Programme

2024
- May
  - 29
  - 30
  - 31
- Jun
  - 01
  - 02
  - 03
  - 04
  - 05
  - 06
  - 07
  - 08
  - 09

- 12:00 – 18:00, City project SCHWIMM CITY – a pool for everyone?
  Family Sunday in co-operation with Sport im Park and vier.zentrale
  MüGa-Park at Ringlokschuppen Ruhr, Mülheim an der Ruhr
- 18:00 – 19:10, Showcase Max Merker with Emma Murray and Téné Ouelgo
  OLD WHITE CLOWNS
  + 17:00: Physical introduction with Renato Spardelotto
  TanzFaktur, Cologne
- 12:00 – 18:00, City project SCHWIMM CITY – a pool for everyone? MüGa-Park at Ringlokschuppen Ruhr, Mülheim an der Ruhr
- 12:00 – 22:00, City project SCHWIMM CITY – a pool for everyone? MüGa-Park at Ringlokschuppen Ruhr, Mülheim an der Ruhr
- 18:00 – 22:00, OPEN END Foam party with DJ Lenz, songs by Damian Rebgetz and old favourites MüGa-Park at Ringlokschuppen Ruhr, Mülheim an der Ruhr

Showcase Cologne, Bonn, Vienna

The SHOWCASE presents a chance to see outstanding and challenging productions from the last season. It demonstrates what makes independent theatre so special in a broad range of different theatrical forms – and includes numerous discoveries.

“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.

29.05., 21:00–22:40 Schedule

ausverkauft

30.05., 18:00–19:40 Ticket Schedule

ausverkauft

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

Credits ›

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

Produktion ›

A production by Christiane Rösinger / HAU Hebbel am Ufer, Berlin. Funded by the Capital Cultural Fund.

Biographies ›

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

30.05., 19:00–22:00 Schedule

SOLD OUT

31.05., 19:00–22:00 Schedule

SOLD OUT

01.06., 19:00–22:00 in Vienna Schedule 04.06., 17:30–20:30 in Vienna Schedule 05.06., 17:30–20:30 in Vienna Schedule 06.06., 17:30–20:30 in Vienna Schedule

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

Credits ›

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.).

Production ›

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.

Biography ›

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.

30.05., 21:00–22:30 Schedule

sold out

31.05., 19:00–20:30 Schedule

sold out

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

Credits ›

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

Production ›

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.

Biographies ›

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.

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.

31.05., 21:00–22:05 Schedule

sold out

01.06., 19:00–20:05 Schedule

sold out

04.06., 18:00–19:05 Schedule

sold out

07.06., 20:30–21:35 Schedule

sold out

08.06., 22:00–23:05 Ticket Schedule

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.

Credits ›

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

Production ›

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.

Biographies ›

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.

01.06., 21:00–22:10 Schedule

sold out

02.06., 18:00–19:10 Ticket Schedule

sold out

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.

Credits ›

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

Production ›

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.

Biographies ›

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

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.

04.06., 20:00–21:00 Schedule

sold out

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

Credits ›

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

Production ›

A production by Rahimi+Gerst GbR in co-operation with Ballhaus Ost. Funded by the Berlin Senate Department of Culture and Social Cohesion.

Biographies ›

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).

“In the beginning was the pussy,” say the Rabtaldirndln and ask themselves: “To what extent do our mothers embody the archetype of the mother?” For this feminist performance the group from Styria has interviewed their mothers and questioned themselves. They present the answers on stage with unvarnished honesty and considerable irony.

05.06., 19:00–20:30 Schedule

sold out

07.06., 19:00–20:30 Ticket Schedule

Language: German with English subtitles

5.6. after the performance: discussion in German with the artists and Lisa Krall (gender researcher, University of Cologne), chaired by: Stawrula Panagiotaki
7.6., 18:00: haptic tour and audio description in German for blind and visually impaired visitors

Tickets for all Impulse events are also available from our ticket shop.

On a throne towering above everything else is an larger-than-life figure of Venus, naked and with giant breasts. She is used as a screen for video projections, just as the mother always had and still does have projections imposed on her. Care, self-effacement and security – countless desires and demands shape and wear down her existence. Dirndl Gudrun adds it all up: her mother took her to ballet 670 times. She fed 95,278 people. She spent 131,000 hours caring for her father, her mother and her mother-in-law.

The Rabtaldirndln tell us about their mothers’ lives and their own relationships with them: the Styrian countrywomen look a little disconcertedly but benevolently on what their daughters are doing on stage. But the mothers and daughters agree about one thing: for many women motherhood is a slap in the face from reality – which deserves more recognition.

“The Rabtaldirndln are in absolute top form in their play ‘Ahnfrauen’.” Michaela Reichart, Kronen Zeitung

Credits ›

Direction: Nadja Brachvogel
Concept, Text, Realisation: Die Rabtaldirndln and Nadja Brachvogel, Martin Brachvogel
Performance: Barbara Carli, Rosa Degen-Faschinger, Bea Dermond, Gudrun Maier
Dramaturgy: Martin Brachvogel
Production Management: Die Rabtaldirndln
Assistant Director: Azlea Wriessnig
Video: Andrea Schabernack, Natalie Pinter
Stage and Costume Design: Lisa Horvath
Technician: Tom Bergner
Expertise: Lisa Mittischek
Contact for touring enquiries: Barbara Carli, email hidden; JavaScript is required

Production ›

A co-production between Kosmos Theater, Vienna and THEATERland STEIERmark 2.23. Funded by the State of Styria, the Austrian Federal Ministry for Arts, Culture, the Civil Service and Sport and Das andere Theater, Graz.

Biography ›

Die Rabtaldirndln are a four-strong theatre collective from Graz that has worked for over 20 years on its own formal language with the consistent cast of Barbara Carli, Rosa Degen-Faschinger, Bea Dermond and Gudrun Maier. The collective appropriates elements of performance and theatre in order to develop contemporary theatre evenings from them. The productions are universal, contain pop culture elements and often show great sensitivity in targeting relevant themes. The works of the Rabtaldirndln reflect the contradictions of rural life: the bourgeois, patriarchal pressure exercised by a village community on one hand and community, warmth and identification on the other. These tensions are continually considered afresh across a range of different themes. They show lived realities, living worlds and inhospitable lives. Operating in this way, in the tension between urban and rural culture, is an important characteristic of the Rabtaldirndln. Visible on stage as a purely female collective, they can be relied upon to test their themes for female perspectives. They do not want to spoon feed their audiences, they want to expose themselves. They want to expand horizons, both their own and those of the audience, and tackle life’s questions both large and small without losing their sense of humour. In 2023 the Rabtaldirndln were awarded Vienna’s Nestroy Theatre Prize for the production AHNFRAUEN directed by Nadja Brachvogel.

Two dancers, snug insdie a cocoon of light and fog. Pulsating sound. This erotically charged duet is fuelled by a delight in giving and taking, at times explicitly, at times tenderly, always with a shared vibe.

05.06., 21:00–21:50 Ticket Schedule 07.06., 22:00–22:50 Ticket Schedule 08.06., 20:30–21:20 Ticket Schedule

Language: none

Physical introduction
5.6., 20:00, with Ada Sternberg
8.6., 19:30, with Bettina Nampé
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.

LOUNGE is a place where opposites – movement and rest, giving and receiving, the private and the public – meet and merge into a transitory space not ruled by frantic comings and goings but encounter and recovery. Marga Alfeirão, whose work has been greatly influenced by the dances and sounds of the African diaspora, understands relaxation – lounging – as a way of reclaiming female eroticism and in her “lesbian lap dance duet” has managed to create a choreography of hypnotic care and beauty.

“A sort of ode to the sexual relationship between people in its purest form, with no expectations, refined and reduced.” Richard Pettifer, tanzschreiber.de

Credits ›

Concept: Marga Alfeirão
Performance: Mariana Benengue, Myriam Lucas
Mixing: Shaka Lion
Scenography: Yoav Admoni
Costume Design: Nani Bazar
Light Design: Thais Nepomuceno, Jette Büchsenschütz
Kontakt für Gastspielanfragen: Giulia Messia, email hidden; JavaScript is required

Production ›

A production by Marga Alfeirão in co-production with the Sophiensæle, Berlin.

Biography ›

Marga Alfeirão (Lisbon,1994) uses media to create safe spaces for the exploration of intimacy and sexuality through dance and performance. Heavily influenced by dance genres and sound textures from the African diaspora disseminated through Lisbon’s social fabric, she attempts an active claim of womanhood, making room for lesbian sensualities. In 2023 she premiered LOUNGE, a lesbian lap dance duet, at Tanztage in Sophiensæle (Berlin). Last year together with Camila Malenchini, she premiered ‘Wet Eyez’, a work on emotional bodies and fantasy. She has worked with choreographers Tamara Alegre, Antonja Livingstone, architect Afaina de Jong, among others. She is active in the Portuguese ballroom scene as a founding member of the Casa das Musas. In Berlin she started ‘COYOTE PRETTY UGLY’, a 4-member 10-minute act to perform at lesbian queer nights in the city. Having graduated with a BA in Dance and Choreography from HZT Berlin (2017–2021), she initiated ‘Lapdances to Ringtones and Lullabies’, a research project into erotics and rest. She is currently developing a new work on cheesiness, grief and queerness with Myriam Lucas, Mariana Benengue and herself working as dancers, the DJs Nidia and Shaka Lion and the writers Duygu Agal and Candice Nembhard.

Marina Davydova's “Museum” comes alive before our eyes, filled with the voices of bygone centuries, the voices of a vast empire once called the USSR, it problematizes all national myths, all ideologies and all attempts to cram the human personality into the narrow bed of historical discourses.

06.06., 19:00–21:00 Schedule

sold out

07.06., 19:00–21:00 Ticket Schedule 08.06., 19:00–21:00 Ticket Schedule

Language: English with German translation via headphones and Russian with German and English surtitles

6.6. after the show: Snalks and hangout on the Bundeskunsthalle terrace with the IMPULSE CONNECTIV.

Tickets for all Impulse events are also available from our ticket shop.

“There is only one map!” a loudspeaker proclaims. “No, there are many of them” – another voice immediately contradicts. In each of the halls of this fictional museum, very different versions of the same historical events are presented. And sometimes these different versions are offered within the same room: in the second chapter of this production the audience finds itself in the middle of a conflict between five former Soviet republics: Ukraine, Belarus, Georgia, Azerbaijan and Armenia fling around irreconcilable interpretations of their shared history.

“I have always been interested in the performative potential of museum spaces,” says Davydova, “I imagined how their objects suddenly came to life, how the voices of former times echoed through the museum halls and argued with each other, and how visitors unwittingly became their interlocutors.”

The only actress in the play, either a random visitor to the museum or a ghost, is silent at first, she only occasionally carries out the voices' commands. It is only in the last fifth part that she suddenly finds her own voice. Her final monologue is a historiosophic confession of the author of the “Museum”, who has twice lost her homeland and is trying to deal with her country's past and her own past and present.

It is not abstract historical discourses or national myths, but only the experience of the individual, as the protagonist argues, that is the true measure of history.

“Marina Davydova makes the past self-reflectively, darkly and mercilessly alive. Visitors are part of the play, part of the scenery and part of the story. A ‘museum’ well worth visiting.” Eva Sager, Wiener Zeitung

Credits ›

Concept, Text, Direction: Marina Davydova
Stage Design: Zinovy Margolin
With: Marina Weis, Chulpan Khamatova
Voices: Odin Biron (Episode I EMPIRE), Jamal Ali, Luka Kalandadze, Igor Shugaleev, Gurgen Tsaturyan (Episode II NATIONS), Jamal Ali, Odin Biron, Marina Davydova, Boris Falikov, Luka Kalandadze, Alexey Kokhanov, Elizaveta Petrova, Farrukh Pirov, Igor Shugaleev, Gurgen Tsaturyan, Ekaterina Voronova (Episode IV PEOPLE)
Music: Vladimir Rannev
Technical Direction: Roman Streuselberger
Video: Oleg Mikhailov
Video Technician: Mikhail Ivanov
Lighting and Sound: Iurii Galkin
Stage Technicians: Bodo Hermann, César Martins
Translation: Sergei Ostrovsky, Sonia Ostrovsky (English), Yvonne Griesel (German) Production Manager, Assistant Director and Surtitles: Ekaterina Voronova
Choreography: Anna Abalikhina
Assistant Choreographers: Sonya Levin, Anna Abalikhina
Researcher: Mikhail Kaluzhsky
Set Builders: SC ART DECO SRL, Wiener Werkstätten
Props: Daria Artemova
Props Assistant: Vera Liulko
Design: Jürgen Fehrmann, Gea Gosse
Costumes: Marcus Barros Cardoso, Vera Liulko, Aleix Llusa Lopez
Technical Director Touring: Patrick Tucholski (HAU Hebbel am Ufer)
Production Manager and Tour Manager: Elisabeth Knauf (HAU Hebbel am Ufer)

Production ›

A work commissioned by HAU Hebbel am Ufer, Berlin. A production by HAU Hebbel am Ufer, Berlin and the Wiener Festwochen in co-production with Theater Freiburg.

Biographies ›

Marina Davydova is a theatre critic, theatre director, playwright and producer. She was a theatre critic for the newspaper ‘Izvestia’ and Editor-in-Chief of the magazine ‘TEATR’ until March 2022. Davydova is also a regular contributor to ‘Theater heute’. She has received numerous prizes, including the Stanislavsky Prize for Best Book Publication in 2005. In 1998 Davydova was one of the initiators of the NET (New European Theatre) Festival in Moscow, and served as its Artistic Director for 23 years. Her productions ‘Eternal Russia’, commissioned by the HAU Hebbel am Ufer, and ‘Checkpoint Woodstock’, as well as her play ‘Trance’ first premiered in Germany and then toured internationally. ‘Eternal Russia’ was awarded a Special Prize by the international jury at the BITEF Theatre Festival in Belgrade in 2018. In 2016 Davydova was Curator of the theatre programme for the Wiener Festwochen and she recently took over as Drama Director of the Salzburg Festival with effect from 2024. As an open opponent of Russia’s war against Ukraine she was forced to leave Russia. Since then, she has lived in Berlin.

Chulpan Khamatova studied Acting in Moscow and London. From 1998 to 2022 she was employed full-time at Moscow’s Sovremennik Theatre, and made guest appearances at the Theatre of Nations and the Gogol Center. She has worked with Alvis Hermanis, Thomas Ostermeier, Robert Lepage, Rimas Tuminas, Kirill Serebrennikov and others. Her film work brought her into contact with the German film industry. Since 1999 she has worked in film and tv, including in Germany. Her most succesful film internationally has been ‘Good Bye, Lenin!’ (2003). To date Khamatova has played over 70 roles in Russian and European films. Since 2005 she has been an active campaigner in support of children with oncological and hematological diseases, and co-founded the charity Podari Zhizn in 2006. It has since treated more than 73,000 children. In February 2022 she signed a petition against Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine. She was forced to leave Russia shortly afterwards. Since then, she has lived in Latvia, where she works as an actor with the New Riga Theatre.

At the Impulse-OPEN ENDS, the audience, artists and the team celebrate the end of selected festival days. DJs from the SHOWCASE productions and the local scene provide the music.

29.5., 22:30
OPEN END with the SPAfrica DJ-Team
Venue: Schauspiel Köln, Depot 2
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!

30.5., 22:30
OPEN END Liegen & Lauschen. Concert with multi-instrumentalists
Venue: TanzFaktur, Cologne
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.

31.5., 22:00
OPEN END with Keshavara & Der Assistent
Venue: TanzFaktur, Cologne
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.

1.6., 22:00
OPEN END Party with GOLD+BETON / Meryem Erkuş
Venue: TanzFaktur, Cologne
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.

7.6., 22:30
OPEN END All-Time-Impulse-Favourites with Çakey Blond
Venue: TanzFaktur, Cologne

Enjoy ten different party formats in one night with Çakey Blond! 90s, secret rave, kinky swing, kids’ birthday, Satanic mass and a Thermomix sales show are all combined in an endless series of happy hours. This “best of” compilation has something for everyone!

8.6., 22:00
OPEN END with Shaka Lion
Venue: TanzFaktur, Cologne
Chameleonic, dynamic, absorbing. Shaka Lion is a wandering spirit, an artist who mixes music with life experience in equal parts. Shaka Lion is rhythm and joy and midnight sun. He’s both what you hear and what you see.

9.6., 18:00
OPEN END Foam party with DJ Lenz, songs by Damian Rebgetz and old favourites
Venue: Ringlokschuppen Ruhr, Mülheim an der Ruhr
Foam and bubbly! After seven years with the Impulse Theater Festival, we will be popping corks and celebrating endings and new beginnings. And SCHWIMM CITY will transform into a fabulous farewell venue…

By and with students of the Master programme ”Scenic Research” at Ruhr University Bochum:
Kati Masami Menze, Dzenny Samardzic, Saskia Schalenbach and Anna-Luella Zahner

Ranging from discussion over a beer to a relaxation package: at the Impulse Theater Festival 2024 the route from one venue to the next means a lot more than “getting from A to B.” IMPULSE CONNECTIV gives people a pretext to meet each other and offers a pleasant change: talks and snacks are combined to become “snalks” and our lottery gives you the chance to win some special transport upgrades. The transfers are turned into part of the festival – both easing the pace and springing the odd surprise.

Dates:

29.5., as part of the opening: Snalks at Schauspiel Köln, Depot 2
30.5., as part of ACADEMY #1: Lottery, Shuttle FFT Düsseldorf – Südstadion, Cologne
4.6., after INTRODUCING SMILE VIDYA: Lottery, Shuttle TanzFaktur – Schauspiel Köln, Depot 2
6.6., after MUSEUM OF UNCOUNTED VOICES: Snalks and hangout, Bundeskunsthalle, Bonn
8.6., after ACADEMY #2 / FORUM: Lottery, Shuttle FFT Düsseldorf – Bundeskunsthalle, Bonn

Academy FFT Düsseldorf and other venues in Düsseldorf and Cologne

The Impulse ACADEMY is a key gathering for defining the identity of the independent performing arts. This year the festival will look back on the ACADEMIES that have been held since 2018 while welcoming the Fonds Darstellende Künste as a guest with a National Forum for Art, Freedom and Democracy.

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.

30.5.–1.6. Futur3 and Andreas Maria Fohr: PORTABLE ARCHIVE ›

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

12:00 Welcome, programme presentation and lunch ›

Location: FFT Düsseldorf
Language: German

With the ACADEMY host Anne Schneider, the ACADEMY leaders and FESTIVALFRIENDS

13:30 Shuttle departs from the FFT to the Südstadion in Cologne

14:30–17:00 ACADEMY 2018: Between the village square and the world market. Independent theatre between local relevance and international co-production ›

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!

17:00 Shuttle departs for the SHOWCASE at Schauspiel Köln, Depot 2

Friday, 31.5.
Location: FFT Düsseldorf

10:00–13:00 ACADEMY 2021: Lost in Space? Theatrical Communities, Protest und International Collaboration in a Disembodied Age ›

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?

13:00–14:00 Lunch

14:00–17:00 ACADEMY 2018: Uncertain Encounters. On the links between methods and aesthetics in the independent theatre ›

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.

17:00 Shuttle departs for the SHOWCASE in Cologne

Saturday, 1.6.
Locations: FFT Düsseldorf and TMD Theatermuseum Hofgartenhaus Düsseldorf

10:00–13:00 ACADEMY 2023: Produce less, work better. The independent performing arts beyond growth. ›

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.

13:00–13:45 Lunch

13:45–14:00 Walk from the FFT to the TMD Theatermuseum Hofgartenhaus Düsseldorf

14:00–17:00 ACADEMY 2021: History is made. A performative independent theatre archive ›

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?

17:30 Shuttle departs for the SHOWCASE in Cologne

National Forum for Art, Freedom and Democracy
7.+8.6.2024, FFT Düsseldorf

With art, action and debate the ACADEMY #2 / FORUM in co-operation with the national fora of the Fonds Darstellende Künste addresses what is probably the most important task right now: to retain plurality and thus strengthen democracy. How threatening right wing agitation has become was shown by the hate campaign against the collective CHICKS* and its performance LECKEN after it was invited to the Wildwechsel Festival in Zwickau. The ACADEMY presents LECKEN and invites West and East German theatre festivals to a solidary exchange of knowledge focussing on constitutional issues: how can the constitution and the rule of law protect the freedom of art and artists from despotism and discrimination? Contributions by Gin Müller on performative forms of resistance and by Arne Vogelgesang on new right narratives about youth and the family connect the discourse with artistic and activist practice.

ACADEMY #2 – THE ART OF STAYING MANY is held as one of the "National Fora for Art, Freedom and Democracy", a series of events produced by the Fonds Darstellende Künste in co-operation with the Goethe-Institut, Chamäleon, Berlin, fabrik Potsdam, FFT Düsseldorf, Hans Otto Theater, Potsdam, HELLERAU – European Centre of the Arts, Dresden, HAU Hebbel am Ufer, Berlin, Impulse Theater Festival, Kunstfest Weimar 2024, LOFFT – DAS THEATER, Leipzig, OSTEN Festival, Bitterfeld-Wolfen, Plattenstufen-Festspiele presented by the Phoenix Theater Festival Erfurt, Residenz (Schauspiel Leipzig), Societaetstheater, Dresden, Sophiensӕle, Berlin, and Zentralwerk e. V., Dresden, Zirkustheater-Festival, Dresden. Funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media as part of NEUSTART KULTUR.

Location: FFT Düsseldorf, Konrad-Adenauer-Platz 1, 40210 Düsseldorf

For registration details, see Impulse ticketshop.

Full details of the programme in English will soon be available here at the Impulse website and at fonds-daku.de.

Friday, 7.6.

10:00–11:10 Chicks* freies performance, LECKEN ›

We lick, gobble and slurp. 'LECKEN' is the sex education we dream of. SO WET, SO SOFT, SO SAFE. The queer collective talks about sexualities and asks the questions that get forgotten in schools: what do we understand sex to be? Which parts of the body give us pleasure? CHICKS* speak out to us.

Further information about the play

You can book tickets through the Impulse-Ticketshop.

10:30–11:00 Opening: welcome & input ›

'HATE: on the power of a resistant emotion'
Lecture by Şeyda Kurt
Hatred and democracy are generally regarded as opposites. Hatred is often attributed to the opponents and enemies of democracy – as an emotion directed against democracy. But what about all the structures which facilitate hatred that are themselves integral parts of democracy and are protected and legally enabled by it, e.g. the rigid exclusionary mechanisms of migration policy? In her analysis of a "politics of emotions", the writer and journalist Şeyda Kurt explores the ambivalences of hate as a political emotion and makes its potential for resistance within democracy visible.

11:15–12:45 Working phase I: workshops & discursive events ›

KNOWLEDGE: conversation with Şeyda Kurt
In addition to her current book 'Hass' (Hate), the journalist and wirter Şeyda Kurt discusses a "politics of emotions", which opens a space for thought in which the empowerment and resistance potential of "strategic emotions" can be appreciated in the political space/struggle.

ALLIANCES: 'Anti-discrimination and artistic freedom: legal principles in the context of funding and the tension between specific clauses and artistic freedom'
Lecture by Dr. Lino Agbalaka (lawyer)
This working session will examine the legal principles that apply to funding and the tensions between possible anti-discrimination regulations (such as the anti-discrimination clause that was withdrawn again at the beginning of the year in Berlin, for example) and artistic freedom. It will also consider the underlying legal structures to protect people against discrimination, such as those embedded in the Basic Law, and their practical application in the workplace in the independent performing arts.

PRAXIS: 'Hitler salutes and stage guns'
Lecture by Oliver Zahn on the thresholds where art stops.
Theatremaker and performer Oliver Zahn draws on examples from over ten years of artistic practice to look at the dividing lines between what is artistically permissible and what is legally forbidden - ranging from the Hitler salute gesture to the most recent terror attacks in Germany.

12:45–14:00 Lunch break

14:00–16:00 Working phase II: workshops & discursive events ›

KNOWLEDGE: Antifa theatre & legal positions online and on the streets
Workshop with Gin Müller
This working session focusses on one hand on the relationship between theatre and performance with justice, injustice and the legal system. On the other, it also deals with issues around (il-)legal forms of resistance to far right movements including examples and links between antifascist theatre and activism and Antifa.

ALLIANCES:Workshop session on codes of conduct, voluntary agreements, crisis management etc.
Workshop with Anne Schneider
The B.A.L.L. in the autumn of 2023 presented the image of a scene that is diverse, lively and solidary. However, a lack of confidence could be felt in numerous discussions. Some voices have fallen silent and an increasing number of views have disappeared and are continuing to disappear from public discourse. This threatens one of the basic foundations of our democracy. What instruments and agreements do we need now as the basis for productive collaboration in projects, institutions and events?
Please note: There is limited capacity for this event. In order to participate, please register at email hidden; JavaScript is required (including name of institution / initiative).

PRAXIS: INTERNATIONAL UNFAIR
Workshop with LA FLEUR (in English, German and French)
Within the international theatre and dance system there are substantial inequalities between participating artists' opportunities for travel. While European and North American artists can travel worldwide with few problems, artists from the Global South are repeatedly refused visas, even when they are part of European companies working professionally. In its piece/film 'Les Chercheurs', the group La Fleur has highlighted and engaged with this problem. We show excerpts and discuss potential solutions with you in light of geopoloitical injustices in transnational collaborations.

14:30–15:40 Chicks* freies performance, LECKEN ›

Further information about the play

Tickets for the performances of LECKEN at 14:30 (on 7.+8.6.) are part of the ACADEMY #2 / FORUM programme and can only be booked through the Impulse-Ticketshop after registering with the ACADEMY #2 / FORUM.

16:00–16:30 Coffee break

16:30–17:00 Input by Luce deLire ›

Shadow democracies: the subcutaneous layer in law-making
To complete this day of the forum, the philosopher and performer Luce deLire offers a response to the day that opens up philosophical, legal and performative approaches to areas of legislative and political interpretation in order in order to make them our own (again) and reinterpret them in the spirit of "creative democracy" – in favour of a legal future for the many.
Luce deLire comments: "In recent years we can observe a two-fold movement: the legislature has taken cover behind the courts and individual responsibility. At the same time it has created substatutory, subcutaneous norms which, while not justifiable, have been effective. The result has been a depoliticisation of politics in the light of a shadow democracy."
Luce deLire is a ship with eight sails lying down by the quay. In addition to academic articles on themes that range from Spinoza's metaphysics of eternity to postcolonial perspectives on social contracts and anti-faschism, she has also published extensively on art and politics.

Additional information: getaphilosopher.com

17:30 Shuttle buses depart for SHOWCASE venues in Cologne and Bonn.

Saturday, 8.6.

10:00–11:10 CHICKS* freies Performancekollektiv, LECKEN ›

10:00–11:00 Welcome & input lecture ›

On the possibilities of banning the AfD and the arts' scope for legal action
Helge Lindh (MdB, spokesperson on cultural policy for the SPD in the Bundestag) in conversation with Jean Peters (Correctiv) about whether banning the AfD is possible, realistic or sensible, and how the arts can use their own scope for legal action in the spirit of artistic freedom and defend themselves against attack

11:15–13:00 Working phase I: workshops & discursive events ›

KNOWLEDGE: Living Smile Vidya in conversation with Gin Müller (in English)
Living Smile Vidya and Gin Müller speak as trans activists and performers on specific transgender issues in the theatre and in different societies. They open up an exchange about the links between trans visibility in the performing arts and the struggle for transgender rights as a political issue.

ALLIANCES: The train has gone! WE ARE STAYING HERE
By and with Maren Barnikow and Tommy Neuwirth/AGENTUR FÜR
What does to mean to stand in the places in Thuringia where authoritarian, populist loudmouths appear every week? AGENTUR FÜR shouts back at them, interrupts and gets involved. Excerpts from AGENTUR FÜR's portfolio are presented and tried out: proper cursing and complaining, releasing the constructive-creative power of anger FÜR DAS FÜR and strategies to remap the public arena.

PRAXIS: Back to the front of representation. Performative culture war over gender hierarchies
By and with Arne Vogelgesang
Using examples from a new generation of new right video activists, we will examine which stock arguments, affective material and forms of self-representation are currently being used to target a youth audience in the culture war over the representation of gender identities, inclusive forms of speech and body images.

13:00–14:30 Lunch break

14:30–16:00 Working phase II: workshops & discursive events ›

KNOWLEDGE: Denazify yourselves!
By and with Luce deLire
Using original texts, the philosopher and performer Luce deLire will address the "strategies with which the courts of the youthful Federal Republic kept the crimes of the Nazis unpunished. We will also examine the role German jurisdiction played in the financial stabilisation of West German in the 50s and 60s. To finish, we will look at the continuities of these practices in the present, with reference to the rights of trans people under the Self-Determination Act."

ALLIANCES: Soundtracks for transformations
Workshop by and with Dr. Anna Lux (University of Freiburg / Leipzig)
What sounds do social upheavals and changes make? This workshop focusses on songs dealing with experiences of historical transformation in East Germany after 1989 and in the Ruhr region following structural reform. And what does the sound of the present processes of change sound like?

PRAXIS: 'Colonastics' – Training lecture
With Joana Tischkau (performance), Frieder Blume (sound), Onur Agbaba (performance)
Colonastics is a fitness workout that deals with the social construct of whiteness. It creates a blueprint for embodying white masculinity, highlighting the colonial and neocolonial practices of the fitness industry which produce and shape our beodies and therefore our ideologies.

14:30–15:40 CHICKS* freies Performancekollektiv, LECKEN ›

We lick, gobble and slurp. 'LECKEN' is the sex education we dream of. SO WET, SO SOFT, SO SAFE. The queer collective talks about sexualities and asks the questions that get forgotten in schools: what do we understand sex to be? Which parts of the body give us pleasure? CHICKS* speak out to us.

Further information about the play

Tickets for the performances of LECKEN at 14:30 (on 7.+8.6.) are part of the ACADEMY #2 / FORUM programme and can only be booked through the Impulse-Ticketshop after registering with the ACADEMY #2 / FORUM.

16:00–16:30 Coffee break

16:30–17:00 Input by Luce deLire ›

'Vibrators for Dictators'
To complete this day of the forum, the philosopher and performer Luce deLire offers a response to the day that opens up philosophical, legal and performative approaches to areas of legislative and political interpretation in order in order to make them our own (again) and reinterpret them in the spirit of "creative democracy" – in favour of a legal future for the many.
On the second day, Luce deLire enquires into the seductive power of progressive politics and states: "Fascism is the counterculture in this country. That makes it sexy. And that's why people vote it into parliament. Where is the seductive power of progressive politics? We need a sexy counter-paradigm. Sexy socialisation. Pink camouflage. Hospitality for all. Castrate the nation! Vibrators For dictators!"

17:30 Shuttle buses depart for SHOWCASE venues in Cologne and Bonn.

We lick, gobble and slurp. LECKEN is the sex education we dream of. SO WET, SO SOFT, SO SAFE. The queer collective talks about sexualities and asks the questions that get forgotten in schools: what do we understand sex to be? Which parts of the body give us pleasure? CHICKS* speak out to us.

07.06., 10:00–11:10 Schedule

sold out

07.06., 14:30–15:40 Schedule

sold out

08.06., 10:00–11:10 Schedule

sold out

08.06., 14:30–15:40 Schedule

sold out

Language: German

This interactive performance blurs the boundaries between a theatre performance and a worksop – protected, by mutual consent. Trans, non-binary and cis-female persons share their queer perspectives. They ask about practices, about shame and taboos. They are curious and gentle. They explain the anatomy of various genitals and carry out various forms of touching with and without their tongues. They tell us how licking and queer sex became taboo. A great voyage of discovery that invites you to explore feminist and queer ideas of pleasure and desire!

LECKEN is presented as part of ACADEMY #2 / FORUM, in order to defy those voices that have agitated against this queer perspective: when the production was invited to the Wildwechsel Festival in Zwickau, both the theatre and the Mayor received letters of complaint. Hate speech was posted on Facebook. The far-right groups Freie Sachsen and Der Dritte Weg proposed the harrassment of audience members and disruption of festival events. In the end, LECKEN was not shown in Zwickau as the festival’s funding was reduced at short notice. All the more reason for Impulse, the FFT and the Fonds Darstellende Künste to be delighted to be able to offer LECKEN a stage in Düsseldorf.

For everyone aged 14 and over. LECKEN takes care to treat the themes it deals with in an age-appropriate manner.

Credits ›

Concept, Realisation: CHICKS* freies performancekollektiv
Performance: Jil Dreyer, Mikah Heitkötter
Artistic Direction, Costumes: Gianna Pargätzi, Marietheres Jesse
Stage Design, Costumes: Anja Zihlmann
Vulva, pink plush object: Antigoni Tsagkaropoulou Bunny
Dramaturgy: Laura Kallenbach
Technical Direction, Lighting Design: Ricarda Schnoor
Sound: Josephine Mielke
Assistance: Leo Siebke
Thanks to: Ophelia Sullivan (Song „Cunnilingual“), Henrike Schauerte (Musical Support)
Production: Miriam Glöckler

Production ›

A production by CHICKS* freies performancekollektiv in co-operation with LOFFT – DAS THEATER. Funded by the Fonds Darstellende Künste with a grant from the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media as part of #TakeAction.

City project Mülheim an der Ruhr

The Impulse CITY PROJECT connects urgent questions of our time with a local context. This year the festival is working with a consortium of artists, sports clubs and civil society stakeholders: In Mülheim an der Ruhr they will open SCHWIMM CITY. Can this place be an open-air swimming pool for everyone?

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

12:00–18:00 Regular operation with Conte Potuto, TIGERS’ KITCHEN snack bar is open ›

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.

14:00–15:00 Opening of SCHWIMM CITY with Conte Potuto, HARTMANNMUELLER, TachoTinta, TIGERS’ KITCHEN and representatives of city society ›

An act of celebration with fries and ice lollies!

16:00–17:00 Hellblaue Stunde – SCHWIMM CITY Talk #1 ›

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.

17:00–17:30 HARTMANNMUELLER: '4ver young' – performance ›

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?

17:30–18:00 TachoTinta: Overwater Rugby: Club Darlington e.V. – a performance with underwater rugby players from TSC Mülheim/Ruhr e.V. and FS Duisburg 1920 e.V. ›

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.

18:00 Song of the Day with TIGERS’ KITCHEN ›

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

19:00–20:00 Stage Diving with AUTOR – concert ›

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

12:00–18:00 Regular operation with Conte Potuto, TIGERS’ KITCHEN snack bar is open ›

16:00 Hellblaue Stunde – SCHWIMM CITY Talk #2 ›

17:00–17:30 HARTMANNMUELLER: '4ver young' – performance ›

18:00 Song of the Day with TIGERS’ KITCHEN ›

Saturday, 1.6., 18:00–23:00
SCHWIMM CITY opens as part of 'ExtraSchicht – Die Nacht der Industriekultur'

Further information on 'ExtraSchicht – Night of Industrial Culture', registration and entry details ›

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.

18:00–23:00 Regular operation with Conte Potuto, TIGERS’ KITCHEN snack bar is open ›

18:00 Welcoming the 'ExtraSchicht' with a hit song by TIGERS' KITCHEN

18:30–19:00 HARTMANNMUELLER: '4ver young' – performance ›

19:00–19:30 TachoTinta: Overwater Rugby: Club Darlington e.V. – a performance with underwater rugby players from TSC Mülheim/Ruhr e.V. and FS Duisburg 1920 e.V. ›

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.

19:30–23:00 'ExtraSchicht' programme on the pool stage at SCHWIMM CITY

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

12:00–18:00 Regular operation with Conte Potuto and special offers for families, TIGERS’ KITCHEN snack bar is open ›

13:00–14:00 Balance Yoga (Ukrainian/German)

14:00–15:00 Circle Dance for everyone

14:00–16:00 Open creative workshop for children in co-operation with the Arbeitsgemeinschaft of Mülheim artists e.V. ›

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).

15:00–15:30 TachoTinta: Overwater Rugby: Club Darlington e.V. try-out training session for children ›

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.

16:00–17:00 Hellblaue Stunde – SCHWIMM CITY Talk #3/ Flirting, posing, splashing around: Youth in the swimming pool ›

17:00–17:30 Workshop showing by the community theatre group African Grassroots

18:00 Children's Song of the Day with TIGERS’ KITCHEN ›

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

12:00–18:00 Regular operation with Conte Potuto, TIGERS’ KITCHEN snack bar is open ›

18:00 Song of the Day with TIGERS’ KITCHEN ›

Tuesday, 4.6. – Women's Day
9:30–16:00 women only, 16:00–18:00 open for everyone

9:30-18:00 Regular operation with Conte Potuto ›

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!

9:30–11:30 Breakfast for women with the Communal Integration Centre's MUT-Café ›

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.

12:00-18:00 TIGERS’ KITCHEN snack bar is open ›

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.

16:00–17:00 Hellblaue Stunde – SCHWIMM CITY Talk #4 ›

18:00 Song of the Day with TIGERS’ KITCHEN ›

Wednesday, 5.6., open 12:00–18:00

12:00–18:00 Regular operation with Conte Potuto, TIGERS’ KITCHEN snack bar is open ›

16:00–17:00 Hellblaue Stunde – SCHWIMM CITY Talk #5 ›

18:00 Song of the Day with TIGERS’ KITCHEN ›

Thursday, 6.6., open 12:00–18:00

12:00–18:00 Regular operation with Conte Potuto, TIGERS’ KITCHEN snack bar is open ›

16:00–17:00 Hellblaue Stunde – SCHWIMM CITY Talk #6 ›

18:00 Song of the Day with TIGERS’ KITCHEN ›

Friday, 7.6., open 12:00–22:00

12:00–18:00 Regular operation with Conte Potuto, TIGERS’ KITCHEN snack bar is open ›

15:00–16:30 Picnic with the International Women's Café (PLANB Ruhr e.V.) ›

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.

16:00–17:00 Hellblaue Stunde – SCHWIMM CITY Talk #7 ›

18:00 Song of the Day with TIGERS’ KITCHEN ›

19:00–22:00 Stage Diving with .... – Surprise Concert ›

Concert and Dance Night for all swimming pool employees, sport swimmers and other keen dancers

Saturday, 8.6., open 12:00–18:00

12:00–18:00 Regular operation with Conte Potuto, TIGERS’ KITCHEN snack bar is open ›

15:00–15:30 Damian Rebgetz: 'Guy Working at a Pool' – musical lecture-performance ›

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.

15:30–16:00 HARTMANNMUELLER: '4ever young' – performance ›

16:00–17:00 Hellblaue Stunde – SCHWIMM CITY Talk #8 ›

17:00–17:30 TachoTinta: Overwater Rugby: Club Darlington e.V. – a performance with underwater rugby players from TSC Mülheim/Ruhr e.V. and FS Duisburg 1920 e.V. ›

17:30–18:00 Damian Rebgetz: 'Guy Working at a Pool' – musical lecture-performance ›

18:00 Song of the Day with TIGERS’ KITCHEN ›

Sunday, 9.6., open 12:00–22:00

12:00–18:00 Regular operation with Conte Potuto, TIGERS’ KITCHEN snack bar is open ›

14:30–15:00 Damian Rebgetz: 'Guy Working at a Pool' – musical lecture-performance ›

15:00–16:00 Stage Diving with Svea Kirschmeier – concert

16:30–17:00 HARTMANNMUELLER: '4ever young' – performance ›

17:00–17:30 Overwater Rugby: Club Darlington e.V. – a performance with underwater rugby players from TSC Mülheim/Ruhr e.V. and FS Duisburg 1920 e.V. ›

17:30–18:00 Damian Rebgetz: 'Guy Working at a Pool' – musical lecture-performance ›

18:00–22:00 OPEN END: foam party DJ Lenz, performance by HARTMANNMUELLER, songs by Damian Rebgetz and pop parade by TIGERS’ KITCHEN ›

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.

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13:30 Shuttle departs from the FFT to the Südstadion in Cologne

17:00 Shuttle departs for the SHOWCASE at Schauspiel Köln, Depot 2

13:00–14:00 Lunch

17:00 Shuttle departs for the SHOWCASE in Cologne

13:00–13:45 Lunch

13:45–14:00 Walk from the FFT to the TMD Theatermuseum Hofgartenhaus Düsseldorf

17:30 Shuttle departs for the SHOWCASE in Cologne

12:45–14:00 Lunch break

16:00–16:30 Coffee break

17:30 Shuttle buses depart for SHOWCASE venues in Cologne and Bonn.

13:00–14:30 Lunch break

16:00–16:30 Coffee break

17:30 Shuttle buses depart for SHOWCASE venues in Cologne and Bonn.

18:00 Welcoming the 'ExtraSchicht' with a hit song by TIGERS' KITCHEN

19:30–23:00 'ExtraSchicht' programme on the pool stage at SCHWIMM CITY

13:00–14:00 Balance Yoga (Ukrainian/German)

14:00–15:00 Circle Dance for everyone

17:00–17:30 Workshop showing by the community theatre group African Grassroots

15:00–16:00 Stage Diving with Svea Kirschmeier – concert

Programme