport im Park', Silent University Ruhr and the vier.zentrale
The artists of the Austrian collective Conte Potuto will build and operate SCHWIMM CITY. They take care of the pool, distribute sun loungers and sun shades - an all-round service focussing on the guests' needs. If it was up to Conte Potuto, people should have the right to be idle in public!
TIGERS’ KITCHEN are the actor and chef Nadja Duesterberg and the musician and performer Svea Kischmeier. At SCHWIMM CITY they run a snack bar that is also a radio station. Radio Pommes broadcasts every day online from 14:00 to 18:00 h. At the end of each working day and broadcast, TIGERS’ KITCHEN perform a slushy pop song in their snack bar that they have produced in the course of the day together with their customers.
How do children imagine the perfect open-air swimming pool? Artists from Mülheim an der Ruhr invite children to paint and make the pool of their dreams with them (or other ideas).
Try-out training session for children. They provide dance-based insights into the fascinating sport of underwater rugby, but without water. What might it feel like underwater when it's already so much fun on the grass? Just come along and join in.
At the "Hellblaue Stunde", or twilight, the open-air pool provides an opportunity for speculation. Swimming pool and water sport experts are invited to come and talk, and to discuss what a pool for everyone might look like and what is needed to create a dream pool of the future.
These twilight talks willl be broadcast live online on Radio Pommes by TIGERS’ KITCHEN. The artists of Conte Potuto will pick up on ideas from the conversations and include these in the process of designing SCHWIMM CITY.
At the end of each working day, TIGERS’ KITCHEN perform a pop song in their snack bar that they have produced in the course of the day together with their customers. On Family Sunday, children and young people in particular are invited to come to the snack bar where they can sing the song and help to arrange it.
Monday, 3.6., open 12:00–18:00
The artists of the Austrian collective Conte Potuto will build and operate SCHWIMM CITY. They take care of the pool, distribute sun loungers and sun shades - an all-round service focussing on the guests' needs. If it was up to Conte Potuto, people should have the right to be idle in public!
TIGERS’ KITCHEN are the actor and chef Nadja Duesterberg and the musician and performer Svea Kischmeier. At SCHWIMM CITY they run a snack bar that is also a radio station. Radio Pommes broadcasts every day online from 14:00 to 18:00 h. At the end of each working day and broadcast, TIGERS’ KITCHEN perform a slushy pop song in their snack bar that they have produced in the course of the day together with their customers.
At the end of each working day, TIGERS’ KITCHEN perform a slushy pop song in their snack bar that they have produced in the course of the day together with their customers. Open Mic for all fans of fries and pop!
Tuesday, 4.6. – Women's Day
9:30–16:00 women only, 16:00–18:00 open for everyone
The artists of the Austrian collective Conte Potuto will build and operate SCHWIMM CITY. They take care of the pool, distribute sun loungers and sun shades – an all-round service focussing on the guests' needs. If it was up to Conte Potuto, people should have the right to be idle in public!
The MUT-Café's international women's group meets on Tuesdays for regular exchanges at the vier.zentrale. On 4 June they will hold their communal breakfast at the MüGa as guests at SCHWIMM CITY.
TIGERS’ KITCHEN are the actor and chef Nadja Duesterberg and the musician and performer Svea Kischmeier. At SCHWIMM CITY they run a snack bar that is also a radio station. Radio Pommes broadcasts every day online from 14:00 to 18:00 h. At the end of each working day and broadcast, TIGERS’ KITCHEN perform a slushy pop song in their snack bar that they have produced in the course of the day together with their customers.
At the "Hellblaue Stunde", or twilight, the open-air pool provides an opportunity for speculation. Swimming pool and water sport experts are invited to come and talk, and to discuss what a pool for everyone might look like and what is needed to create a dream pool of the future.
These twilight talks willl be broadcast live online on Radio Pommes by TIGERS’ KITCHEN. The artists of Conte Potuto will pick up on ideas from the conversations and include these in the process of designing SCHWIMM CITY.
At the end of each working day, TIGERS’ KITCHEN perform a slushy pop song in their snack bar that they have produced in the course of the day together with their customers. Open Mic for all fans of fries and pop!
Wednesday, 5.6., open 12:00–18:00
The artists of the Austrian collective Conte Potuto will build and operate SCHWIMM CITY. They take care of the pool, distribute sun loungers and sun shades - an all-round service focussing on the guests' needs. If it was up to Conte Potuto, people should have the right to be idle in public!
TIGERS’ KITCHEN are the actor and chef Nadja Duesterberg and the musician and performer Svea Kischmeier. At SCHWIMM CITY they run a snack bar that is also a radio station. Radio Pommes broadcasts every day online from 14:00 to 18:00 h. At the end of each working day and broadcast, TIGERS’ KITCHEN perform a slushy pop song in their snack bar that they have produced in the course of the day together with their customers.
At the "Hellblaue Stunde", or twilight, the open-air pool provides an opportunity for speculation. Swimming pool and water sport experts are invited to come and talk, and to discuss what a pool for everyone might look like and what is needed to create a dream pool of the future.
These twilight talks willl be broadcast live online on Radio Pommes by TIGERS’ KITCHEN. The artists of Conte Potuto will pick up on ideas from the conversations and include these in the process of designing SCHWIMM CITY.
At the end of each working day, TIGERS’ KITCHEN perform a slushy pop song in their snack bar that they have produced in the course of the day together with their customers. Open Mic for all fans of fries and pop!
Thursday, 6.6., open 12:00–18:00
The artists of the Austrian collective Conte Potuto will build and operate SCHWIMM CITY. They take care of the pool, distribute sun loungers and sun shades - an all-round service focussing on the guests' needs. If it was up to Conte Potuto, people should have the right to be idle in public!
TIGERS’ KITCHEN are the actor and chef Nadja Duesterberg and the musician and performer Svea Kischmeier. At SCHWIMM CITY they run a snack bar that is also a radio station. Radio Pommes broadcasts every day online from 14:00 to 18:00 h. At the end of each working day and broadcast, TIGERS’ KITCHEN perform a slushy pop song in their snack bar that they have produced in the course of the day together with their customers.
At the "Hellblaue Stunde", or twilight, the open-air pool provides an opportunity for speculation. Swimming pool and water sport experts are invited to come and talk, and to discuss what a pool for everyone might look like and what is needed to create a dream pool of the future.
These twilight talks willl be broadcast live online on Radio Pommes by TIGERS’ KITCHEN. The artists of Conte Potuto will pick up on ideas from the conversations and include these in the process of designing SCHWIMM CITY.
At the end of each working day, TIGERS’ KITCHEN perform a slushy pop song in their snack bar that they have produced in the course of the day together with their customers. Open Mic for all fans of fries and pop!
Friday, 7.6., open 12:00–22:00
The artists of the Austrian collective Conte Potuto will build and operate SCHWIMM CITY. They take care of the pool, distribute sun loungers and sun shades - an all-round service focussing on the guests' needs. If it was up to Conte Potuto, people should have the right to be idle in public!
TIGERS’ KITCHEN are the actor and chef Nadja Duesterberg and the musician and performer Svea Kischmeier. At SCHWIMM CITY they run a snack bar that is also a radio station. Radio Pommes broadcasts every day online from 14:00 to 18:00 h. At the end of each working day and broadcast, TIGERS’ KITCHEN perform a slushy pop song in their snack bar that they have produced in the course of the day together with their customers.
The volunteer-run International Women's Café has been open in Mülheim since 2020 with the support of PLANB Ruhr e.V. and funding from "KOMM-AN NRW". At SCHWIMM CITY the International Women's Café invites everyone, with or without a refugee background, to an open meeting and picnic. Whoever wishes can bring food and drink with them. However, guests without any provisions will also be warmly welcomed.
At the "Hellblaue Stunde", or twilight, the open-air pool provides an opportunity for speculation. Swimming pool and water sport experts are invited to come and talk, and to discuss what a pool for everyone might look like and what is needed to create a dream pool of the future.
These twilight talks willl be broadcast live online on Radio Pommes by TIGERS’ KITCHEN. The artists of Conte Potuto will pick up on ideas from the conversations and include these in the process of designing SCHWIMM CITY.
At the end of each working day, TIGERS’ KITCHEN perform a slushy pop song in their snack bar that they have produced in the course of the day together with their customers. Open Mic for all fans of fries and pop!
Concert and Dance Night for all swimming pool employees, sport swimmers and other keen dancers
Saturday, 8.6., open 12:00–18:00
The artists of the Austrian collective Conte Potuto will build and operate SCHWIMM CITY. They take care of the pool, distribute sun loungers and sun shades - an all-round service focussing on the guests' needs. If it was up to Conte Potuto, people should have the right to be idle in public!
TIGERS’ KITCHEN are the actor and chef Nadja Duesterberg and the musician and performer Svea Kischmeier. At SCHWIMM CITY they run a snack bar that is also a radio station. Radio Pommes broadcasts every day online from 14:00 to 18:00 h. At the end of each working day and broadcast, TIGERS’ KITCHEN perform a slushy pop song in their snack bar that they have produced in the course of the day together with their customers.
In addition to his artistic work as a performer, the Australian Damian Rebgetz is also a very good swimmer. In Germany he not only acts on numerous independent and city theatre stages, he has also spent a whole summer working as a lifeguard at a Berlin open-air pool. He has created a musical lecture-performance on the basis of his various working experiences. How do you become a lifeguard in Germany? What rules apply in swimming pools? What is a walk-through pool and how should it be filled? How can you best keep an eye on all the bathers, who is allowed to dive from the diving tower and what does this have to do with theatre? In Mülheim 'Guy Working at a Pool' will be seen in a version specially re-worked for SCHWIMM CITY.
Different body images and clichés come together in the outdoor pool. '4ever young' is a staged fashion show with various bathing and outdoor pool accessories from different decades. Summer pop songs from the 80s and 90s serve as the soundtrack. How do social norms and ideas influence our perception of our bodies? What has changed over the years? And where are we today?
At the "Hellblaue Stunde", or twilight, the open-air pool provides an opportunity for speculation. Swimming pool and water sport experts are invited to come and talk, and to discuss what a pool for everyone might look like and what is needed to create a dream pool of the future.
These twilight talks willl be broadcast live online on Radio Pommes by TIGERS’ KITCHEN. The artists of Conte Potuto will pick up on ideas from the conversations and include these in the process of designing SCHWIMM CITY.
Underwater rugby is a fascinating niche sport that was supposedly invented in Mülheim an der Ruhr. In Overwater Rugby: Club Darlington e.V., the dance company TachoTinta plays with underwater rugby players on dry land. To do this, the rules have to be changed and new groupings have to be formed – and sometimes the referee also has to be contradicted. Training turns into choreography and the contest turns into a dance.
In addition to his artistic work as a performer, the Australian Damian Rebgetz is also a very good swimmer. In Germany he not only acts on numerous independent and city theatre stages, he has also spent a whole summer working as a lifeguard at a Berlin open-air pool. He has created a musical lecture-performance on the basis of his various working experiences. How do you become a lifeguard in Germany? What rules apply in swimming pools? What is a walk-through pool and how should it be filled? How can you best keep an eye on all the bathers, who is allowed to dive from the diving tower and what does this have to do with theatre? In Mülheim 'Guy Working at a Pool' will be seen in a version specially re-worked for SCHWIMM CITY.
At the end of each working day, TIGERS’ KITCHEN perform a slushy pop song in their snack bar that they have produced in the course of the day together with their customers. Open Mic for all fans of fries and pop!
Sunday, 9.6., open 12:00–22:00
The artists of the Austrian collective Conte Potuto will build and operate SCHWIMM CITY. They take care of the pool, distribute sun loungers and sun shades - an all-round service focussing on the guests' needs. If it was up to Conte Potuto, people should have the right to be idle in public!
TIGERS’ KITCHEN are the actor and chef Nadja Duesterberg and the musician and performer Svea Kischmeier. At SCHWIMM CITY they run a snack bar that is also a radio station. Radio Pommes broadcasts every day online from 14:00 to 18:00 h. At the end of each working day and broadcast, TIGERS’ KITCHEN perform a slushy pop song in their snack bar that they have produced in the course of the day together with their customers.
In addition to his artistic work as a performer, the Australian Damian Rebgetz is also a very good swimmer. In Germany he not only acts on numerous independent and city theatre stages, he has also spent a whole summer working as a lifeguard at a Berlin open-air pool. He has created a musical lecture-performance on the basis of his various working experiences. How do you become a lifeguard in Germany? What rules apply in swimming pools? What is a walk-through pool and how should it be filled? How can you best keep an eye on all the bathers, who is allowed to dive from the diving tower and what does this have to do with theatre? In Mülheim 'Guy Working at a Pool' will be seen in a version specially re-worked for SCHWIMM CITY.
Different body images and clichés come together in the outdoor pool. '4ever young' is a staged fashion show with various bathing and outdoor pool accessories from different decades. Summer pop songs from the 80s and 90s serve as the soundtrack. How do social norms and ideas influence our perception of our bodies? What has changed over the years? And where are we today?
Underwater rugby is a fascinating niche sport that was supposedly invented in Mülheim an der Ruhr. In Overwater Rugby: Club Darlington e.V., the dance company TachoTinta plays with underwater rugby players on dry land. To do this, the rules have to be changed and new groupings have to be formed – and sometimes the referee also has to be contradicted. Training turns into choreography and the contest turns into a dance.
In addition to his artistic work as a performer, the Australian Damian Rebgetz is also a very good swimmer. In Germany he not only acts on numerous independent and city theatre stages, he has also spent a whole summer working as a lifeguard at a Berlin open-air pool. He has created a musical lecture-performance on the basis of his various working experiences. How do you become a lifeguard in Germany? What rules apply in swimming pools? What is a walk-through pool and how should it be filled? How can you best keep an eye on all the bathers, who is allowed to dive from the diving tower and what does this have to do with theatre? In Mülheim 'Guy Working at a Pool' will be seen in a version specially re-worked for SCHWIMM CITY.
Finally, there will be a foam party with DJ Lenz, songs by Damian Rebgetz and a pop parade by TIGERS' KITCHEN. The performance ‘4ever young’ by HARTMANNMUELLER will be shown again. Corks will pop, endings and new beginnings will be celebrated, and SCHWIMM CITY is transformed into the setting for a banging finale.
For decades now, public swimming pools in Mülheim an der Ruhr have been killed off through lack of funding or abandoned. 2024 was even in danger of becoming a summer without a single open-air pool. At the same time the market in private pools is booming: those who can afford it are seeking comfort and security in their own gardens.
As a counter proposal to this privatisation of leisure time, the Impulse Theater Festival in association with artists and Ringlokschuppen Ruhr will open a summer pool for eleven days in the MüGa-Park. The group Conte Potuto will construct a pool of dreams: with almost no water, but filled with the visitors’ wishes and ideas. TachoTinta play on dry land with an underwater rugby team, and the Tigers’ Kitchen not only produces fries but also slushy pop songs.
Together with local initiatives and sports clubs, the artists present actions and conversations exploring issues around open-air swimming pools: who is allowed in, who has to stay outside? What sort of encounters are possible here? And which social conflicts can be seen at public pools? SCHWIMM CITY looks the increasing polarisation of society squarely in the eye and counters it with shared pleasure. Because one thing is certain: everyone can agree on the swimming pool snack: fries. They’re vegan, halal, kosher, gluten- and lactose-free.
Entry is free of charge, no registration required.
If you like, bring swimwear and a towel. But all other outfits are just as welcome!
As part of the 'ExtraSchicht' (1.6.) free admission only with registration by 31.5. at stadtprojekt[at]impulsefestival.de.
Thursday, 30.5., open 12:00–20:00
The artists of the Austrian collective Conte Potuto will build and operate SCHWIMM CITY. They take care of the pool, distribute sun loungers and sun shades - an all-round service focussing on the guests' needs. If it was up to Conte Potuto, people should have the right to be idle in public!
TIGERS’ KITCHEN are the actor and chef Nadja Duesterberg and the musician and performer Svea Kischmeier. At SCHWIMM CITY they run a snack bar that is also a radio station. Radio Pommes broadcasts every day online from 14:00 to 18:00 h. At the end of each working day and broadcast, TIGERS’ KITCHEN perform a slushy pop song in their snack bar that they have produced in the course of the day together with their customers.
An act of celebration with fries and ice lollies!
At the "Hellblaue Stunde", or twilight, the open-air pool provides an opportunity for speculation. Swimming pool and water sport experts are invited to come and talk, and to discuss what a pool for everyone might look like and what is needed to create a dream pool of the future.
These twilight talks willl be broadcast live online on Radio Pommes by TIGERS’ KITCHEN. The artists of Conte Potuto will pick up on ideas from the conversations and include these in the process of designing SCHWIMM CITY.
Different body images and clichés come together in the outdoor pool. '4ever young' is a staged fashion show with various bathing and outdoor pool accessories from different decades. Summer pop songs from the 80s and 90s serve as the soundtrack. How do social norms and ideas influence our perception of our bodies? What has changed over the years? And where are we today?
Underwater rugby is a fascinating niche sport that was supposedly invented in Mülheim an der Ruhr. In Overwater Rugby: Club Darlington e.V., the dance company TachoTinta plays with underwater rugby players on dry land. To do this, the rules have to be changed and new groupings have to be formed – and sometimes the referee also has to be contradicted. Training turns into choreography and the contest turns into a dance.
At the end of each working day, TIGERS’ KITCHEN perform a slushy pop song in their snack bar that they have produced in the course of the day together with their customers. Open Mic for all fans of fries and pop
On the opening day of SCHWIMM CITY, Conte Potuto invite you to a concert. The Viennese band AUTOR combines tried-and-trusted punk influences with catchy melodies and cryptic lyrics. Their music combines the rawness of the DIY music scene with nonchalance and plays with the grey areas in between poetry and punk.
Friday, 31.5., open 12:00–18:00
The artists of the Austrian collective Conte Potuto will build and operate SCHWIMM CITY. They take care of the pool, distribute sun loungers and sun shades - an all-round service focussing on the guests' needs. If it was up to Conte Potuto, people should have the right to be idle in public!
TIGERS’ KITCHEN are the actor and chef Nadja Duesterberg and the musician and performer Svea Kischmeier. At SCHWIMM CITY they run a snack bar that is also a radio station. Radio Pommes broadcasts every day online from 14:00 to 18:00 h. At the end of each working day and broadcast, TIGERS’ KITCHEN perform a slushy pop song in their snack bar that they have produced in the course of the day together with their customers.
At the "Hellblaue Stunde", or twilight, the open-air pool provides an opportunity for speculation. Swimming pool and water sport experts are invited to come and talk, and to discuss what a pool for everyone might look like and what is needed to create a dream pool of the future.
These twilight talks willl be broadcast live online on Radio Pommes by TIGERS’ KITCHEN. The artists of Conte Potuto will pick up on ideas from the conversations and include these in the process of designing SCHWIMM CITY.
Different body images and clichés come together in the outdoor pool. '4ever young' is a staged fashion show with various bathing and outdoor pool accessories from different decades. Summer pop songs from the 80s and 90s serve as the soundtrack. How do social norms and ideas influence our perception of our bodies? What has changed over the years? And where are we today?
At the end of each working day, TIGERS’ KITCHEN perform a slushy pop song in their snack bar that they have produced in the course of the day together with their customers. Open Mic for all fans of fries and pop
Saturday, 1.6., 18:00–23:00
SCHWIMM CITY opens as part of 'ExtraSchicht – Die Nacht der Industriekultur'
The 'ExtraSchicht – Night of Industrial Culture' has been staging former industrial plants, museums and historical monuments in the Ruhr region since 2001. Traditionally, the Ringlokschuppen Ruhr is also part of the programme. The programme includes a long night in the SCHWIMM CITY with theatre, comedy, concerts and DJs from 'ExtraSchicht'.
Free admission to SCHWIMM CITY on this day only with registration by 31 May at email hidden; JavaScript is required.
Paid tickets for the entire 'ExtraSchicht' programme with all venues at extraschicht.de.
The artists of the Austrian collective Conte Potuto will build and operate SCHWIMM CITY. They take care of the pool, distribute sun loungers and sun shades - an all-round service focussing on the guests' needs. If it was up to Conte Potuto, people should have the right to be idle in public! TIGERS’ KITCHEN are the actor and chef Nadja Duesterberg and the musician and performer Svea Kischmeier. At SCHWIMM CITY they run a snack bar that is also a radio station.
Different body images and clichés come together in the outdoor pool. '4ever young' is a staged fashion show with various bathing and outdoor pool accessories from different decades. Summer pop songs from the 80s and 90s serve as the soundtrack. How do social norms and ideas influence our perception of our bodies? What has changed over the years? And where are we today?
Underwater rugby is a fascinating niche sport that was supposedly invented in Mülheim an der Ruhr. In Overwater Rugby: Club Darlington e.V., the dance company TachoTinta plays with underwater rugby players on dry land. To do this, the rules have to be changed and new groupings have to be formed - and sometimes the referee also has to be contradicted. Training turns into choreography and the contest turns into a dance.
Sunday, 2.6., open 12:00–18:00 geöffnet
Family Sunday in co-operation with 'Sport im Park', Silent University Ruhr and the vier.zentrale
The artists of the Austrian collective Conte Potuto will build and operate SCHWIMM CITY. They take care of the pool, distribute sun loungers and sun shades - an all-round service focussing on the guests' needs. If it was up to Conte Potuto, people should have the right to be idle in public!
TIGERS’ KITCHEN are the actor and chef Nadja Duesterberg and the musician and performer Svea Kischmeier. At SCHWIMM CITY they run a snack bar that is also a radio station. Radio Pommes broadcasts every day online from 14:00 to 18:00 h. At the end of each working day and broadcast, TIGERS’ KITCHEN perform a slushy pop song in their snack bar that they have produced in the course of the day together with their customers.
How do children imagine the perfect open-air swimming pool? Artists from Mülheim an der Ruhr invite children to paint and make the pool of their dreams with them (or other ideas).
Try-out training session for children. They provide dance-based insights into the fascinating sport of underwater rugby, but without water. What might it feel like underwater when it's already so much fun on the grass? Just come along and join in.
At the "Hellblaue Stunde", or twilight, the open-air pool provides an opportunity for speculation. Swimming pool and water sport experts are invited to come and talk, and to discuss what a pool for everyone might look like and what is needed to create a dream pool of the future.
These twilight talks willl be broadcast live online on Radio Pommes by TIGERS’ KITCHEN. The artists of Conte Potuto will pick up on ideas from the conversations and include these in the process of designing SCHWIMM CITY.
At the end of each working day, TIGERS’ KITCHEN perform a pop song in their snack bar that they have produced in the course of the day together with their customers. On Family Sunday, children and young people in particular are invited to come to the snack bar where they can sing the song and help to arrange it.
Monday, 3.6., open 12:00–18:00
The artists of the Austrian collective Conte Potuto will build and operate SCHWIMM CITY. They take care of the pool, distribute sun loungers and sun shades - an all-round service focussing on the guests' needs. If it was up to Conte Potuto, people should have the right to be idle in public!
TIGERS’ KITCHEN are the actor and chef Nadja Duesterberg and the musician and performer Svea Kischmeier. At SCHWIMM CITY they run a snack bar that is also a radio station. Radio Pommes broadcasts every day online from 14:00 to 18:00 h. At the end of each working day and broadcast, TIGERS’ KITCHEN perform a slushy pop song in their snack bar that they have produced in the course of the day together with their customers.
At the end of each working day, TIGERS’ KITCHEN perform a slushy pop song in their snack bar that they have produced in the course of the day together with their customers. Open Mic for all fans of fries and pop!
Tuesday, 4.6. – Women's Day
9:30–16:00 women only, 16:00–18:00 open for everyone
The artists of the Austrian collective Conte Potuto will build and operate SCHWIMM CITY. They take care of the pool, distribute sun loungers and sun shades – an all-round service focussing on the guests' needs. If it was up to Conte Potuto, people should have the right to be idle in public!
The MUT-Café's international women's group meets on Tuesdays for regular exchanges at the vier.zentrale. On 4 June they will hold their communal breakfast at the MüGa as guests at SCHWIMM CITY.
TIGERS’ KITCHEN are the actor and chef Nadja Duesterberg and the musician and performer Svea Kischmeier. At SCHWIMM CITY they run a snack bar that is also a radio station. Radio Pommes broadcasts every day online from 14:00 to 18:00 h. At the end of each working day and broadcast, TIGERS’ KITCHEN perform a slushy pop song in their snack bar that they have produced in the course of the day together with their customers.
At the "Hellblaue Stunde", or twilight, the open-air pool provides an opportunity for speculation. Swimming pool and water sport experts are invited to come and talk, and to discuss what a pool for everyone might look like and what is needed to create a dream pool of the future.
These twilight talks willl be broadcast live online on Radio Pommes by TIGERS’ KITCHEN. The artists of Conte Potuto will pick up on ideas from the conversations and include these in the process of designing SCHWIMM CITY.
At the end of each working day, TIGERS’ KITCHEN perform a slushy pop song in their snack bar that they have produced in the course of the day together with their customers. Open Mic for all fans of fries and pop!
Wednesday, 5.6., open 12:00–18:00
The artists of the Austrian collective Conte Potuto will build and operate SCHWIMM CITY. They take care of the pool, distribute sun loungers and sun shades - an all-round service focussing on the guests' needs. If it was up to Conte Potuto, people should have the right to be idle in public!
TIGERS’ KITCHEN are the actor and chef Nadja Duesterberg and the musician and performer Svea Kischmeier. At SCHWIMM CITY they run a snack bar that is also a radio station. Radio Pommes broadcasts every day online from 14:00 to 18:00 h. At the end of each working day and broadcast, TIGERS’ KITCHEN perform a slushy pop song in their snack bar that they have produced in the course of the day together with their customers.
At the "Hellblaue Stunde", or twilight, the open-air pool provides an opportunity for speculation. Swimming pool and water sport experts are invited to come and talk, and to discuss what a pool for everyone might look like and what is needed to create a dream pool of the future.
These twilight talks willl be broadcast live online on Radio Pommes by TIGERS’ KITCHEN. The artists of Conte Potuto will pick up on ideas from the conversations and include these in the process of designing SCHWIMM CITY.
At the end of each working day, TIGERS’ KITCHEN perform a slushy pop song in their snack bar that they have produced in the course of the day together with their customers. Open Mic for all fans of fries and pop!
Thursday, 6.6., open 12:00–18:00
The artists of the Austrian collective Conte Potuto will build and operate SCHWIMM CITY. They take care of the pool, distribute sun loungers and sun shades - an all-round service focussing on the guests' needs. If it was up to Conte Potuto, people should have the right to be idle in public!
TIGERS’ KITCHEN are the actor and chef Nadja Duesterberg and the musician and performer Svea Kischmeier. At SCHWIMM CITY they run a snack bar that is also a radio station. Radio Pommes broadcasts every day online from 14:00 to 18:00 h. At the end of each working day and broadcast, TIGERS’ KITCHEN perform a slushy pop song in their snack bar that they have produced in the course of the day together with their customers.
At the "Hellblaue Stunde", or twilight, the open-air pool provides an opportunity for speculation. Swimming pool and water sport experts are invited to come and talk, and to discuss what a pool for everyone might look like and what is needed to create a dream pool of the future.
These twilight talks willl be broadcast live online on Radio Pommes by TIGERS’ KITCHEN. The artists of Conte Potuto will pick up on ideas from the conversations and include these in the process of designing SCHWIMM CITY.
At the end of each working day, TIGERS’ KITCHEN perform a slushy pop song in their snack bar that they have produced in the course of the day together with their customers. Open Mic for all fans of fries and pop!
Friday, 7.6., open 12:00–22:00
The artists of the Austrian collective Conte Potuto will build and operate SCHWIMM CITY. They take care of the pool, distribute sun loungers and sun shades - an all-round service focussing on the guests' needs. If it was up to Conte Potuto, people should have the right to be idle in public!
TIGERS’ KITCHEN are the actor and chef Nadja Duesterberg and the musician and performer Svea Kischmeier. At SCHWIMM CITY they run a snack bar that is also a radio station. Radio Pommes broadcasts every day online from 14:00 to 18:00 h. At the end of each working day and broadcast, TIGERS’ KITCHEN perform a slushy pop song in their snack bar that they have produced in the course of the day together with their customers.
The volunteer-run International Women's Café has been open in Mülheim since 2020 with the support of PLANB Ruhr e.V. and funding from "KOMM-AN NRW". At SCHWIMM CITY the International Women's Café invites everyone, with or without a refugee background, to an open meeting and picnic. Whoever wishes can bring food and drink with them. However, guests without any provisions will also be warmly welcomed.
At the "Hellblaue Stunde", or twilight, the open-air pool provides an opportunity for speculation. Swimming pool and water sport experts are invited to come and talk, and to discuss what a pool for everyone might look like and what is needed to create a dream pool of the future.
These twilight talks willl be broadcast live online on Radio Pommes by TIGERS’ KITCHEN. The artists of Conte Potuto will pick up on ideas from the conversations and include these in the process of designing SCHWIMM CITY.
At the end of each working day, TIGERS’ KITCHEN perform a slushy pop song in their snack bar that they have produced in the course of the day together with their customers. Open Mic for all fans of fries and pop!
Concert and Dance Night for all swimming pool employees, sport swimmers and other keen dancers
Saturday, 8.6., open 12:00–18:00
The artists of the Austrian collective Conte Potuto will build and operate SCHWIMM CITY. They take care of the pool, distribute sun loungers and sun shades - an all-round service focussing on the guests' needs. If it was up to Conte Potuto, people should have the right to be idle in public!
TIGERS’ KITCHEN are the actor and chef Nadja Duesterberg and the musician and performer Svea Kischmeier. At SCHWIMM CITY they run a snack bar that is also a radio station. Radio Pommes broadcasts every day online from 14:00 to 18:00 h. At the end of each working day and broadcast, TIGERS’ KITCHEN perform a slushy pop song in their snack bar that they have produced in the course of the day together with their customers.
In addition to his artistic work as a performer, the Australian Damian Rebgetz is also a very good swimmer. In Germany he not only acts on numerous independent and city theatre stages, he has also spent a whole summer working as a lifeguard at a Berlin open-air pool. He has created a musical lecture-performance on the basis of his various working experiences. How do you become a lifeguard in Germany? What rules apply in swimming pools? What is a walk-through pool and how should it be filled? How can you best keep an eye on all the bathers, who is allowed to dive from the diving tower and what does this have to do with theatre? In Mülheim 'Guy Working at a Pool' will be seen in a version specially re-worked for SCHWIMM CITY.
Different body images and clichés come together in the outdoor pool. '4ever young' is a staged fashion show with various bathing and outdoor pool accessories from different decades. Summer pop songs from the 80s and 90s serve as the soundtrack. How do social norms and ideas influence our perception of our bodies? What has changed over the years? And where are we today?
At the "Hellblaue Stunde", or twilight, the open-air pool provides an opportunity for speculation. Swimming pool and water sport experts are invited to come and talk, and to discuss what a pool for everyone might look like and what is needed to create a dream pool of the future.
These twilight talks willl be broadcast live online on Radio Pommes by TIGERS’ KITCHEN. The artists of Conte Potuto will pick up on ideas from the conversations and include these in the process of designing SCHWIMM CITY.
Underwater rugby is a fascinating niche sport that was supposedly invented in Mülheim an der Ruhr. In Overwater Rugby: Club Darlington e.V., the dance company TachoTinta plays with underwater rugby players on dry land. To do this, the rules have to be changed and new groupings have to be formed – and sometimes the referee also has to be contradicted. Training turns into choreography and the contest turns into a dance.
In addition to his artistic work as a performer, the Australian Damian Rebgetz is also a very good swimmer. In Germany he not only acts on numerous independent and city theatre stages, he has also spent a whole summer working as a lifeguard at a Berlin open-air pool. He has created a musical lecture-performance on the basis of his various working experiences. How do you become a lifeguard in Germany? What rules apply in swimming pools? What is a walk-through pool and how should it be filled? How can you best keep an eye on all the bathers, who is allowed to dive from the diving tower and what does this have to do with theatre? In Mülheim 'Guy Working at a Pool' will be seen in a version specially re-worked for SCHWIMM CITY.
At the end of each working day, TIGERS’ KITCHEN perform a slushy pop song in their snack bar that they have produced in the course of the day together with their customers. Open Mic for all fans of fries and pop!
Sunday, 9.6., open 12:00–22:00
The artists of the Austrian collective Conte Potuto will build and operate SCHWIMM CITY. They take care of the pool, distribute sun loungers and sun shades - an all-round service focussing on the guests' needs. If it was up to Conte Potuto, people should have the right to be idle in public!
TIGERS’ KITCHEN are the actor and chef Nadja Duesterberg and the musician and performer Svea Kischmeier. At SCHWIMM CITY they run a snack bar that is also a radio station. Radio Pommes broadcasts every day online from 14:00 to 18:00 h. At the end of each working day and broadcast, TIGERS’ KITCHEN perform a slushy pop song in their snack bar that they have produced in the course of the day together with their customers.
In addition to his artistic work as a performer, the Australian Damian Rebgetz is also a very good swimmer. In Germany he not only acts on numerous independent and city theatre stages, he has also spent a whole summer working as a lifeguard at a Berlin open-air pool. He has created a musical lecture-performance on the basis of his various working experiences. How do you become a lifeguard in Germany? What rules apply in swimming pools? What is a walk-through pool and how should it be filled? How can you best keep an eye on all the bathers, who is allowed to dive from the diving tower and what does this have to do with theatre? In Mülheim 'Guy Working at a Pool' will be seen in a version specially re-worked for SCHWIMM CITY.
Different body images and clichés come together in the outdoor pool. '4ever young' is a staged fashion show with various bathing and outdoor pool accessories from different decades. Summer pop songs from the 80s and 90s serve as the soundtrack. How do social norms and ideas influence our perception of our bodies? What has changed over the years? And where are we today?
Underwater rugby is a fascinating niche sport that was supposedly invented in Mülheim an der Ruhr. In Overwater Rugby: Club Darlington e.V., the dance company TachoTinta plays with underwater rugby players on dry land. To do this, the rules have to be changed and new groupings have to be formed – and sometimes the referee also has to be contradicted. Training turns into choreography and the contest turns into a dance.
In addition to his artistic work as a performer, the Australian Damian Rebgetz is also a very good swimmer. In Germany he not only acts on numerous independent and city theatre stages, he has also spent a whole summer working as a lifeguard at a Berlin open-air pool. He has created a musical lecture-performance on the basis of his various working experiences. How do you become a lifeguard in Germany? What rules apply in swimming pools? What is a walk-through pool and how should it be filled? How can you best keep an eye on all the bathers, who is allowed to dive from the diving tower and what does this have to do with theatre? In Mülheim 'Guy Working at a Pool' will be seen in a version specially re-worked for SCHWIMM CITY.
Finally, there will be a foam party with DJ Lenz, songs by Damian Rebgetz and a pop parade by TIGERS' KITCHEN. The performance ‘4ever young’ by HARTMANNMUELLER will be shown again. Corks will pop, endings and new beginnings will be celebrated, and SCHWIMM CITY is transformed into the setting for a banging finale.
Vienna during the Second World War: the audience follows the fate of eight homosexuals who suffered repression and persecution under the Nazi regime. Moving breathlessly from one precisely-detailed room to the next, alternating between victims and perpetrators. However, no one can see all 160 of these nightmarish scenes: everyone has their own individual route.
Dates:
30.05., 19:00–22:00
31.05., 19:00–22:00
01.06., 19:00–22:00
04.06., 17:30–20:30
05.06., 17:30–20:30
06.06., 17:30–20:30
Venue: brut nordwest, Vienna (Austria)
Language: German
Tickets are available from brut wien.
The promenade starts at the heart of its setting: in the canteen of a porcelain factory. At night this turns into a secret shebeen, a safe place for homosexuals and trans people to meet. But the Nazis soon get wind of their activities …
From here the audience have to decide for themselves which of the two dozen characters they want to follow through the labyrinth of darkened rooms and when they want to swap to the next one. The audience enters a vortex of fiction and reality. This principle has made Nesterval stars of the Viennese theatre scene: they make theatre for people who think theatre is actually too boring. Immersive settings in disused buildings immediately involve the public and create experiences that are addictive. In their home city, Nesterval’s plays are sold out within minutes.
But the subject is serious: „Der Rosa Winkel – Die Geschichte der Namenlosen“, a revised version of DIE NAMENLOSEN, is both a memorial and a warning. Its historical narrative predetermines how the production will turn out: it begins sadly and rapidly becomes desperate. An evening of theatre that has after effects.
“The Viennese company Nesterval once again draws its audience into an unsettling story. They don’t just stare but share the thoughts, lives and emotions of the characters.” Margarete Affenzeller, Der Standard
Artistic Director, Direction: Martin Finnland
Book: Teresa Löfberg
Stage Design: Andrea Konrad
Costume Design: Dritan Kosovrasti
Choreography: Marcelo Doño
Dramaturgy: Tove Grün
Assistant Director: Laura Athanasiadis
Co-Authors: Martin Finnland, Gisa Fellerer, Lorenz Tröbinger
Co-Conceiver, Applications, Archive: Martin Walanka
Production: Emilie Kleinszig, Sabine Anders
Secondary Direction: Lorenz Tröbinger
Technical Director: Lukas “Lupo” Saller
Set Construction: Andreas Holzmann (Vienna Decoration Company), Walter Winkelmüller
Composition Songs and Score: Julian Muldoon
Song Lyrics: Sarah Muldoon
Sound Design: Alkis Vlassakakis
Assistant Play Development: Gisa Fellerer
Research Advisors: Andreas Brunner, Jürgen Pettinger
Magic Consultant: Raphael Macho
Design Team: Ruth Grau, Willy Mutzenpachner, Milo Marx, Lorenz Hötzeneder
Graphics: Rita Brandneulinger
Website: Gisa Fellerer
Communications: Christopher Wurmdobler
Photography: Alexandra Thompson
Trailer: Sabine Anders (Director), Lukas Grubba (Camera), Sabrina Winkler (Editor, Grading)
Co-operations: Lukas Kirisits
Bookkeeping, Office: Doris Panzer
Technicians: Plan B, Till Gatermann
Stage Management: Ela Lankes, Sabine Anders, Sebastian Kieberl
Bar: Luki Kirisits, Markus Gorfer
Contact for touring enquiries: Martin Finnland, email hidden; JavaScript is required
With: Christopher Wurmdobler, Martin Finnland, Gisa Fellerer, Chiara Seide, Stefan Pauser, Mio Riedl, Romy Hrubeš, Willy Mutzenpachner, Rita Brandneulinger, Johannes Scheutz, Sven Diestel, Gellert Gerson Butter, Martin Walanka, Laura Hermann, Aston Matters, Lorenz Tröbinger, Peter Kraus, Julia Fuchs, Alkis Vlassakakis, Hisham Morscher, Ela Lankes, Sabine Anders, Sebastian Kieberl, Denice Bourbon, Simon Stockinger, Anne Wieben, Norbert Fiedler, Alexandra Thompson, Bernhard Hablé, Eva Deutsch, Jürgen Pettinger, Luki Kirisits, Markus Gorfer
Special thanks to Peter Hörmanseder (sound recordings), Peter Holub, Johannes Felber and the Friends of Nesterval (especially Andrea and Valerie Lenk, Andreas Kauba, Clemens and Katharina Pallitsch, Edmund Weninger, Kaya Alina Knapp, Maria Sibilia, Markus Kellner, Martin Hinterndorfer, Michael Brandtner and Michael Marker) and also to Nikolaus Vogler (PKHV Attorneys at Law), René Lipkovich (Siart Lipkovich & Team) and Helmut Patterer (PRBS Patterer e.U.).
With generous support from the City of Vienna Department of Culture (MA7), the Austrian Federal Ministry for Arts, Culture, the Civil Service and Sport, the National Fund of the Republic of Austria and the Future Fund of the Republic of Austria as well as Vienna Decoration Company, Magenta, ZANTHO, Pedacola, Trumer Privatbrauerei, Vöslauer, Mietmöbel Föhr.
Nesterval sees itself as a queer folk theatre that translates, overwrites and deconstructs classics of literary and theatre history into the present. Each production is centred around a delight in play, the creation of a space for theatrical experiences and the inclusion of the audience in immersive theatre. Room for interactive manoeuvre is created through empathy, through surprising casting choices and also through conversations after the show. Nesterval consistently foregrounds a queer technique of self-empowerment, in which the pleasurable level of play always has a political dimension, raising and processing socio-political issues. The plays are always based on epoch-making experiences within the dynasty of the fictitious Nesterval family. All of the more than 25 productions so far been presented in Austria and internationally have been site-specific in nature and made reference to the cultural, social and historical background of each particular venue. The ensemble consists of around 20 performers, drag artists and actors who tell the history of the Nesterval family in a variety of combinations. Nesterval has already been nominated for Vienna’s Nestroy Theatre Prize on three occasions, most recently in 2023 for DIE NAMENLOSEN. Nesterval won a Nestroy Prize in 2020 for ‘Der Kreisky Test’. The Hamburg version of DIE NAMENLOSEN was shortlisted for the Nachtkritik Theatertreffen 2024.
Smiley is the first trans woman in India who has been able to get the name and gender in her passport changed. But she wanted more: a sense of belonging, justice and protection from hostility. In 2018 she fled the strengthening Hindu fascism for Switzerland. Personable, approachable and full of humour, she takes the audience along on her journey to freedom.
Language: German and English with German and English surtitles
Tickets for all Impulse events are also available from our ticket shop.
Smiley shares her story in order to give other people courage. She tells us how being an activist enabled her to open doors for her Indian trans sisters. How she begged in the streets to pay for her first gender reassignment operation. Towards the end, Smiley stands in the spotlight, wrapped in a golden gown. She spreads out her arms and imagines flying above the stage. The hungry caterpillar that she always talks of with a chuckle has turned into a butterfly. She has achieved a great deal of what she has fought for. But how will the butterfly pay its bills if it doesn’t always want to live off social security?
Smiley’s life story is full of highs and lows. In projections she shows photos of her new boyfriend in Switzerland, but also hate posts from people who threaten to rape and murder her because she has published a photo of herself in a bra. She tells of pain and shows her scars. And she makes the audience laugh over and over again.
Artistic Direction and Performance: Living Smile Vidya
Mentoring: Marcel Schwald
Video: Moritz Flachsmann
Costumes: Diana Ammann
Costumes Intern: Lucia Müller
Sound: Silvan Koch
Voice on Video: Suzí Feliz Das Neves
Subtitles: Anton Kuzema
Lighting, Technical Direction: Thomas Kohler
Artistic Support: Beatrice Fleischlin
Production: Das Theaterkolleg (Mirjam Berger, Christina Teuber, Patric Gehrig)
Contact for touring enquiries: Mirjam Berger, Das Theaterkolleg, email hidden; JavaScript is required
A co-production between Treibstoff Theatertage Basel, Tojo Theater, Bern and Südpol, Lucerne. Funded by City of Bern Culture, the Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia, the Albert Koechlin Stiftung, the Ruth und Paul Wallach-Stiftung and the Schweizerische Interpretenstiftung SIS.
Diana Ammann lives in Basel and works as a freelance costume designer. She studied Fashion Design at Basel Academy of Art and Design. She then spent two years working as a Costume Assistant at the Münchner Kammerspiele. She has worked as a self-employed costume designer for theatre and film since 2008. dianammann.blogspot.com
Moritz Flachsmann studied Animation at Lucerne University and works as a sound editor, editor, cameraman and animator. He produces installations, video productions, live visuals, events and concepts with his collective packungsbeilage. Flachsmann lives in Basel and works internationally. www.packungsbeilage.tv
In her performances Beatrice Fleischlin attempts to formulate an in-between existence: her stage figures oscillate between autobiography and fiction. She devises performance works in collaboration with a range of artists and works on projects by colleagues as a supportive accomplice. She has maintained a long-term collaboration with Anja Meser. In 2021 fleischlin/meser was presented with a swiss performing arts award by the Federal Ministry of Culture. www.produktionsdock.ch/en/artists/beatrice-fleischlin
Silvan Koch lives in Lucerne and works as a musician, composer and pianist in the independent theatre and film scene. He has composed the music for works including ‘Sex-Stück’ (Beatrice Fleischlin) and numerous films. www.silvankoch.ch
Living Smile Vidya was born in India and is an actress, hospital clown and author. She was the first trans woman in India to be legally allowed to change her name and gender. In 2014 she was awarded a scholarship to study at the International School of Performing Arts in London, after which she founded India’s first trans theatre collective Panmai Theatre in Chennai. Since 2018 Living Smile Vidya has lived in Eschenbach, having fled to Switzerland after attempts were made on her life in response to her political activities. https://youtu.be/8Mq3xy6w_V8 / https://vimeo.com/755149666
Marcel Schwald lives in Basel and works as a freelance theatre director, dramaturg and performer. His works have been presented at theatres and festivals in Switzerland and beyond. Since 2019 he has been a full-time member of the performance collective Reines Prochaines & Friends, which won the Basel Culture Prize for 2022. www.marcelschwald.com
Das Theaterkolleg is a Central Swiss production office for theatre, dance and performance based in Lucerne that was founded in 2022 by seven Lucerne independent collectives. Das Theaterkolleg is currently run by Mirjam Berger and Patric Gehrig.
At the centre of this happening is a Beetle. Like Gregor Samsa in Kafka’s short story of the same title, it too becomes the target of aggression and violence. Or maybe not? The audience decides for itself how far it wants to go.
Language: none spoken, German and English surtitles
Acoustic amplification through induction loop for visitors with hearing aids
4.6. after the performance: interactive audience discussion in German
Tickets for all Impulse events are also available from our ticket shop.
Manuel Gerst views ‘Metamorphosis’ as a story about disability – about dealing with the deformed other. In the beginning the Samsa family still sympathises with Gregor, who one morning finds he has taken on the form of a giant beetle. But soon their life together is dominated by alienation, violence and indifference.
Do not expect this stage version to be a faithful adaptation. The beetle occupies the centre of a group dynamic that can take a different turn in each performance. Let he who is without sin cast the first apple.
“Here again, at last, is an evening in the theatre that is worth thinking about for a long time. And that should definitely be celebrated.” Patrick Wildermann, Tagesspiegel
Concept, Direction: Manuel Gerst
Dramaturgy: Matthias Meppelink
Artistic Collaborator, Music: Mark Schröppel
Production Management: ehrliche arbeit – freies Kulturbüro
Contact for touring enquiries: Manuel Gerst, email hidden; JavaScript is required
A production by Rahimi+Gerst GbR in co-operation with Ballhaus Ost. Funded by the Berlin Senate Department of Culture and Social Cohesion.
Adolfina Fuck was born in the North West of Germany in 1982 as Matthias Meppelink. From 2003 to 2005 Adolfina studied at the Institute of Applied Theatre Studies in Gießen. Founder member of the performance collective Monster Truck. Since graduating, Adolfina has worked as a dramaturg and musician in independent theatre and radio productions. Adolfina regularly works with Boris Nikitin, Rabea Kiel, Cecilie Ullerup Schmidt, Marcel Schwald, Sebastian Nübling, Begüm Erciyas and others. These collective pieces tour internationally. Adolfina also performs club concerts, releases techno tracks and is a member of the Berlin-based collective Antisemantic that aims to support social and left-orientated political projects through parties and concerts. Adolfina lives in Berlin.
Manuel Gerst studied Applied Theatre Studies in Gießen with Heiner Goebbels and Stage and Costume Design in Minuch with Katrin Brack. He is a founder member of the performance group Monster Truck, that produced projects on the cutting edge of theatre and visual arts independently and in city theatres from 2005 to 2022. Pieces by Monster Truck toured internationally and won numerous awards (including the George Tabori Main Prize). Manuel Gerst was awarded the Hein-Heckroth Development Prize for Stage Design in 2019. In 2023 he completed the “Easy Language Course” with Capito Zurich. Since autumn 2023 he has worked on inclusion at the Theaterhaus Gessnerallee in Zurich, where he will be Agent for Diversity from the summer of 2024. He will also continue to work as a director and stage designer.
Mark Schröppel is a director, performer and musician. In addition to his studying Applied Theatre Studies, he works/has worked mainly with his own group SKART and the performance collective Monster Truck. Productions by and with him have been seen at Kampnagel, Hamburg, Mousonturm, Frankfurt am Main, Münchner Kammerspielen, HAU Hebbel am Ufer, Berlin, Sophiensæle, Berlin, NT Gent, Schauspielhaus Bochum, the Impulse Theater Festival and the Donau-Festival.
Alisa Tretau studied Social/Cultural Anthropology at FU Berlin, Theatre Directing at HfMT Hamburg and Art in Context at the University of the Arts Berlin. Alisa has worked as a curator, production manager and facilitator with Frauen&Fiktion, Peng, She She Pop, HKW Berlin, UdK Berlin, Viadrina, Frankfurt an der Oder, and many others. As director/writer of e.g. ‘Wüste Zukunft’ (Desolate Future, 2020), ‘Beton Wüste Zukunft’ (Concrete Desolate Future, 2023) and ‘Der verschwundene See’ (The Vanished Lake, 2023), she explores immersive formats. In 2018 Alisa published the collection ‘Nicht nur Mütter waren schwanger’ (Not Only Mothers Were Pregnant).
For decades now, public swimming pools in Mülheim an der Ruhr have been killed off through lack of funding or abandoned. 2024 was even in danger of becoming a summer without a single open-air pool. At the same time the market in private pools is booming: those who can afford it are seeking comfort and security in their own gardens.
As a counter proposal to this privatisation of leisure time, the Impulse Theater Festival in association with artists and Ringlokschuppen Ruhr will open a summer pool for eleven days in the MüGa-Park. The group Conte Potuto will construct a pool of dreams: with almost no water, but filled with the visitors’ wishes and ideas. TachoTinta play on dry land with an underwater rugby team, and the Tigers’ Kitchen not only produces fries but also slushy pop songs.
Together with local initiatives and sports clubs, the artists present actions and conversations exploring issues around open-air swimming pools: who is allowed in, who has to stay outside? What sort of encounters are possible here? And which social conflicts can be seen at public pools? SCHWIMM CITY looks the increasing polarisation of society squarely in the eye and counters it with shared pleasure. Because one thing is certain: everyone can agree on the swimming pool snack: fries. They’re vegan, halal, kosher, gluten- and lactose-free.
Entry is free of charge, no registration required.
If you like, bring swimwear and a towel. But all other outfits are just as welcome!
As part of the 'ExtraSchicht' (1.6.) free admission only with registration by 31.5. at stadtprojekt[at]impulsefestival.de.
Thursday, 30.5., open 12:00–20:00
The artists of the Austrian collective Conte Potuto will build and operate SCHWIMM CITY. They take care of the pool, distribute sun loungers and sun shades - an all-round service focussing on the guests' needs. If it was up to Conte Potuto, people should have the right to be idle in public!
TIGERS’ KITCHEN are the actor and chef Nadja Duesterberg and the musician and performer Svea Kischmeier. At SCHWIMM CITY they run a snack bar that is also a radio station. Radio Pommes broadcasts every day online from 14:00 to 18:00 h. At the end of each working day and broadcast, TIGERS’ KITCHEN perform a slushy pop song in their snack bar that they have produced in the course of the day together with their customers.
An act of celebration with fries and ice lollies!
At the "Hellblaue Stunde", or twilight, the open-air pool provides an opportunity for speculation. Swimming pool and water sport experts are invited to come and talk, and to discuss what a pool for everyone might look like and what is needed to create a dream pool of the future.
These twilight talks willl be broadcast live online on Radio Pommes by TIGERS’ KITCHEN. The artists of Conte Potuto will pick up on ideas from the conversations and include these in the process of designing SCHWIMM CITY.
Different body images and clichés come together in the outdoor pool. '4ever young' is a staged fashion show with various bathing and outdoor pool accessories from different decades. Summer pop songs from the 80s and 90s serve as the soundtrack. How do social norms and ideas influence our perception of our bodies? What has changed over the years? And where are we today?
Underwater rugby is a fascinating niche sport that was supposedly invented in Mülheim an der Ruhr. In Overwater Rugby: Club Darlington e.V., the dance company TachoTinta plays with underwater rugby players on dry land. To do this, the rules have to be changed and new groupings have to be formed – and sometimes the referee also has to be contradicted. Training turns into choreography and the contest turns into a dance.
At the end of each working day, TIGERS’ KITCHEN perform a slushy pop song in their snack bar that they have produced in the course of the day together with their customers. Open Mic for all fans of fries and pop
On the opening day of SCHWIMM CITY, Conte Potuto invite you to a concert. The Viennese band AUTOR combines tried-and-trusted punk influences with catchy melodies and cryptic lyrics. Their music combines the rawness of the DIY music scene with nonchalance and plays with the grey areas in between poetry and punk.
Friday, 31.5., open 12:00–18:00
The artists of the Austrian collective Conte Potuto will build and operate SCHWIMM CITY. They take care of the pool, distribute sun loungers and sun shades - an all-round service focussing on the guests' needs. If it was up to Conte Potuto, people should have the right to be idle in public!
TIGERS’ KITCHEN are the actor and chef Nadja Duesterberg and the musician and performer Svea Kischmeier. At SCHWIMM CITY they run a snack bar that is also a radio station. Radio Pommes broadcasts every day online from 14:00 to 18:00 h. At the end of each working day and broadcast, TIGERS’ KITCHEN perform a slushy pop song in their snack bar that they have produced in the course of the day together with their customers.
At the "Hellblaue Stunde", or twilight, the open-air pool provides an opportunity for speculation. Swimming pool and water sport experts are invited to come and talk, and to discuss what a pool for everyone might look like and what is needed to create a dream pool of the future.
These twilight talks willl be broadcast live online on Radio Pommes by TIGERS’ KITCHEN. The artists of Conte Potuto will pick up on ideas from the conversations and include these in the process of designing SCHWIMM CITY.
Different body images and clichés come together in the outdoor pool. '4ever young' is a staged fashion show with various bathing and outdoor pool accessories from different decades. Summer pop songs from the 80s and 90s serve as the soundtrack. How do social norms and ideas influence our perception of our bodies? What has changed over the years? And where are we today?
At the end of each working day, TIGERS’ KITCHEN perform a slushy pop song in their snack bar that they have produced in the course of the day together with their customers. Open Mic for all fans of fries and pop
Saturday, 1.6., 18:00–23:00
SCHWIMM CITY opens as part of 'ExtraSchicht – Die Nacht der Industriekultur'
The 'ExtraSchicht – Night of Industrial Culture' has been staging former industrial plants, museums and historical monuments in the Ruhr region since 2001. Traditionally, the Ringlokschuppen Ruhr is also part of the programme. The programme includes a long night in the SCHWIMM CITY with theatre, comedy, concerts and DJs from 'ExtraSchicht'.
Free admission to SCHWIMM CITY on this day only with registration by 31 May at email hidden; JavaScript is required