Netzwerk
Verbindungen fördern
Alliances
Extended network
Coordination
About the project
“Verbindungen fördern” (Promoting Connections) supports supra-regional alliances in the independent performing arts. Designed as structural funding, the model project provides financial resources for alliance work, networks, qualifies and promotes the exchange of knowledge between the alliances. You can find out more about the project on the BFDK website.
Radically polite in dealing with right-wing populism
Info.zoom
Szenetreff | Thinking outside the box: On the situation of independent children's, youth and puppet theaters
Zirkus On Stage - 2. Edition
ksk for producers as well | part #3: exchange
Szenetreff | Thinking outside the box: Improving working conditions in independent children's and youth theater
practices of dissemination/distribution
Szenetreff | Thinking outside the box: Trade union work with and for independent cultural workers
companionship programme
ASSITEJ Prizes 2025
Augenblick Mal! 2025
flausen+federal congress #5
This session is the third out of three public input sessions within the frame of the digital companionship programme: transnational contexts & relations, that is organised and hosted by Kreativ-Transfer, a project of Dachverband Tanz Deutschland and produktionsbande. In the companionship programme, one companion with transnational expertise supports one participant in the development and expansion of their own transnational working practice as a producer in the independent performing arts.
speaker: godlive lawani
the idea
bring actors together
strengthening the performing arts
actively shaping the future
The flausen+kongresses usually take place every two years on a biennial basis.
AUGENBLICK MAL! 2025 CASTS ITS SHADOW AHEAD …
From May 6 to 11, 2025, AUGENBLICK MAL! will enter the next round. This website will be updated over the coming weeks and months. You can already read which ten productions our curators have selected as guest performances for the festival.
The next ASSITEJ Award Ceremony will take place on May 10, 2025 as part of AUGENBLICK MAL! The Festival of Theater for Young Audiences.
ASSITEJ awards several prizes every two years. The prizes honor people or institutions
who make a special contribution to the performing arts for young audiences and their diversity,
who are particularly committed to raising the profile of work for young audiences and with children and young people,
who seek dialog with the audience and promote reflection on it,
who are a source of inspiration for others – be it locally, regionally, nationally or globally.
International Cultural Exchange Freiburg (IKF)
Zirkus ON invites you to the 2nd edition of Zirkus ONstage together with the Internationale Kulturbörse Freiburg!
With Zirkus ONstage, the creative alliance for circus arts – Zirkus ON will be presenting three circus creations from the last Zirkus ON editions to a German and international audience of experts at the International Cultural Exchange in Freiburg (IKF) from January 20 to 22.
Groups of artists selected by an expert jury and supported for two years by the Zirkus ON creation alliance with mentoring, residencies, presentations, knowledge transfer formats and networking will perform. Zirkus ONstage is the final format of the creation program and creates a bridge between creation and distribution.
Rui Silveira on Something Great, a non-profit organization and live arts center in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany
In this conversation, Rui will tell the story of Something Great, its history and its transformation from an internationally renowned performing arts touring agency based in Berlin to a cultural charity and live arts center rooted in an 18.6 hectare estate in the southwest of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. Dedicated to the support, promotion and presentation of live art, the center focuses primarily on contemporary dance and performance art, but is also open to other art forms, such as the visual arts.
With another edition of the workshop “Radically polite in dealing with right-wing populism”, we are continuing the qualification program “Promoting democracy – qualifying with knowledge to act for a diverse society” of our project “Promoting connections”.
#Communicate
The workshop looks at right-wing populist argumentation patterns and signal words and the intention behind them. How can we take a clear stance against right-wing populist statements in everyday life? Is a conversation useful and if so, how can it succeed?
Participants can expect a mixture of input, practical exercises and moderated discussion. They will gain applicable basic knowledge about right-wing populism and learn to recognize different situations and differentiate how to deal with them.
The workshop will be led by Tadel verpflichtet! e.V., which is committed to democratic coexistence.
Speakers: Matthias Jung, Katharina Klasen
With the experience exchange “Dealing with Nazi history in rural areas – between art project and educational work” with Felix Forsbach, we are continuing the qualification program “Promoting democracy – qualifying with knowledge to act for a diverse society” of our project “Promoting connections”.
#Becoming active together
National Socialism remains a challenging topic that continues to have an impact today. This complexity contributes to the fact that right-wing extremist parties are gaining popularity again, threatening the existence of artists, cultural associations and initiatives for cosmopolitanism and diversity. This workshop will discuss the space of possibility that can be created through an artistic examination of National Socialism in the lives of people in rural areas.
In the social sculpture “augustusburger-protokolle”, Felix Forsbach has been artistically and transdisciplinary dedicated to the Nazi history of Augustusburg, a small town in Central Saxony, since 2021. His artistic work has led to a public discourse on how to deal with the history of the place and has reached many people of different ages through the explicitly artistic examination of the Nazi era. As part of the workshop, he will talk about the possibility of bonds between artists and residents and about the opportunities of long and processual residencies to encourage artists to tackle political issues explicitly and directly.
The event will be held in German and is free of charge. Places are limited.
After orientation and action, in the third part of the event series ksk for producers as well! we would like to conclude by inviting you to a joint exchange, which at the same time offers a space for open questions or issues that you have encountered in your membership application for the KSK.
The offer provides you with time together with us and all participants in which you can discuss and advance your concerns for the further processing and finalization of your application or your documents to be submitted.
To participate, it is therefore important that you bring a specific issue or question with you, which you briefly present and which can then be worked on together with you in breakout groups to support you in your KSK application process.
Sarah Soethoudt is a contemporary dancer, choreographer, cultural coach and founding member of the artist collective FLUJAS in Venlo, Noord-Limburg.
This region consists mainly of villages and small towns, which is both an enrichment and a challenge for professional artists. As a dancer and choreographer, Sarah develops site-specific works that are inspired by the surrounding forests and use them as a backdrop. She also devises specific performances in collaboration with partners such as museums and conservation organizations.
In her role as a cultural coach, she supports local artistic initiatives and encourages both professional artists and the residents of Venlo. FLUJAS is an artist-led collective that campaigns for better working conditions in Noord-Limburg. Most artists in this region face challenges such as visibility, funding, collaboration and know-how. FLUJAS brings artists together and offers them space to work and create with confidence and without pressure.
In this Kaffetalk, Sarah talks about her mediation work as a cultural coach, her artistic practice and collective work with a special focus on rural areas in the Netherlands.
Christina Elliot, Head of Programming & Producing at “The Place”, London’s center for dance development. Christina leads on the theater program, artist development initiatives, new productions and touring projects.
In this coffee talk, Christina will introduce the Rural Touring Dance Initiative (RTDI) – a nationwide project that supports dance artists and rural promoters to create high quality dance performances in rural areas. Since 2015, RTDI has brought some of the UK’s best dance companies, such as Lost Dog, Protein and Scottish Dance Theatre, to rural areas.
Christina will share her experiences and explain how RTDI has transformed the dance scene in rural areas of the UK and continues to positively impact the touring landscape.
cases & faces offers a space for producers from different fields to share challenges from our everyday work and to jointly deal with specific cases and situations from our own work context.
It is based on the thought that we can draw on shared knowledge and create a connecting, collegial and open space with different perspectives, which in the best case also enables new perceptions of our own situation.
In this session we deal with the complex topic of hospitality and discuss questions such as: How does it work? What makes a valuable hospitality practice, what are the ingredients? What field are we in? What are practices of hosting & guesting | invitation practices | opportunities & challenges of hospitality? How do I develop a multidirectional perspective and how does dealing with hospitality also influence questions of team development?
For producers, working at the interfaces with all those involved in an artistic production means maintaining open communication in all directions and, at the same time, bundling information and making it accessible to everyone. Friction can arise in this complex communication work, which can lead to potential conflicts.
In this two-part workshop for producers, Dana Caspersen will provide insights into methods for constructively framing, handling and, ideally, jointly resolving conflicts.
In this session we invite a critical eye on our existing networks, our informal champions and how to utilise these tools to identify new opportunities, disseminate work and push producing practices. We will look at the structure of networks and the importance of reciprocity in building lasting relationships. We will use this time to form a temporal network of information exchange where participants will be invited to offer their experiences and talk about their desires.
Tech riders or technical riders are technical documentations that are sent to theaters and event spaces in advance in order to plan the setup together. In the workshop, we talk about what should be included for stage, lighting, video, sound and special effects. And what other different forms of technical documentation can be used to make our lives easier when setting up.
This edition of skills & discourse is dedicated to income tax in an international context. Besides a theoretical focus with an application outlook by Felix Sodemann (touring artists), we will also take a closer look at the implementation in production practice together with Felix and Harriet Lesch with your example cases. Please send us your examples and questions with your registration by 6 October at the latest so that we can prepare them, include them in the workshop and discuss them together. Registration without submission of cases is open longer.
The Verband freier Kinder- und Jugendtheater Bayern e.V. represents the concerns and needs of independent and professional theaters for young audiences. The association works to improve the working conditions and perception of independent children’s and youth theater throughout Bavaria. It also ensures that the needs of the sector continue to be taken into account in the design of new and existing state cultural funding.
With Michael Dietrich from Verband freier Kinder- und Jugendtheater Bayern e.V.
ASSITEJ e.V., the network of children’s and young people’s theaters, has conducted the first study to present the performing arts for young audiences in Germany in all their heterogeneity. Staff, programs and audiences of around 1,000 municipal and independent children’s and youth theaters, sections of municipal and state theaters as well as guest performance organizers throughout Germany were examined.
With Valerie Eichmann from ASSITEJ Germany
The Netzwerk Regie, which was founded in 2017 under the umbrella of ensemble-netzwerk, has represented the professional group of theater directors since 2022 and offers all professional colleagues a forum for networking and exchange. Among other things, the Netzwerk Regie has developed new model work contracts for directors with the German Stage Association, defined lower fee limits, organized congresses and training events, represented the interests of directors on a wide variety of panels and in discussion groups and is in close dialogue with cultural policy makers, trade unions and other networks.
With Jacob Weiß from Netzwerk Regie e.V.
The German Forum for Puppet Theater and Puppetry Art is planning a European Production House for Puppet Theater together with the Figurentheater-Kolleg Bochum. The aim of the project is to create a platform that promotes international exchange and the production of puppet theater plays. The aim is to create an infrastructure that offers puppet theater artists the spaces and conditions they need for their extraordinary work – unique in Europe and with the “Made in Bochum” seal of quality.
With Annette Dabs, Director of the German Forum for Puppet Theater and Puppetry, Bochum
With Seta Guetsoyan, Director of the Figurentheater-Kollegs, Bochum
What can you expect?
United Networks and House of Brownies invite you to a special BIPoC community gathering where you will have the opportunity to network with other BIPoC artists, creatives, associations, organizations and collectives from Hamburg and beyond. Let’s exchange ideas and find new ways to share resources within our BIPoC communities and collaborate more effectively.
Look forward to an interactive afternoon of speed working where you can find out how collaborative working can be strengthened. You will also have the opportunity to showcase your skills and resources in our Marketplace and see what other participants have to offer. Afterwards, you can continue networking over a delicious dinner in a relaxed atmosphere. At the end of the evening, there will be a live performance that you shouldn’t miss!
info.zoom – exchange, networking, faqs
get to know “tanz weit draußen”. Under this motto, we will be opening the doors to our monthly Info.zoom on December 13 from 10 to 11 am. This will take place every 3rd Friday of the month.
Everyone is welcome to come and find out more about the network, get to know us, ask questions and network. As a young network, we are particularly interested in what concerns you when it comes to dance in rural areas and regions.
The Info.Zoom is held alternately by the two project managers Jessica Buchholz and Pam Goroncy. Network partners from Aktion Tanz, Tanzregion Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, TanzSzene Baden-Württemberg, tanz.nord, fabrik Potsdam, Ponderosa, Szene 2wei and Tanz- und Theaterwerkstatt Ludwigsburg also regularly take part.
info.zoom – exchange, networking, faqs
get to know “tanz weit draußen”. Under this motto, we will be opening the doors to our monthly Info.zoom again on November 15 from 10 to 11 am. This will take place every 3rd Friday of the month.
Everyone is welcome to come and find out more about the network, get to know us, ask questions and network. As a young network, we are particularly interested in what concerns you when it comes to dance in rural areas and regions.
The Info.Zoom is held alternately by the two project managers Jessica Buchholz and Pam Goroncy. Network partners from Aktion Tanz, Tanzregion Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, TanzSzene Baden-Württemberg, tanz.nord, fabrik Potsdam, Ponderosa, Szene 2wei and Tanz- und Theaterwerkstatt Ludwigsburg also regularly take part.
Bianca Kruppa (Diebis, Bavaria) on community work on the “wrong farm” and the joy of making mistakes
What can a modern, sustainable and culturally diverse life look like in which a large number of people can participate and help shape it? With this central question in mind, the “False Farm” can be seen as a place that is constantly evolving. It offers space for content that is shaped by the creativity and expertise of local people. As co-founder of the “False Farm”, Bianca sees this place as a kind of collective resistance to the pursuit of the supposedly “right answer” – and instead creates space for something new. In doing so, Bianca’s community often finds itself in a field of tension between aspiration and reality – without losing the joy of experimentation.
In this coffee talk, Bianca shares her experiences as a community dance artist and dance facilitator in the context of her work on the “False Farm”. The focus is on community building and her personal research questions about dance in rural spaces. Bianca lives and works in rural southern Germany and is currently studying a Masters in Dance: Participation, Communities, Activism at London Contemporary Dance School.
info.zoom – exchange, networking, faqs
get to know “tanz weit draußen”. Under this motto, we will be opening the doors to our monthly Info.zoom for the first time on October 18 from 10 to 11 am. From then on, this will take place every 3rd Friday of the month.
Everyone is welcome to come and find out more about the network, get to know us, ask questions and network. As a young network, we are particularly interested in what concerns you when it comes to dance in rural areas and regions.
The Info.Zoom is held alternately by the two project managers Jessica Buchholz and Pam Goroncy. Network partners from Aktion Tanz, Tanzregion Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, TanzSzene Baden-Württemberg, tanz.nord, fabrik Potsdam, Ponderosa, Szene 2wei and Tanz- und Theaterwerkstatt Ludwigsburg also regularly take part.
Roberto Casarotto (Bassano del Grappa, Venuto, Italy) on curating dance projects in north-eastern Italy
Roberto Casarotto is the co-director of »Aerowaves«, the European Platform for Dance promoting cross-border mobility of the work of emerging dance artists. He is also the initiator of »Dance Well« – Movement Research for Parkinson’s and other processes aimed at fostering participation in cultural activities both on a community and on an individual level. From 2006 to 2022, he was responsible for the dance projects and programs at »Centro per la Scena Contemporanea di Bassano del Grappa« (CSC) and »Operaestate Festival Veneto« in small cities and rural areas in the North East of Italy. He still develops international projects there now, supported by the EU Creative Europe and Erasmus + Programs, aimed at supporting artistic research, engaging local citizens and promoting artistic mobility and development in the field of dance. Prior to working for dance organizations, Roberto was a professional contemporary dancer.
In this Coffee Talk, Roberto will give insights into his wide range of experience in program creation and producing contemporary international dance in rural areas of northern Italy.
From participating in learning processes to attending performances during the weekend gatherings, “Implantieren ‘24” offers a variety of ways to get involved and, in collaboration with numerous partners, weaves a rich ecosystem of relationships.
“Implantieren ‘24” is a performing arts festival called “On the Ruins of the University.” Taking place on the former university campus in Bockenheim, Frankfurt, it explores what new things can grow from the ideological heritage and physical remains of the university. The festival questions how we can reinvent societal learning without exclusions and how can we learn from brokenness now, rather than just preparing for the future?
With its 13 projects, across venues in Neu-Isenburg, Offenbach and Frankfurt, the festival lays out an imaginary topography of a university in ruins. There are projects that delve into the dungeons of the university, where the Enlightenment persecuted heretics, objectors, and deviant bodies, questioning which forms of knowledge and which bodies have been excluded. And others that settle in the in-between and unused spaces, asking if it’s possible to gather without purpose and practice a new form of community. And also those that study how the campus can be transformed back to its literal meaning, a “field,” and how this transformation can help us reopen questions about the endangered ecologies we are part of today.
The theme of the “Verbindunngen fördern” conference “democracy and digitality” is the interfaces between democracy and digitality.
Experts from various disciplines will share their knowledge, experiences and strategies in the form of keynotes, impulses, workshops and exchange rounds and actively invite participants to test and reflect.
During a political soirée on the first day of the conference, politicians and experts from the independent scene are invited to publicly discuss the role of structural funding for democracy.
The event is also explicitly aimed at people who are not active in the performing arts but would like to exchange ideas and gain qualifications on these topics. The full program will follow shortly.
Registration via eventbrite
The registration deadline is November 4.
As part of the ATOLL Festival in Karlsruhe, the Kreationsbündnis für Zirkuskunst – Zirkus ON is presenting the 6th edition projects selected by a jury to a public audience for the first time.
The following work-in-progress pieces will be on show, each with a short
audience feedback format afterwards:
Hybrid by IceDanceTheater-Fusion
Lasterhaft by La Tanik
still.dependent by Hanschitz & Beierer
On the following day (19.9.), the alliance partners and mentors will meet with the artists. Based on the DasArts feedback methodology, the three projects will be discussed individually. Constructive feedback will be collected for further creation.
For the third time, the Netzwerk Freie Szene Saar is organizing the festival of independent performing arts in Saarland. From drama, music, dance, performance, sound art and live radio plays to children’s theater, everything the Saarland independent scene has to offer will be on display in and around the Erzhalle of the Völkinger Hütte World Cultural Heritage Site.
In the run-up to the festival, City Management Völklingen will host the STADTLABOR, which invites you to workshops, discussions and exchange formats to bring artists and city residents as well as art and everyday life together.
#Becoming active together
In this workshop as part of the training programme “Promoting democracy – qualifying with knowledge to act for a diverse society”, central fighting terms, rhetorical patterns and organized approaches of the right-wing culture war will be explained. In addition, possible courses of action for dealing with intimidation, hostility and threats are presented and discussed. Participants are given the space to present their experiences and reflect on situations in interactive exercises.
Art and culture represent an important field of action for right-wing extremism and populism to implement their political ideas. This is because this is where current social issues and conflicts are discussed and where there is room for controversial debates. What strategies does this cultural struggle from the right pursue? How can and should we react to it?
The aim of the event is to raise participants’ awareness of the strategies and facets of this cultural struggle on the one hand and to strengthen their confidence to act on the other.
Speakers: Kerstin Kuballa and Matthias Müller from the Mobile Counseling Service against Right-Wing Extremism Berlin (MBR).
The SPURENSUCHE 2024, the working meeting of the independent children’s and youth theaters, will take place on October 10th (from 2 p.m.) and October 11th (until 4 p.m.) in the Junges Theater Augsburg together with the PERSPEKTIV:WECHSEL alliance. After 2 years, the alliance, which is supported by “Verbindungen fördern”, has brought the following questions to the SPURENSUCHE:
What is the starting point of the German children’s and youth theatre festival scene in relation to diversification processes?
How can processes of critical debate about power find their way into artistic practice?
How do we create safer spaces that live up to their name?
What have we learned and what do we want to discuss with you?
#Act and Hold
In this workshop as part of the qualification program “Promoting democracy – using knowledge to qualify for action for a diverse society”, the participants work together with speakers from the Anne Frank Education Center to recognize the different forms and mechanisms of racism, to develop a self-reflective attitude and to take the perspectives of those affected seriously. Building on this, there is space for reflection and exchange on action strategies in the context of art and culture.
Racism is part of our everyday lives and our society. Whether visible or invisible – racism influences our relationships and coexistence and has a violent effect. However, the experiences of those affected are often not recognized. When dealing with racism, it is often the debates about language and images that unsettle many people. Many everyday terms and images have their origins in colonial racist ideas or are based on ideologies of inequality.
The seminar at the Anne Frank Education Centre offers the opportunity for discussion and exchange. It raises awareness of the different forms and mechanisms of racism, develops a self-reflective attitude and takes the perspectives of those affected seriously. Building on this, space is provided for reflection and exchange on action strategies in the context of art and culture.
Speakers: Anne Frank Education Centre
#Take action together
This experience exchange as part of the qualification program “Promoting democracy – qualifying with knowledge to act for a diverse society” takes place as a hybrid format at the THEATERNATUR FESTIVAL in the Harz Mountains. Together with the Landeszentrum Freies Theater Sachsen-Anhalt e. V., Frauke Wetzel (“Der Rahmen ist Programm”) and Jan Hendrik Hermann (THEATERNATUR FESTIVAL) will open a discussion framework and exchange moment for colleagues with curatorial responsibility for festivals, festivals or other public cultural events.
Diverse, empowering, open and safe cultural events are essential pillars of a democratic society – and cannot be taken for granted. How can festival organizers open up and maintain these democratic spaces through curation and event design? Which regional practices can be adapted in supra-regional exchange? What hurdles do the actors encounter in their respective working practices? Local and international festival organizers are invited to discuss these and other questions together in a moderated discussion.
The aim of the Experience Exchange is to provide a platform for networking and exchange between national and international festival organizers in order to discuss practical experiences, consider (joint) options for action and learn from each other. The promotion of democratic cooperation in the festival or event context forms the connecting element.
#Take action together
In this experience exchange as part of the qualification program “Promoting democracy – qualifying with knowledge to act for a diverse society”, Diana Wesser and Sandra Bringer from the Artist Lab “Celebrating festivals” share research results and strategies on festivals as performative acts with a focus on rural areas. Do right-wing groups use existing festivals to cultivate and expand their following? Can performing arts compete with right-wing groups and gain a new audience at village festivals? What overlaps are there with festivals? What strategies can be adapted for festival work in rural areas?
In the subsequent exchange, festival organizers are invited to share regional experiences and discuss supra-regional approaches.
background
Theatricality, fictionalization, assembly, play, stories and regional themes – these are festival components that can have a socio-political impact, strengthen communities and experience diversity in a positive way.
As part of the Artist Lab “Celebrating Festivals”, 2023 investigated how festivals work in rural areas. Village festivals and festivals in small towns in Brandenburg, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania were visited.
The Artist Lab “Feste Feiern” sees itself as a network of associates, interested people in rural areas, creators and co-creators that goes beyond the participating artists. “Feste Feiern” encourages people in rural areas to forge stronger relationships and open up spaces for encounters using the performing arts.
Zur Veranstaltung
The second experience exchange in the #Gemeinsam aktiv werden module will take place as a hybrid format at the Phoenix Theater Festival. Participation is possible in presence and digitally.
We also recommend participating in the face-to-face workshop at the Phoenix Theater Festival entitled “HACKATON Toolbox performing arts & activism – think, develop, act” and in the qualification and networking format at the THEATERNATUR FESTIVAL entitled “Creating democratic spaces and keeping them open in festival curation”. The formats can be combined in terms of content. There will be moments of exchange at all events, which are intended to promote supra-regional networking among festival organizers.
#Take action together
In this workshop, Sandra Bringer and Diana Wesser invite you to a practical think tank as part of the qualification program “Promoting Democracy – Qualifying with Knowledge for Action for a Diverse Society”. The aim is to explore the relationship between art and political activism and the extent to which the performing arts are useful as a tool, a channel and a place for socio-political democratic negotiation processes. The aim is to create a “performing arts & activism toolbox” oriented towards the common good.
Festivals act as central anchor points for a decentralized independent scene and offer low-threshold opportunities for exchange, contact and the activation of audiences in the independent performing arts. This is where the workshop comes in. It will take place at the Phoenix Theater Festival in Erfurt.
In a short input, Sandra Bringer and Diana Wesser will map the topic using examples of their own performative attitude and exemplary formats of other activists and artists. In the subsequent hackathon, smaller groups will develop their own performative and/or discursive formats in a theory-practice transfer. The ideas will be implemented on site in a practical self-experiment. The tools developed for events and festivals will then be made available online for everyone in line with the open source concept.
Following the presence workshop, a hybrid experience exchange entitled “Festivals and festival culture – countering the decline of democracy in rural areas through performance” will take place at the Phoenix Theater Festival. In addition to this, we also recommend taking part in the qualification and networking format as part of the THEATERNATUR FESTIVAL entitled “Creating democratic spaces and keeping them open in festival curation”.The formats can be combined in terms of content.
There will be moments of exchange at all events, which are intended to promote supra-regional networking among festival organizers.
Munich moves @ rodeo 2024. Here, radical cheerleading meets soft masculinity. Here, dancing in anatomy classes and singing about nursing are just part of the experience. Here, people come together to watch, talk, sleep, and celebrate diversity through shows, workshops, and parties, both in the Kreativquartier and across various venues throughout the city.
At rodeo 2024, the body is in the spotlight: whether seen as male or female, young or old, healthy or ill; conforming to norms or defying them; As a queer, virtual, or collective body. Bodies are more than just bones and skin—they are seismographs of our society, bearing the imprints of values, ideologies, and desires. How we perceive and treat bodies is an eminently political question. Recently, the growing right-wing movement has also targeted the body as a battleground, agitating against “gender ideology” and sexual self-determination.
This year’s Rodeo selection stands for diversity against these repressive policies. In their works, the artists celebrate resistance, rebellion, and defiance. They envision utopias for a better tomorrow while also exploring themes of weakness, exhaustion, and vulnerability.
How do we remain tender in times of brutalization? How can we make our echo chambers and bubbles permeable again? The 12 selected pieces are a plea for empathy and attentiveness—toward people and the world around us.
Like a phoenix rising from the ashes – that’s what they say when something that was thought to be dead rises again, when there is a new beginning for something that was already finished or when you get something back that you thought was lost. All of this applies to what PHOENIX e.V. wants to do with cultural sites that have been abandoned.
Lack of money, rationalization and mergers were the main reasons why deep wounds were torn by the abandonment or closure of entire buildings, especially in the new federal states. Cultural sites such as the Schauspielhaus in Erfurt were abandoned overnight and left to their own devices. Sites of collective memory and personal history rotted away in the middle of the city.
PHOENIX wants to revive such places – through sustainable and long-term artistic initiatives. By organizing and staging cultural events such as festivals, conferences, theater productions, performances, concerts, urban projects, exhibitions and symposia, PHOENIX aims to set an example, provide encouragement, support local actors and thus reposition culture in the city. This is not about commercial use, but exclusively about specifically expanding the cultural offer in the respective city.
When working together, there are hierarchies, whether we like it or not. Sometimes it has to do with individual ways of working, sometimes it is due to the responsibilities of tasks, or both. Hierarchies are not bad in themselves, unless they are denied, or they are not comprehensible. In any case, they require common, transparent agreements. In this workshop we would like to find out with the participants how hierarchies and unresolved power relations can be detected and addressed in the context of cooperation and which tools are needed for this.
The joint working session excel is a life (or at least a style) is more of an exchange platform for Excel nerds than a well-paced workshop. In this open format, we share individual problems and challenges that still concern us despite our knowledge of Excel. All participants are available to help each other in a mutual exchange.
The prerequisite for participation is therefore to bring your own issue or problem in working with Excel in the context of production work in the independent performing arts and to present it in an open exchange format.
In the digital companionship programme, one companion with transnational expertise supports one participant in the development and expansion of their own transnational working practice as a producer in the independent performing arts. The ten companionship duos will each spend six individual companionship sessions independently and self-organised in the digital space with a focus on personal exchange of experience and knowledge on transnational contexts and relationships. We will accompany the six individual sessions in the respective duo constellations with digital supporting events: a common kick-off and closing meeting, informal meetings between the companions and participants, a moderated reflection session and three public inputs on selected topics of the programme.
Time, money, and the involvement of experts are decisive factors in producing accessibility. To work as an anti-ableist producer, one constantly explores their scope for action and deals with different conditions.
The speakers will distinguish the two concepts and share criteria, using various examples from their own anti-ableist practice. In the workshop, we will work together to develop an understanding of how to plan accessibility measures for your own project with different time and budget constraints and implement them with experts.
In the workshop, the participants deal with power structures and (their own) privileges and develop strategies for mutual support in the hierarchical theater structures. They will also look at their own resources and how they can make use of them. How can I become sensitive to implicit exclusion and discrimination? How can I support colleagues who are subjected to racist attacks? How can I express criticism without jeopardizing my career?
The aim of the workshop is to unite theater makers through sensitization and to enable new forms of community in the field of theater.
– Let’s talk about Wallpaper –
We, “The Lemon” collective, will explore the Poetic, Political, and Narrative Potential of wallpapers – a seemingly mundane silent witness that is around us.
Coming from different backgrounds in classical music, software engineering, theatrical performance, and multimedia art, we peel back the layers, discovering a tapestry of stories.
Sitting in a bar staring at the wall while having nothing serious to say, made us discover personal and cultural connections to the topic.
We seek to unravel the storytelling potential, finding parallels to political issues such as gentrification of cities and socio-economic differences.
Who is able to shape their personal surroundings to their wishes? How much do our surroundings influence our way of thinking/feeling?
THE LEMON : Alicia Reyes, Lucas Xerxes, Robin Plenio, Joern Griepenburg
In the heart of the post-Soviet era, we as a group of young Russians, the first free generation, confronts the complexities of our homeland’s socio-political landscape. Faced with challenges, including widespread arrests and a stifling atmosphere, we embark on a profound research project focusing on the omnipresent tool wielded by the Putin regime: propaganda.
This interdisciplinary team, consisting of actors, musicians, and a puppet theater artist, aims to dissect the evolution of Russian propaganda from the Soviet Union’s collapse to the present day. Rejecting traditional hierarchical structures, the team operates horizontally, exploring the effectiveness of a leaderless collaborative approach in artistic endeavors.
Ilya Khodyrev, Mikhail Poliakov, Vsevolod Kovalenko, Tatyana Ochsenohr
The THEATERNATUR FESTIVAL takes place annually in August on and around the Waldbühne Benneckenstein in the Oberharz region and in the entire border triangle of Saxony-Anhalt, Thuringia and Lower Saxony.
The Festival takes place on three dates at two different places:
20./21. JULI + 27./28. JULI – FREI|LUFT|KULTUR
REGION HARZ
02. – 18. AUGUST – FESTIVAL AN DER WALDBÜHNE
BENNECKENSTEIN / OBERHARZ AM BROCKEN
The THEATERNATUR FESTIVAL takes place annually in August on and around the Waldbühne Benneckenstein in the Oberharz region and in the entire border triangle of Saxony-Anhalt, Thuringia and Lower Saxony.
The Festival takes place on three dates at two different places:
20./21. JULI + 27./28. JULI – FREI|LUFT|KULTUR
REGION HARZ
02. – 18. AUGUST – FESTIVAL AN DER WALDBÜHNE
BENNECKENSTEIN / OBERHARZ AM BROCKEN
The THEATERNATUR FESTIVAL takes place annually in August on and around the Waldbühne Benneckenstein in the Oberharz region and in the entire border triangle of Saxony-Anhalt, Thuringia and Lower Saxony.
The Festival takes place on three dates at two different places:
20./21. JULI + 27./28. JULI – FREI|LUFT|KULTUR
REGION HARZ
02. – 18. AUGUST – FESTIVAL AN DER WALDBÜHNE
BENNECKENSTEIN / OBERHARZ AM BROCKEN
[Whole]Contacts create a state of suspension full of ambiguity. When and how does contact arise, what are the limits and what happens if it flickers, exists for a while and then doesn’t again? We want to research establishing contact, maintaining contact and breaking off contact and investigate how these processes work or fail. As a young theater collective, it is important to us to break down elitist barriers to access to theater as well as those between audience and performers. In our research we deal with physical and linguistic [shaky] contact in analog and digital space, as well as their entanglement.
FUTUR.X: Fiona Grün, Anastiya Shtemenko , Alexandra Paal, Sophie Gigou, Stefan Ammer
We, Pia Katharina Jendreizik, Declan Hurley and Brice Stapelfeldt from people like die, are exploring, together with Fia Neises, the chances and possibilities of a form of stage expression that includes deaf, blind and visually impaired, hearing and sighted artists and their audiences and their individual Perceptual styles taken into account.
Our goal is to develop a barrier-free aesthetic practice. The starting point will (as always) be communication. How do we organize ourselves? How do we find an equal basis? How do we ask each other questions and what questions do we ask?
What is important for the development of barrier-free aesthetics? What is possible? What do we want? How do we build on experiences we have? What do we share? What could we share?
PEOPLE LIKE THIS : Declan Hurley, Pia Katharina Jendreizik, Brice Stapelfeldt, Fia Neises
The funding grant notification has arrived! But what happens now? What actually does necessary, economical and sparingly mean, what is unsexy called regulation on sub-threshold procurement (in German even unsexier: Unterschwellenvergabeordnung) or an early commencement of the project? What in the Federal Travel Expenses Act is important for us who work in cultural funding, which documents do I have to collect and how do I document/explain correctly?
The workshop excel is not a landscape has laid the foundations for budget monitoring within an individual production in the independent performing arts. By linking a continuous document entry with the cost centres within the cost and financing plan, a system is created that allows producers to see at any time which funds from the overall and individual budgets are still available for use in a production and which have already been spent.
The session with Agnieszka is intended to provide a safer space for exchange, centering disabled and/or chronically ill producers and their perspectives.
The following topics will be discussed: What does it mean to work as a disabled and/or chronically ill person as a producer in the independent performing arts? How do other colleagues experience this? How do accessible working practices look like for disabled and/or chronically ill producers?
cases & faces offers a space for producers from different fields to share challenges from our everyday work and to jointly deal with specific cases and situations from their own work context.
It is based on the thought that we can draw on shared knowledge and create a connecting, collegial and open space with different perspectives, which in the best case also enables new perceptions of our own situation.
As part of our onboarding, we provide an insight into our offering and show ways to become an active part of produktionsbande. Onboarding takes place online via Zoom and can be conducted in German or English, depending on requirements.
The UN Roundtable format includes regular online meetings where UN partners, other BIPoC networks and individual arts and cultural practitioners from across Germany come together to share their knowledge and tools to strengthen intersectional BIPoC movements. Shared tools will then be developed in the form of an infographic and/or video for other members of the community to use.
UN Labs are residencies for BIPoC artists to promote creative exchange, experimentation and collaboration in rural areas or a project workshop program for BIPoC artists to work with young people who are socio-economically disadvantaged due to their refugee context.
UNacademy are discussion rounds between artists and cultural professionals, politicians and administrators, for the exchange of knowledge and experience as well as for exploring needs-oriented options for action.
UN Roundtables are residencies for BIPoC artists to promote creative exchange, experimentation and collaboration in rural areas or a project workshop program for BIPoC artists to work with young people who are socio-economically disadvantaged due to their refugee context.
Choreographer Hannah Ma (Wawern, Rhineland-Palatinate) talks about the idea of how dance can be radically solidary and asks: How can we use dance in rural areas to work together in the long term, form friendships, networks and communities, cultivate and promote discourse, (privilege) reflection, solidarity and empathy?
Dramaturge Charlotte Mathiessen (Zurich, Switzerland) presents the unique funding platform TanzPlan Ost, which enables contemporary dance in the region of Eastern Switzerland/Principality of Liechtenstein as part of a three-stage model.
https://www.tanzplan-ost.ch/editorial
The new series will start on June 13 at the original time with an opening in English, in which Pascal Sangl and Elisabeth Nehring will give a thematic outlook and the “tanz weit draußen” network will introduce itself and its work. Representatives of the regional teams from Brandenburg, Baden-Württemberg, Schleswig-Holstein/Hamburg and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Aktion Tanz and the project management team will be present to answer questions and exchange ideas.
/// The event will be held in English ///
The 4 Puppet Theater Collections (4PS) of the KompleXX Puppet Theater Alliance are awarding the 4PS Fellowship for the first time in 2025, an endowed research grant that offers space for concentrated work over six months to develop new ideas and approaches for the collections through research, research and conception.
The aim of the 4PS Fellowship is to initiate the research process for Citizen Science in the collections and to connect the four collections.
Das Kollektiv b/w*itch fragt nach queerfeministischen Perspektiven auf solidarisches Zusammensein. Für die Flausen+ Zeit forschen wir an kollaborativen Spielstrategien und dem queeren und feministischen Potential von Pilzen. In Moving Guts entwickeln wir ein Spielformat, das die unterschiedlichen Fähigkeiten der Pilze als Ausgangspunkt für kollaborative Spielstrategien nimmt. Das Spiel als Format dient uns dazu utopische Momente zu ermöglichen und gemeinschaftliche Gefüge zu erleben. Ziel des Spieles ist das Patriarchat zu zersetzen, zu kompostieren und Nährstoffe für anderes freizusetzen. Wir forschen am Bühnenraum und wie dieser sich in ein begehbares Spielfeld verwandeln kann.
B/W*ITCH: Anngret Schultze , Esther Adam, Katharina Greeven, Kattalin Mitxelena Newiger
SHOW
The flausen+festival brings together follow-up productions by former flausen+ scholarship holders in one place and offers an insight into artistic debates about innovative topics, formats and aesthetics.
NETWORK
The flausen+festival thus creates a versatile space for encounters, networking and discourse with other artists, a specialist audience, but also the interested public.
DEVELOP
In addition, the festival provides impulses for flausen+ as an internal platform: in working discussions with flausen+ participants, with space and time to evaluate the program and discussions on current problems that affect artists and small and medium-sized theaters.
FAVORITEN – the theater, dance and performance festival of the independent scene in North Rhine-Westphalia – has been held every two years in Dortmund since 1985. It is one of the oldest festivals of the independent performing arts in Germany and is aimed equally at the people of the city and region as well as at a nationwide and international (professional) audience. For the 2022 and 2024 editions of the festival, Anne Mahlow, Margo Zālīte and Sina-Marie Schneller will be the artistic directors of FAVORITEN for the first time.
Under the motto (Un)Learning for possible futures, Anne Mahlow, Margo Zālīte and Sina-Marie Schneller will address the challenges of the present and the future on an artistic and discursive level for the FAVORITEN Festival. They place the joint, continuous process of learning and growing together between genders, generations, classes and borders at the center of the festival. They want to grow together with Dortmund and the city society and at the same time put out feelers on a global level via the digital space and in doing so also learn with and from international partners.
Anne Mahlow, Margo Zālīte and Sina-Marie Schneller pursue a collective way of working. What they have in common is an excellent knowledge of the independent scene in North Rhine-Westphalia, a reflection on the perspectives of this very scene, and a great interest in shaping cultural policy and in regional, national, and international cooperation. The previous festival work of all three is characterized by a broad perspective on a wide variety of artistic genres.
This year, the artistic direction of FAVORITEN has been advertised directly for two editions. The longer-term perspective should enable a more sustainable collaboration with artists, partners and networks and support an even stronger anchoring of the festival in the city.
The next festival edition will take place from September 5-15, 2024 in Dortmund and digitally.
Hauptsache Frei was founded as a festival for the independent performing arts in Hamburg. Now in its 10th year, it has a new look to celebrate artistic diversity in Hamburg and beyond.
We are happy to invite you to experience contemporary trends, aesthetic innovations and socio-political discourse in a diverse interdisciplinary program at Fringify and to join in the conversation.
Düsseldorf and Mülheim an der Ruhr
The Impulse Theater Festival, together with artists and the Ringlokschuppen Ruhr, is opening a summer pool in MüGa Park for eleven days. The Conte Potuto group is designing a bathroom of dreams: almost without water, but full of the visitors’ wishes and ideas. TachoTinta play on dry land with the underwater rugby team, and in the TIGERS’ KITCHEN they don’t just fry, they also produce tasty hits.
OSTEN is a festival for art and mutual interest. It explores and celebrates “the East” as a landscape of change for people, nature and coexistence. From June 1st to 16th, 2024, the festival invites you for the second time to (re)discover the city of Bitterfeld-Wolfen and “the East” with a diverse cultural program.
While the first festival focused on the Bitterfeld Cultural Palace, the 2024 festival will turn several places of industrial culture into a stage and explore unusual spaces in the city in the area between the former cinema, the municipal cultural center, the former factory fire department of the film and fiber factory, the industrial and film museum and the town hall.
The festival The Framework is the Program (DRiP) will take place in 2024 in collaboration with the Fritz Theater.
DRiP 2024 addresses the view from East to West and vice versa. In a city that experienced a revolutionary transformation after 1990 and whose consequences are still felt and visible, DRiP wants to offer an artistic platform for employment.
We don’t want to talk about each other, we want to enter into dialogue with each other and stay in conversation. We want to invite artists and visitors to change perspectives and look from East to West and vice versa. We show performances from Chemnitz, Saxony, North Rhine-Westphalia/Brazil and Manchester.
Netzwerk
Verbindungen fördern
This session is the third out of three public input sessions within the frame of the digital companionship programme: transnational contexts & relations, that is organised and hosted by Kreativ-Transfer, a project of Dachverband Tanz Deutschland and produktionsbande. In the companionship programme, one companion with transnational expertise supports one participant in the development and expansion of their own transnational working practice as a producer in the independent performing arts.
speaker: godlive lawani
the idea
bring actors together
strengthening the performing arts
actively shaping the future
The flausen+kongresses usually take place every two years on a biennial basis.
AUGENBLICK MAL! 2025 CASTS ITS SHADOW AHEAD …
From May 6 to 11, 2025, AUGENBLICK MAL! will enter the next round. This website will be updated over the coming weeks and months. You can already read which ten productions our curators have selected as guest performances for the festival.
The next ASSITEJ Award Ceremony will take place on May 10, 2025 as part of AUGENBLICK MAL! The Festival of Theater for Young Audiences.
ASSITEJ awards several prizes every two years. The prizes honor people or institutions
who make a special contribution to the performing arts for young audiences and their diversity,
who are particularly committed to raising the profile of work for young audiences and with children and young people,
who seek dialog with the audience and promote reflection on it,
who are a source of inspiration for others – be it locally, regionally, nationally or globally.
International Cultural Exchange Freiburg (IKF)
Zirkus ON invites you to the 2nd edition of Zirkus ONstage together with the Internationale Kulturbörse Freiburg!
With Zirkus ONstage, the creative alliance for circus arts – Zirkus ON will be presenting three circus creations from the last Zirkus ON editions to a German and international audience of experts at the International Cultural Exchange in Freiburg (IKF) from January 20 to 22.
Groups of artists selected by an expert jury and supported for two years by the Zirkus ON creation alliance with mentoring, residencies, presentations, knowledge transfer formats and networking will perform. Zirkus ONstage is the final format of the creation program and creates a bridge between creation and distribution.
Rui Silveira on Something Great, a non-profit organization and live arts center in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany
In this conversation, Rui will tell the story of Something Great, its history and its transformation from an internationally renowned performing arts touring agency based in Berlin to a cultural charity and live arts center rooted in an 18.6 hectare estate in the southwest of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. Dedicated to the support, promotion and presentation of live art, the center focuses primarily on contemporary dance and performance art, but is also open to other art forms, such as the visual arts.
With another edition of the workshop “Radically polite in dealing with right-wing populism”, we are continuing the qualification program “Promoting democracy – qualifying with knowledge to act for a diverse society” of our project “Promoting connections”.
#Communicate
The workshop looks at right-wing populist argumentation patterns and signal words and the intention behind them. How can we take a clear stance against right-wing populist statements in everyday life? Is a conversation useful and if so, how can it succeed?
Participants can expect a mixture of input, practical exercises and moderated discussion. They will gain applicable basic knowledge about right-wing populism and learn to recognize different situations and differentiate how to deal with them.
The workshop will be led by Tadel verpflichtet! e.V., which is committed to democratic coexistence.
Speakers: Matthias Jung, Katharina Klasen
With the experience exchange “Dealing with Nazi history in rural areas – between art project and educational work” with Felix Forsbach, we are continuing the qualification program “Promoting democracy – qualifying with knowledge to act for a diverse society” of our project “Promoting connections”.
#Becoming active together
National Socialism remains a challenging topic that continues to have an impact today. This complexity contributes to the fact that right-wing extremist parties are gaining popularity again, threatening the existence of artists, cultural associations and initiatives for cosmopolitanism and diversity. This workshop will discuss the space of possibility that can be created through an artistic examination of National Socialism in the lives of people in rural areas.
In the social sculpture “augustusburger-protokolle”, Felix Forsbach has been artistically and transdisciplinary dedicated to the Nazi history of Augustusburg, a small town in Central Saxony, since 2021. His artistic work has led to a public discourse on how to deal with the history of the place and has reached many people of different ages through the explicitly artistic examination of the Nazi era. As part of the workshop, he will talk about the possibility of bonds between artists and residents and about the opportunities of long and processual residencies to encourage artists to tackle political issues explicitly and directly.
The event will be held in German and is free of charge. Places are limited.
After orientation and action, in the third part of the event series ksk for producers as well! we would like to conclude by inviting you to a joint exchange, which at the same time offers a space for open questions or issues that you have encountered in your membership application for the KSK.
The offer provides you with time together with us and all participants in which you can discuss and advance your concerns for the further processing and finalization of your application or your documents to be submitted.
To participate, it is therefore important that you bring a specific issue or question with you, which you briefly present and which can then be worked on together with you in breakout groups to support you in your KSK application process.
Sarah Soethoudt is a contemporary dancer, choreographer, cultural coach and founding member of the artist collective FLUJAS in Venlo, Noord-Limburg.
This region consists mainly of villages and small towns, which is both an enrichment and a challenge for professional artists. As a dancer and choreographer, Sarah develops site-specific works that are inspired by the surrounding forests and use them as a backdrop. She also devises specific performances in collaboration with partners such as museums and conservation organizations.
In her role as a cultural coach, she supports local artistic initiatives and encourages both professional artists and the residents of Venlo. FLUJAS is an artist-led collective that campaigns for better working conditions in Noord-Limburg. Most artists in this region face challenges such as visibility, funding, collaboration and know-how. FLUJAS brings artists together and offers them space to work and create with confidence and without pressure.
In this Kaffetalk, Sarah talks about her mediation work as a cultural coach, her artistic practice and collective work with a special focus on rural areas in the Netherlands.
Christina Elliot, Head of Programming & Producing at “The Place”, London’s center for dance development. Christina leads on the theater program, artist development initiatives, new productions and touring projects.
In this coffee talk, Christina will introduce the Rural Touring Dance Initiative (RTDI) – a nationwide project that supports dance artists and rural promoters to create high quality dance performances in rural areas. Since 2015, RTDI has brought some of the UK’s best dance companies, such as Lost Dog, Protein and Scottish Dance Theatre, to rural areas.
Christina will share her experiences and explain how RTDI has transformed the dance scene in rural areas of the UK and continues to positively impact the touring landscape.
cases & faces offers a space for producers from different fields to share challenges from our everyday work and to jointly deal with specific cases and situations from our own work context.
It is based on the thought that we can draw on shared knowledge and create a connecting, collegial and open space with different perspectives, which in the best case also enables new perceptions of our own situation.
In this session we deal with the complex topic of hospitality and discuss questions such as: How does it work? What makes a valuable hospitality practice, what are the ingredients? What field are we in? What are practices of hosting & guesting | invitation practices | opportunities & challenges of hospitality? How do I develop a multidirectional perspective and how does dealing with hospitality also influence questions of team development?
For producers, working at the interfaces with all those involved in an artistic production means maintaining open communication in all directions and, at the same time, bundling information and making it accessible to everyone. Friction can arise in this complex communication work, which can lead to potential conflicts.
In this two-part workshop for producers, Dana Caspersen will provide insights into methods for constructively framing, handling and, ideally, jointly resolving conflicts.
In this session we invite a critical eye on our existing networks, our informal champions and how to utilise these tools to identify new opportunities, disseminate work and push producing practices. We will look at the structure of networks and the importance of reciprocity in building lasting relationships. We will use this time to form a temporal network of information exchange where participants will be invited to offer their experiences and talk about their desires.
Tech riders or technical riders are technical documentations that are sent to theaters and event spaces in advance in order to plan the setup together. In the workshop, we talk about what should be included for stage, lighting, video, sound and special effects. And what other different forms of technical documentation can be used to make our lives easier when setting up.
This edition of skills & discourse is dedicated to income tax in an international context. Besides a theoretical focus with an application outlook by Felix Sodemann (touring artists), we will also take a closer look at the implementation in production practice together with Felix and Harriet Lesch with your example cases. Please send us your examples and questions with your registration by 6 October at the latest so that we can prepare them, include them in the workshop and discuss them together. Registration without submission of cases is open longer.
With Hikmat El-Hammouri from ver.di
The Verband freier Kinder- und Jugendtheater Bayern e.V. represents the concerns and needs of independent and professional theaters for young audiences. The association works to improve the working conditions and perception of independent children’s and youth theater throughout Bavaria. It also ensures that the needs of the sector continue to be taken into account in the design of new and existing state cultural funding.
With Michael Dietrich from Verband freier Kinder- und Jugendtheater Bayern e.V.
ASSITEJ e.V., the network of children’s and young people’s theaters, has conducted the first study to present the performing arts for young audiences in Germany in all their heterogeneity. Staff, programs and audiences of around 1,000 municipal and independent children’s and youth theaters, sections of municipal and state theaters as well as guest performance organizers throughout Germany were examined.
With Valerie Eichmann from ASSITEJ Germany
The Netzwerk Regie, which was founded in 2017 under the umbrella of ensemble-netzwerk, has represented the professional group of theater directors since 2022 and offers all professional colleagues a forum for networking and exchange. Among other things, the Netzwerk Regie has developed new model work contracts for directors with the German Stage Association, defined lower fee limits, organized congresses and training events, represented the interests of directors on a wide variety of panels and in discussion groups and is in close dialogue with cultural policy makers, trade unions and other networks.
With Jacob Weiß from Netzwerk Regie e.V.
The German Forum for Puppet Theater and Puppetry Art is planning a European Production House for Puppet Theater together with the Figurentheater-Kolleg Bochum. The aim of the project is to create a platform that promotes international exchange and the production of puppet theater plays. The aim is to create an infrastructure that offers puppet theater artists the spaces and conditions they need for their extraordinary work – unique in Europe and with the “Made in Bochum” seal of quality.
With Annette Dabs, Director of the German Forum for Puppet Theater and Puppetry, Bochum
With Seta Guetsoyan, Director of the Figurentheater-Kollegs, Bochum
What can you expect?
United Networks and House of Brownies invite you to a special BIPoC community gathering where you will have the opportunity to network with other BIPoC artists, creatives, associations, organizations and collectives from Hamburg and beyond. Let’s exchange ideas and find new ways to share resources within our BIPoC communities and collaborate more effectively.
Look forward to an interactive afternoon of speed working where you can find out how collaborative working can be strengthened. You will also have the opportunity to showcase your skills and resources in our Marketplace and see what other participants have to offer. Afterwards, you can continue networking over a delicious dinner in a relaxed atmosphere. At the end of the evening, there will be a live performance that you shouldn’t miss!
info.zoom – exchange, networking, faqs
get to know “tanz weit draußen”. Under this motto, we will be opening the doors to our monthly Info.zoom on December 13 from 10 to 11 am. This will take place every 3rd Friday of the month.
Everyone is welcome to come and find out more about the network, get to know us, ask questions and network. As a young network, we are particularly interested in what concerns you when it comes to dance in rural areas and regions.
The Info.Zoom is held alternately by the two project managers Jessica Buchholz and Pam Goroncy. Network partners from Aktion Tanz, Tanzregion Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, TanzSzene Baden-Württemberg, tanz.nord, fabrik Potsdam, Ponderosa, Szene 2wei and Tanz- und Theaterwerkstatt Ludwigsburg also regularly take part.
info.zoom – exchange, networking, faqs
get to know “tanz weit draußen”. Under this motto, we will be opening the doors to our monthly Info.zoom again on November 15 from 10 to 11 am. This will take place every 3rd Friday of the month.
Everyone is welcome to come and find out more about the network, get to know us, ask questions and network. As a young network, we are particularly interested in what concerns you when it comes to dance in rural areas and regions.
The Info.Zoom is held alternately by the two project managers Jessica Buchholz and Pam Goroncy. Network partners from Aktion Tanz, Tanzregion Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, TanzSzene Baden-Württemberg, tanz.nord, fabrik Potsdam, Ponderosa, Szene 2wei and Tanz- und Theaterwerkstatt Ludwigsburg also regularly take part.
Bianca Kruppa (Diebis, Bavaria) on community work on the “wrong farm” and the joy of making mistakes
What can a modern, sustainable and culturally diverse life look like in which a large number of people can participate and help shape it? With this central question in mind, the “False Farm” can be seen as a place that is constantly evolving. It offers space for content that is shaped by the creativity and expertise of local people. As co-founder of the “False Farm”, Bianca sees this place as a kind of collective resistance to the pursuit of the supposedly “right answer” – and instead creates space for something new. In doing so, Bianca’s community often finds itself in a field of tension between aspiration and reality – without losing the joy of experimentation.
In this coffee talk, Bianca shares her experiences as a community dance artist and dance facilitator in the context of her work on the “False Farm”. The focus is on community building and her personal research questions about dance in rural spaces. Bianca lives and works in rural southern Germany and is currently studying a Masters in Dance: Participation, Communities, Activism at London Contemporary Dance School.
info.zoom – exchange, networking, faqs
get to know “tanz weit draußen”. Under this motto, we will be opening the doors to our monthly Info.zoom for the first time on October 18 from 10 to 11 am. From then on, this will take place every 3rd Friday of the month.
Everyone is welcome to come and find out more about the network, get to know us, ask questions and network. As a young network, we are particularly interested in what concerns you when it comes to dance in rural areas and regions.
The Info.Zoom is held alternately by the two project managers Jessica Buchholz and Pam Goroncy. Network partners from Aktion Tanz, Tanzregion Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, TanzSzene Baden-Württemberg, tanz.nord, fabrik Potsdam, Ponderosa, Szene 2wei and Tanz- und Theaterwerkstatt Ludwigsburg also regularly take part.
Roberto Casarotto (Bassano del Grappa, Venuto, Italy) on curating dance projects in north-eastern Italy
Roberto Casarotto is the co-director of »Aerowaves«, the European Platform for Dance promoting cross-border mobility of the work of emerging dance artists. He is also the initiator of »Dance Well« – Movement Research for Parkinson’s and other processes aimed at fostering participation in cultural activities both on a community and on an individual level. From 2006 to 2022, he was responsible for the dance projects and programs at »Centro per la Scena Contemporanea di Bassano del Grappa« (CSC) and »Operaestate Festival Veneto« in small cities and rural areas in the North East of Italy. He still develops international projects there now, supported by the EU Creative Europe and Erasmus + Programs, aimed at supporting artistic research, engaging local citizens and promoting artistic mobility and development in the field of dance. Prior to working for dance organizations, Roberto was a professional contemporary dancer.
In this Coffee Talk, Roberto will give insights into his wide range of experience in program creation and producing contemporary international dance in rural areas of northern Italy.
From participating in learning processes to attending performances during the weekend gatherings, “Implantieren ‘24” offers a variety of ways to get involved and, in collaboration with numerous partners, weaves a rich ecosystem of relationships.
“Implantieren ‘24” is a performing arts festival called “On the Ruins of the University.” Taking place on the former university campus in Bockenheim, Frankfurt, it explores what new things can grow from the ideological heritage and physical remains of the university. The festival questions how we can reinvent societal learning without exclusions and how can we learn from brokenness now, rather than just preparing for the future?
With its 13 projects, across venues in Neu-Isenburg, Offenbach and Frankfurt, the festival lays out an imaginary topography of a university in ruins. There are projects that delve into the dungeons of the university, where the Enlightenment persecuted heretics, objectors, and deviant bodies, questioning which forms of knowledge and which bodies have been excluded. And others that settle in the in-between and unused spaces, asking if it’s possible to gather without purpose and practice a new form of community. And also those that study how the campus can be transformed back to its literal meaning, a “field,” and how this transformation can help us reopen questions about the endangered ecologies we are part of today.
The theme of the “Verbindunngen fördern” conference “democracy and digitality” is the interfaces between democracy and digitality.
Experts from various disciplines will share their knowledge, experiences and strategies in the form of keynotes, impulses, workshops and exchange rounds and actively invite participants to test and reflect.
During a political soirée on the first day of the conference, politicians and experts from the independent scene are invited to publicly discuss the role of structural funding for democracy.
The event is also explicitly aimed at people who are not active in the performing arts but would like to exchange ideas and gain qualifications on these topics. The full program will follow shortly.
Registration via eventbrite
The registration deadline is November 4.
As part of the ATOLL Festival in Karlsruhe, the Kreationsbündnis für Zirkuskunst – Zirkus ON is presenting the 6th edition projects selected by a jury to a public audience for the first time.
The following work-in-progress pieces will be on show, each with a short
audience feedback format afterwards:
Hybrid by IceDanceTheater-Fusion
Lasterhaft by La Tanik
still.dependent by Hanschitz & Beierer
On the following day (19.9.), the alliance partners and mentors will meet with the artists. Based on the DasArts feedback methodology, the three projects will be discussed individually. Constructive feedback will be collected for further creation.
For the third time, the Netzwerk Freie Szene Saar is organizing the festival of independent performing arts in Saarland. From drama, music, dance, performance, sound art and live radio plays to children’s theater, everything the Saarland independent scene has to offer will be on display in and around the Erzhalle of the Völkinger Hütte World Cultural Heritage Site.
In the run-up to the festival, City Management Völklingen will host the STADTLABOR, which invites you to workshops, discussions and exchange formats to bring artists and city residents as well as art and everyday life together.
#Becoming active together
In this workshop as part of the training programme “Promoting democracy – qualifying with knowledge to act for a diverse society”, central fighting terms, rhetorical patterns and organized approaches of the right-wing culture war will be explained. In addition, possible courses of action for dealing with intimidation, hostility and threats are presented and discussed. Participants are given the space to present their experiences and reflect on situations in interactive exercises.
Art and culture represent an important field of action for right-wing extremism and populism to implement their political ideas. This is because this is where current social issues and conflicts are discussed and where there is room for controversial debates. What strategies does this cultural struggle from the right pursue? How can and should we react to it?
The aim of the event is to raise participants’ awareness of the strategies and facets of this cultural struggle on the one hand and to strengthen their confidence to act on the other.
Speakers: Kerstin Kuballa and Matthias Müller from the Mobile Counseling Service against Right-Wing Extremism Berlin (MBR).
The SPURENSUCHE 2024, the working meeting of the independent children’s and youth theaters, will take place on October 10th (from 2 p.m.) and October 11th (until 4 p.m.) in the Junges Theater Augsburg together with the PERSPEKTIV:WECHSEL alliance. After 2 years, the alliance, which is supported by “Verbindungen fördern”, has brought the following questions to the SPURENSUCHE:
What is the starting point of the German children’s and youth theatre festival scene in relation to diversification processes?
How can processes of critical debate about power find their way into artistic practice?
How do we create safer spaces that live up to their name?
What have we learned and what do we want to discuss with you?
#Act and Hold
In this workshop as part of the qualification program “Promoting democracy – using knowledge to qualify for action for a diverse society”, the participants work together with speakers from the Anne Frank Education Center to recognize the different forms and mechanisms of racism, to develop a self-reflective attitude and to take the perspectives of those affected seriously. Building on this, there is space for reflection and exchange on action strategies in the context of art and culture.
Racism is part of our everyday lives and our society. Whether visible or invisible – racism influences our relationships and coexistence and has a violent effect. However, the experiences of those affected are often not recognized. When dealing with racism, it is often the debates about language and images that unsettle many people. Many everyday terms and images have their origins in colonial racist ideas or are based on ideologies of inequality.
The seminar at the Anne Frank Education Centre offers the opportunity for discussion and exchange. It raises awareness of the different forms and mechanisms of racism, develops a self-reflective attitude and takes the perspectives of those affected seriously. Building on this, space is provided for reflection and exchange on action strategies in the context of art and culture.
Speakers: Anne Frank Education Centre
#Take action together
This experience exchange as part of the qualification program “Promoting democracy – qualifying with knowledge to act for a diverse society” takes place as a hybrid format at the THEATERNATUR FESTIVAL in the Harz Mountains. Together with the Landeszentrum Freies Theater Sachsen-Anhalt e. V., Frauke Wetzel (“Der Rahmen ist Programm”) and Jan Hendrik Hermann (THEATERNATUR FESTIVAL) will open a discussion framework and exchange moment for colleagues with curatorial responsibility for festivals, festivals or other public cultural events.
Diverse, empowering, open and safe cultural events are essential pillars of a democratic society – and cannot be taken for granted. How can festival organizers open up and maintain these democratic spaces through curation and event design? Which regional practices can be adapted in supra-regional exchange? What hurdles do the actors encounter in their respective working practices? Local and international festival organizers are invited to discuss these and other questions together in a moderated discussion.
The aim of the Experience Exchange is to provide a platform for networking and exchange between national and international festival organizers in order to discuss practical experiences, consider (joint) options for action and learn from each other. The promotion of democratic cooperation in the festival or event context forms the connecting element.
#Take action together
In this experience exchange as part of the qualification program “Promoting democracy – qualifying with knowledge to act for a diverse society”, Diana Wesser and Sandra Bringer from the Artist Lab “Celebrating festivals” share research results and strategies on festivals as performative acts with a focus on rural areas. Do right-wing groups use existing festivals to cultivate and expand their following? Can performing arts compete with right-wing groups and gain a new audience at village festivals? What overlaps are there with festivals? What strategies can be adapted for festival work in rural areas?
In the subsequent exchange, festival organizers are invited to share regional experiences and discuss supra-regional approaches.
background
Theatricality, fictionalization, assembly, play, stories and regional themes – these are festival components that can have a socio-political impact, strengthen communities and experience diversity in a positive way.
As part of the Artist Lab “Celebrating Festivals”, 2023 investigated how festivals work in rural areas. Village festivals and festivals in small towns in Brandenburg, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania were visited.
The Artist Lab “Feste Feiern” sees itself as a network of associates, interested people in rural areas, creators and co-creators that goes beyond the participating artists. “Feste Feiern” encourages people in rural areas to forge stronger relationships and open up spaces for encounters using the performing arts.
Zur Veranstaltung
The second experience exchange in the #Gemeinsam aktiv werden module will take place as a hybrid format at the Phoenix Theater Festival. Participation is possible in presence and digitally.
We also recommend participating in the face-to-face workshop at the Phoenix Theater Festival entitled “HACKATON Toolbox performing arts & activism – think, develop, act” and in the qualification and networking format at the THEATERNATUR FESTIVAL entitled “Creating democratic spaces and keeping them open in festival curation”. The formats can be combined in terms of content. There will be moments of exchange at all events, which are intended to promote supra-regional networking among festival organizers.
#Take action together
In this workshop, Sandra Bringer and Diana Wesser invite you to a practical think tank as part of the qualification program “Promoting Democracy – Qualifying with Knowledge for Action for a Diverse Society”. The aim is to explore the relationship between art and political activism and the extent to which the performing arts are useful as a tool, a channel and a place for socio-political democratic negotiation processes. The aim is to create a “performing arts & activism toolbox” oriented towards the common good.
Festivals act as central anchor points for a decentralized independent scene and offer low-threshold opportunities for exchange, contact and the activation of audiences in the independent performing arts. This is where the workshop comes in. It will take place at the Phoenix Theater Festival in Erfurt.
In a short input, Sandra Bringer and Diana Wesser will map the topic using examples of their own performative attitude and exemplary formats of other activists and artists. In the subsequent hackathon, smaller groups will develop their own performative and/or discursive formats in a theory-practice transfer. The ideas will be implemented on site in a practical self-experiment. The tools developed for events and festivals will then be made available online for everyone in line with the open source concept.
Following the presence workshop, a hybrid experience exchange entitled “Festivals and festival culture – countering the decline of democracy in rural areas through performance” will take place at the Phoenix Theater Festival. In addition to this, we also recommend taking part in the qualification and networking format as part of the THEATERNATUR FESTIVAL entitled “Creating democratic spaces and keeping them open in festival curation”.The formats can be combined in terms of content.
There will be moments of exchange at all events, which are intended to promote supra-regional networking among festival organizers.
Munich moves @ rodeo 2024. Here, radical cheerleading meets soft masculinity. Here, dancing in anatomy classes and singing about nursing are just part of the experience. Here, people come together to watch, talk, sleep, and celebrate diversity through shows, workshops, and parties, both in the Kreativquartier and across various venues throughout the city.
At rodeo 2024, the body is in the spotlight: whether seen as male or female, young or old, healthy or ill; conforming to norms or defying them; As a queer, virtual, or collective body. Bodies are more than just bones and skin—they are seismographs of our society, bearing the imprints of values, ideologies, and desires. How we perceive and treat bodies is an eminently political question. Recently, the growing right-wing movement has also targeted the body as a battleground, agitating against “gender ideology” and sexual self-determination.
This year’s Rodeo selection stands for diversity against these repressive policies. In their works, the artists celebrate resistance, rebellion, and defiance. They envision utopias for a better tomorrow while also exploring themes of weakness, exhaustion, and vulnerability.
How do we remain tender in times of brutalization? How can we make our echo chambers and bubbles permeable again? The 12 selected pieces are a plea for empathy and attentiveness—toward people and the world around us.
Like a phoenix rising from the ashes – that’s what they say when something that was thought to be dead rises again, when there is a new beginning for something that was already finished or when you get something back that you thought was lost. All of this applies to what PHOENIX e.V. wants to do with cultural sites that have been abandoned.
Lack of money, rationalization and mergers were the main reasons why deep wounds were torn by the abandonment or closure of entire buildings, especially in the new federal states. Cultural sites such as the Schauspielhaus in Erfurt were abandoned overnight and left to their own devices. Sites of collective memory and personal history rotted away in the middle of the city.
PHOENIX wants to revive such places – through sustainable and long-term artistic initiatives. By organizing and staging cultural events such as festivals, conferences, theater productions, performances, concerts, urban projects, exhibitions and symposia, PHOENIX aims to set an example, provide encouragement, support local actors and thus reposition culture in the city. This is not about commercial use, but exclusively about specifically expanding the cultural offer in the respective city.
When working together, there are hierarchies, whether we like it or not. Sometimes it has to do with individual ways of working, sometimes it is due to the responsibilities of tasks, or both. Hierarchies are not bad in themselves, unless they are denied, or they are not comprehensible. In any case, they require common, transparent agreements. In this workshop we would like to find out with the participants how hierarchies and unresolved power relations can be detected and addressed in the context of cooperation and which tools are needed for this.
The joint working session excel is a life (or at least a style) is more of an exchange platform for Excel nerds than a well-paced workshop. In this open format, we share individual problems and challenges that still concern us despite our knowledge of Excel. All participants are available to help each other in a mutual exchange.
The prerequisite for participation is therefore to bring your own issue or problem in working with Excel in the context of production work in the independent performing arts and to present it in an open exchange format.
In the digital companionship programme, one companion with transnational expertise supports one participant in the development and expansion of their own transnational working practice as a producer in the independent performing arts. The ten companionship duos will each spend six individual companionship sessions independently and self-organised in the digital space with a focus on personal exchange of experience and knowledge on transnational contexts and relationships. We will accompany the six individual sessions in the respective duo constellations with digital supporting events: a common kick-off and closing meeting, informal meetings between the companions and participants, a moderated reflection session and three public inputs on selected topics of the programme.
Time, money, and the involvement of experts are decisive factors in producing accessibility. To work as an anti-ableist producer, one constantly explores their scope for action and deals with different conditions.
The speakers will distinguish the two concepts and share criteria, using various examples from their own anti-ableist practice. In the workshop, we will work together to develop an understanding of how to plan accessibility measures for your own project with different time and budget constraints and implement them with experts.
In the workshop, the participants deal with power structures and (their own) privileges and develop strategies for mutual support in the hierarchical theater structures. They will also look at their own resources and how they can make use of them. How can I become sensitive to implicit exclusion and discrimination? How can I support colleagues who are subjected to racist attacks? How can I express criticism without jeopardizing my career?
The aim of the workshop is to unite theater makers through sensitization and to enable new forms of community in the field of theater.
– Let’s talk about Wallpaper –
We, “The Lemon” collective, will explore the Poetic, Political, and Narrative Potential of wallpapers – a seemingly mundane silent witness that is around us.
Coming from different backgrounds in classical music, software engineering, theatrical performance, and multimedia art, we peel back the layers, discovering a tapestry of stories.
Sitting in a bar staring at the wall while having nothing serious to say, made us discover personal and cultural connections to the topic.
We seek to unravel the storytelling potential, finding parallels to political issues such as gentrification of cities and socio-economic differences.
Who is able to shape their personal surroundings to their wishes? How much do our surroundings influence our way of thinking/feeling?
THE LEMON : Alicia Reyes, Lucas Xerxes, Robin Plenio, Joern Griepenburg
In the heart of the post-Soviet era, we as a group of young Russians, the first free generation, confronts the complexities of our homeland’s socio-political landscape. Faced with challenges, including widespread arrests and a stifling atmosphere, we embark on a profound research project focusing on the omnipresent tool wielded by the Putin regime: propaganda.
This interdisciplinary team, consisting of actors, musicians, and a puppet theater artist, aims to dissect the evolution of Russian propaganda from the Soviet Union’s collapse to the present day. Rejecting traditional hierarchical structures, the team operates horizontally, exploring the effectiveness of a leaderless collaborative approach in artistic endeavors.
Ilya Khodyrev, Mikhail Poliakov, Vsevolod Kovalenko, Tatyana Ochsenohr
The THEATERNATUR FESTIVAL takes place annually in August on and around the Waldbühne Benneckenstein in the Oberharz region and in the entire border triangle of Saxony-Anhalt, Thuringia and Lower Saxony.
The Festival takes place on three dates at two different places:
20./21. JULI + 27./28. JULI – FREI|LUFT|KULTUR
REGION HARZ
02. – 18. AUGUST – FESTIVAL AN DER WALDBÜHNE
BENNECKENSTEIN / OBERHARZ AM BROCKEN
The THEATERNATUR FESTIVAL takes place annually in August on and around the Waldbühne Benneckenstein in the Oberharz region and in the entire border triangle of Saxony-Anhalt, Thuringia and Lower Saxony.
The Festival takes place on three dates at two different places:
20./21. JULI + 27./28. JULI – FREI|LUFT|KULTUR
REGION HARZ
02. – 18. AUGUST – FESTIVAL AN DER WALDBÜHNE
BENNECKENSTEIN / OBERHARZ AM BROCKEN
The THEATERNATUR FESTIVAL takes place annually in August on and around the Waldbühne Benneckenstein in the Oberharz region and in the entire border triangle of Saxony-Anhalt, Thuringia and Lower Saxony.
The Festival takes place on three dates at two different places:
20./21. JULI + 27./28. JULI – FREI|LUFT|KULTUR
REGION HARZ
02. – 18. AUGUST – FESTIVAL AN DER WALDBÜHNE
BENNECKENSTEIN / OBERHARZ AM BROCKEN
[Whole]Contacts create a state of suspension full of ambiguity. When and how does contact arise, what are the limits and what happens if it flickers, exists for a while and then doesn’t again? We want to research establishing contact, maintaining contact and breaking off contact and investigate how these processes work or fail. As a young theater collective, it is important to us to break down elitist barriers to access to theater as well as those between audience and performers. In our research we deal with physical and linguistic [shaky] contact in analog and digital space, as well as their entanglement.
FUTUR.X: Fiona Grün, Anastiya Shtemenko , Alexandra Paal, Sophie Gigou, Stefan Ammer
We, Pia Katharina Jendreizik, Declan Hurley and Brice Stapelfeldt from people like die, are exploring, together with Fia Neises, the chances and possibilities of a form of stage expression that includes deaf, blind and visually impaired, hearing and sighted artists and their audiences and their individual Perceptual styles taken into account.
Our goal is to develop a barrier-free aesthetic practice. The starting point will (as always) be communication. How do we organize ourselves? How do we find an equal basis? How do we ask each other questions and what questions do we ask?
What is important for the development of barrier-free aesthetics? What is possible? What do we want? How do we build on experiences we have? What do we share? What could we share?
PEOPLE LIKE THIS : Declan Hurley, Pia Katharina Jendreizik, Brice Stapelfeldt, Fia Neises
The funding grant notification has arrived! But what happens now? What actually does necessary, economical and sparingly mean, what is unsexy called regulation on sub-threshold procurement (in German even unsexier: Unterschwellenvergabeordnung) or an early commencement of the project? What in the Federal Travel Expenses Act is important for us who work in cultural funding, which documents do I have to collect and how do I document/explain correctly?
The workshop excel is not a landscape has laid the foundations for budget monitoring within an individual production in the independent performing arts. By linking a continuous document entry with the cost centres within the cost and financing plan, a system is created that allows producers to see at any time which funds from the overall and individual budgets are still available for use in a production and which have already been spent.
The session with Agnieszka is intended to provide a safer space for exchange, centering disabled and/or chronically ill producers and their perspectives.
The following topics will be discussed: What does it mean to work as a disabled and/or chronically ill person as a producer in the independent performing arts? How do other colleagues experience this? How do accessible working practices look like for disabled and/or chronically ill producers?
cases & faces offers a space for producers from different fields to share challenges from our everyday work and to jointly deal with specific cases and situations from their own work context.
It is based on the thought that we can draw on shared knowledge and create a connecting, collegial and open space with different perspectives, which in the best case also enables new perceptions of our own situation.
As part of our onboarding, we provide an insight into our offering and show ways to become an active part of produktionsbande. Onboarding takes place online via Zoom and can be conducted in German or English, depending on requirements.
The UN Roundtable format includes regular online meetings where UN partners, other BIPoC networks and individual arts and cultural practitioners from across Germany come together to share their knowledge and tools to strengthen intersectional BIPoC movements. Shared tools will then be developed in the form of an infographic and/or video for other members of the community to use.
UN Labs are residencies for BIPoC artists to promote creative exchange, experimentation and collaboration in rural areas or a project workshop program for BIPoC artists to work with young people who are socio-economically disadvantaged due to their refugee context.
UNacademy are discussion rounds between artists and cultural professionals, politicians and administrators, for the exchange of knowledge and experience as well as for exploring needs-oriented options for action.
UN Roundtables are residencies for BIPoC artists to promote creative exchange, experimentation and collaboration in rural areas or a project workshop program for BIPoC artists to work with young people who are socio-economically disadvantaged due to their refugee context.
Choreographer Hannah Ma (Wawern, Rhineland-Palatinate) talks about the idea of how dance can be radically solidary and asks: How can we use dance in rural areas to work together in the long term, form friendships, networks and communities, cultivate and promote discourse, (privilege) reflection, solidarity and empathy?
Dramaturge Charlotte Mathiessen (Zurich, Switzerland) presents the unique funding platform TanzPlan Ost, which enables contemporary dance in the region of Eastern Switzerland/Principality of Liechtenstein as part of a three-stage model.
https://www.tanzplan-ost.ch/editorial
The new series will start on June 13 at the original time with an opening in English, in which Pascal Sangl and Elisabeth Nehring will give a thematic outlook and the “tanz weit draußen” network will introduce itself and its work. Representatives of the regional teams from Brandenburg, Baden-Württemberg, Schleswig-Holstein/Hamburg and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Aktion Tanz and the project management team will be present to answer questions and exchange ideas.
/// The event will be held in English ///
The 4 Puppet Theater Collections (4PS) of the KompleXX Puppet Theater Alliance are awarding the 4PS Fellowship for the first time in 2025, an endowed research grant that offers space for concentrated work over six months to develop new ideas and approaches for the collections through research, research and conception.
The aim of the 4PS Fellowship is to initiate the research process for Citizen Science in the collections and to connect the four collections.
Das Kollektiv b/w*itch fragt nach queerfeministischen Perspektiven auf solidarisches Zusammensein. Für die Flausen+ Zeit forschen wir an kollaborativen Spielstrategien und dem queeren und feministischen Potential von Pilzen. In Moving Guts entwickeln wir ein Spielformat, das die unterschiedlichen Fähigkeiten der Pilze als Ausgangspunkt für kollaborative Spielstrategien nimmt. Das Spiel als Format dient uns dazu utopische Momente zu ermöglichen und gemeinschaftliche Gefüge zu erleben. Ziel des Spieles ist das Patriarchat zu zersetzen, zu kompostieren und Nährstoffe für anderes freizusetzen. Wir forschen am Bühnenraum und wie dieser sich in ein begehbares Spielfeld verwandeln kann.
B/W*ITCH: Anngret Schultze , Esther Adam, Katharina Greeven, Kattalin Mitxelena Newiger
SHOW
The flausen+festival brings together follow-up productions by former flausen+ scholarship holders in one place and offers an insight into artistic debates about innovative topics, formats and aesthetics.
NETWORK
The flausen+festival thus creates a versatile space for encounters, networking and discourse with other artists, a specialist audience, but also the interested public.
DEVELOP
In addition, the festival provides impulses for flausen+ as an internal platform: in working discussions with flausen+ participants, with space and time to evaluate the program and discussions on current problems that affect artists and small and medium-sized theaters.
FAVORITEN – the theater, dance and performance festival of the independent scene in North Rhine-Westphalia – has been held every two years in Dortmund since 1985. It is one of the oldest festivals of the independent performing arts in Germany and is aimed equally at the people of the city and region as well as at a nationwide and international (professional) audience. For the 2022 and 2024 editions of the festival, Anne Mahlow, Margo Zālīte and Sina-Marie Schneller will be the artistic directors of FAVORITEN for the first time.
Under the motto (Un)Learning for possible futures, Anne Mahlow, Margo Zālīte and Sina-Marie Schneller will address the challenges of the present and the future on an artistic and discursive level for the FAVORITEN Festival. They place the joint, continuous process of learning and growing together between genders, generations, classes and borders at the center of the festival. They want to grow together with Dortmund and the city society and at the same time put out feelers on a global level via the digital space and in doing so also learn with and from international partners.
Anne Mahlow, Margo Zālīte and Sina-Marie Schneller pursue a collective way of working. What they have in common is an excellent knowledge of the independent scene in North Rhine-Westphalia, a reflection on the perspectives of this very scene, and a great interest in shaping cultural policy and in regional, national, and international cooperation. The previous festival work of all three is characterized by a broad perspective on a wide variety of artistic genres.
This year, the artistic direction of FAVORITEN has been advertised directly for two editions. The longer-term perspective should enable a more sustainable collaboration with artists, partners and networks and support an even stronger anchoring of the festival in the city.
The next festival edition will take place from September 5-15, 2024 in Dortmund and digitally.
Hauptsache Frei was founded as a festival for the independent performing arts in Hamburg. Now in its 10th year, it has a new look to celebrate artistic diversity in Hamburg and beyond.
We are happy to invite you to experience contemporary trends, aesthetic innovations and socio-political discourse in a diverse interdisciplinary program at Fringify and to join in the conversation.
Düsseldorf and Mülheim an der Ruhr
The Impulse Theater Festival, together with artists and the Ringlokschuppen Ruhr, is opening a summer pool in MüGa Park for eleven days. The Conte Potuto group is designing a bathroom of dreams: almost without water, but full of the visitors’ wishes and ideas. TachoTinta play on dry land with the underwater rugby team, and in the TIGERS’ KITCHEN they don’t just fry, they also produce tasty hits.
OSTEN is a festival for art and mutual interest. It explores and celebrates “the East” as a landscape of change for people, nature and coexistence. From June 1st to 16th, 2024, the festival invites you for the second time to (re)discover the city of Bitterfeld-Wolfen and “the East” with a diverse cultural program.
While the first festival focused on the Bitterfeld Cultural Palace, the 2024 festival will turn several places of industrial culture into a stage and explore unusual spaces in the city in the area between the former cinema, the municipal cultural center, the former factory fire department of the film and fiber factory, the industrial and film museum and the town hall.
The festival The Framework is the Program (DRiP) will take place in 2024 in collaboration with the Fritz Theater.
DRiP 2024 addresses the view from East to West and vice versa. In a city that experienced a revolutionary transformation after 1990 and whose consequences are still felt and visible, DRiP wants to offer an artistic platform for employment.
We don’t want to talk about each other, we want to enter into dialogue with each other and stay in conversation. We want to invite artists and visitors to change perspectives and look from East to West and vice versa. We show performances from Chemnitz, Saxony, North Rhine-Westphalia/Brazil and Manchester.
This session is the third out of three public input sessions within the frame of the digital companionship programme: transnational contexts & relations, that is organised and hosted by Kreativ-Transfer, a project of Dachverband Tanz Deutschland and produktionsbande. In the companionship programme, one companion with transnational expertise supports one participant in the development and expansion of their own transnational working practice as a producer in the independent performing arts.
speaker: godlive lawani
the idea
bring actors together
strengthening the performing arts
actively shaping the future
The flausen+kongresses usually take place every two years on a biennial basis.
AUGENBLICK MAL! 2025 CASTS ITS SHADOW AHEAD …
From May 6 to 11, 2025, AUGENBLICK MAL! will enter the next round. This website will be updated over the coming weeks and months. You can already read which ten productions our curators have selected as guest performances for the festival.
The next ASSITEJ Award Ceremony will take place on May 10, 2025 as part of AUGENBLICK MAL! The Festival of Theater for Young Audiences.
ASSITEJ awards several prizes every two years. The prizes honor people or institutions
who make a special contribution to the performing arts for young audiences and their diversity,
who are particularly committed to raising the profile of work for young audiences and with children and young people,
who seek dialog with the audience and promote reflection on it,
who are a source of inspiration for others – be it locally, regionally, nationally or globally.
International Cultural Exchange Freiburg (IKF)
Zirkus ON invites you to the 2nd edition of Zirkus ONstage together with the Internationale Kulturbörse Freiburg!
With Zirkus ONstage, the creative alliance for circus arts – Zirkus ON will be presenting three circus creations from the last Zirkus ON editions to a German and international audience of experts at the International Cultural Exchange in Freiburg (IKF) from January 20 to 22.
Groups of artists selected by an expert jury and supported for two years by the Zirkus ON creation alliance with mentoring, residencies, presentations, knowledge transfer formats and networking will perform. Zirkus ONstage is the final format of the creation program and creates a bridge between creation and distribution.
Rui Silveira on Something Great, a non-profit organization and live arts center in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany
In this conversation, Rui will tell the story of Something Great, its history and its transformation from an internationally renowned performing arts touring agency based in Berlin to a cultural charity and live arts center rooted in an 18.6 hectare estate in the southwest of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. Dedicated to the support, promotion and presentation of live art, the center focuses primarily on contemporary dance and performance art, but is also open to other art forms, such as the visual arts.
With another edition of the workshop “Radically polite in dealing with right-wing populism”, we are continuing the qualification program “Promoting democracy – qualifying with knowledge to act for a diverse society” of our project “Promoting connections”.
#Communicate
The workshop looks at right-wing populist argumentation patterns and signal words and the intention behind them. How can we take a clear stance against right-wing populist statements in everyday life? Is a conversation useful and if so, how can it succeed?
Participants can expect a mixture of input, practical exercises and moderated discussion. They will gain applicable basic knowledge about right-wing populism and learn to recognize different situations and differentiate how to deal with them.
The workshop will be led by Tadel verpflichtet! e.V., which is committed to democratic coexistence.
Speakers: Matthias Jung, Katharina Klasen
With the experience exchange “Dealing with Nazi history in rural areas – between art project and educational work” with Felix Forsbach, we are continuing the qualification program “Promoting democracy – qualifying with knowledge to act for a diverse society” of our project “Promoting connections”.
#Becoming active together
National Socialism remains a challenging topic that continues to have an impact today. This complexity contributes to the fact that right-wing extremist parties are gaining popularity again, threatening the existence of artists, cultural associations and initiatives for cosmopolitanism and diversity. This workshop will discuss the space of possibility that can be created through an artistic examination of National Socialism in the lives of people in rural areas.
In the social sculpture “augustusburger-protokolle”, Felix Forsbach has been artistically and transdisciplinary dedicated to the Nazi history of Augustusburg, a small town in Central Saxony, since 2021. His artistic work has led to a public discourse on how to deal with the history of the place and has reached many people of different ages through the explicitly artistic examination of the Nazi era. As part of the workshop, he will talk about the possibility of bonds between artists and residents and about the opportunities of long and processual residencies to encourage artists to tackle political issues explicitly and directly.
The event will be held in German and is free of charge. Places are limited.
After orientation and action, in the third part of the event series ksk for producers as well! we would like to conclude by inviting you to a joint exchange, which at the same time offers a space for open questions or issues that you have encountered in your membership application for the KSK.
The offer provides you with time together with us and all participants in which you can discuss and advance your concerns for the further processing and finalization of your application or your documents to be submitted.
To participate, it is therefore important that you bring a specific issue or question with you, which you briefly present and which can then be worked on together with you in breakout groups to support you in your KSK application process.
Sarah Soethoudt is a contemporary dancer, choreographer, cultural coach and founding member of the artist collective FLUJAS in Venlo, Noord-Limburg.
This region consists mainly of villages and small towns, which is both an enrichment and a challenge for professional artists. As a dancer and choreographer, Sarah develops site-specific works that are inspired by the surrounding forests and use them as a backdrop. She also devises specific performances in collaboration with partners such as museums and conservation organizations.
In her role as a cultural coach, she supports local artistic initiatives and encourages both professional artists and the residents of Venlo. FLUJAS is an artist-led collective that campaigns for better working conditions in Noord-Limburg. Most artists in this region face challenges such as visibility, funding, collaboration and know-how. FLUJAS brings artists together and offers them space to work and create with confidence and without pressure.
In this Kaffetalk, Sarah talks about her mediation work as a cultural coach, her artistic practice and collective work with a special focus on rural areas in the Netherlands.
Christina Elliot, Head of Programming & Producing at “The Place”, London’s center for dance development. Christina leads on the theater program, artist development initiatives, new productions and touring projects.
In this coffee talk, Christina will introduce the Rural Touring Dance Initiative (RTDI) – a nationwide project that supports dance artists and rural promoters to create high quality dance performances in rural areas. Since 2015, RTDI has brought some of the UK’s best dance companies, such as Lost Dog, Protein and Scottish Dance Theatre, to rural areas.
Christina will share her experiences and explain how RTDI has transformed the dance scene in rural areas of the UK and continues to positively impact the touring landscape.
cases & faces offers a space for producers from different fields to share challenges from our everyday work and to jointly deal with specific cases and situations from our own work context.
It is based on the thought that we can draw on shared knowledge and create a connecting, collegial and open space with different perspectives, which in the best case also enables new perceptions of our own situation.
In this session we deal with the complex topic of hospitality and discuss questions such as: How does it work? What makes a valuable hospitality practice, what are the ingredients? What field are we in? What are practices of hosting & guesting | invitation practices | opportunities & challenges of hospitality? How do I develop a multidirectional perspective and how does dealing with hospitality also influence questions of team development?
For producers, working at the interfaces with all those involved in an artistic production means maintaining open communication in all directions and, at the same time, bundling information and making it accessible to everyone. Friction can arise in this complex communication work, which can lead to potential conflicts.
In this two-part workshop for producers, Dana Caspersen will provide insights into methods for constructively framing, handling and, ideally, jointly resolving conflicts.
In this session we invite a critical eye on our existing networks, our informal champions and how to utilise these tools to identify new opportunities, disseminate work and push producing practices. We will look at the structure of networks and the importance of reciprocity in building lasting relationships. We will use this time to form a temporal network of information exchange where participants will be invited to offer their experiences and talk about their desires.
Tech riders or technical riders are technical documentations that are sent to theaters and event spaces in advance in order to plan the setup together. In the workshop, we talk about what should be included for stage, lighting, video, sound and special effects. And what other different forms of technical documentation can be used to make our lives easier when setting up.
This edition of skills & discourse is dedicated to income tax in an international context. Besides a theoretical focus with an application outlook by Felix Sodemann (touring artists), we will also take a closer look at the implementation in production practice together with Felix and Harriet Lesch with your example cases. Please send us your examples and questions with your registration by 6 October at the latest so that we can prepare them, include them in the workshop and discuss them together. Registration without submission of cases is open longer.
With Hikmat El-Hammouri from ver.di
The Verband freier Kinder- und Jugendtheater Bayern e.V. represents the concerns and needs of independent and professional theaters for young audiences. The association works to improve the working conditions and perception of independent children’s and youth theater throughout Bavaria. It also ensures that the needs of the sector continue to be taken into account in the design of new and existing state cultural funding.
With Michael Dietrich from Verband freier Kinder- und Jugendtheater Bayern e.V.
ASSITEJ e.V., the network of children’s and young people’s theaters, has conducted the first study to present the performing arts for young audiences in Germany in all their heterogeneity. Staff, programs and audiences of around 1,000 municipal and independent children’s and youth theaters, sections of municipal and state theaters as well as guest performance organizers throughout Germany were examined.
With Valerie Eichmann from ASSITEJ Germany
The Netzwerk Regie, which was founded in 2017 under the umbrella of ensemble-netzwerk, has represented the professional group of theater directors since 2022 and offers all professional colleagues a forum for networking and exchange. Among other things, the Netzwerk Regie has developed new model work contracts for directors with the German Stage Association, defined lower fee limits, organized congresses and training events, represented the interests of directors on a wide variety of panels and in discussion groups and is in close dialogue with cultural policy makers, trade unions and other networks.
With Jacob Weiß from Netzwerk Regie e.V.
The German Forum for Puppet Theater and Puppetry Art is planning a European Production House for Puppet Theater together with the Figurentheater-Kolleg Bochum. The aim of the project is to create a platform that promotes international exchange and the production of puppet theater plays. The aim is to create an infrastructure that offers puppet theater artists the spaces and conditions they need for their extraordinary work – unique in Europe and with the “Made in Bochum” seal of quality.
With Annette Dabs, Director of the German Forum for Puppet Theater and Puppetry, Bochum
With Seta Guetsoyan, Director of the Figurentheater-Kollegs, Bochum
What can you expect?
United Networks and House of Brownies invite you to a special BIPoC community gathering where you will have the opportunity to network with other BIPoC artists, creatives, associations, organizations and collectives from Hamburg and beyond. Let’s exchange ideas and find new ways to share resources within our BIPoC communities and collaborate more effectively.
Look forward to an interactive afternoon of speed working where you can find out how collaborative working can be strengthened. You will also have the opportunity to showcase your skills and resources in our Marketplace and see what other participants have to offer. Afterwards, you can continue networking over a delicious dinner in a relaxed atmosphere. At the end of the evening, there will be a live performance that you shouldn’t miss!
info.zoom – exchange, networking, faqs
get to know “tanz weit draußen”. Under this motto, we will be opening the doors to our monthly Info.zoom on December 13 from 10 to 11 am. This will take place every 3rd Friday of the month.
Everyone is welcome to come and find out more about the network, get to know us, ask questions and network. As a young network, we are particularly interested in what concerns you when it comes to dance in rural areas and regions.
The Info.Zoom is held alternately by the two project managers Jessica Buchholz and Pam Goroncy. Network partners from Aktion Tanz, Tanzregion Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, TanzSzene Baden-Württemberg, tanz.nord, fabrik Potsdam, Ponderosa, Szene 2wei and Tanz- und Theaterwerkstatt Ludwigsburg also regularly take part.
info.zoom – exchange, networking, faqs
get to know “tanz weit draußen”. Under this motto, we will be opening the doors to our monthly Info.zoom again on November 15 from 10 to 11 am. This will take place every 3rd Friday of the month.
Everyone is welcome to come and find out more about the network, get to know us, ask questions and network. As a young network, we are particularly interested in what concerns you when it comes to dance in rural areas and regions.
The Info.Zoom is held alternately by the two project managers Jessica Buchholz and Pam Goroncy. Network partners from Aktion Tanz, Tanzregion Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, TanzSzene Baden-Württemberg, tanz.nord, fabrik Potsdam, Ponderosa, Szene 2wei and Tanz- und Theaterwerkstatt Ludwigsburg also regularly take part.
Bianca Kruppa (Diebis, Bavaria) on community work on the “wrong farm” and the joy of making mistakes
What can a modern, sustainable and culturally diverse life look like in which a large number of people can participate and help shape it? With this central question in mind, the “False Farm” can be seen as a place that is constantly evolving. It offers space for content that is shaped by the creativity and expertise of local people. As co-founder of the “False Farm”, Bianca sees this place as a kind of collective resistance to the pursuit of the supposedly “right answer” – and instead creates space for something new. In doing so, Bianca’s community often finds itself in a field of tension between aspiration and reality – without losing the joy of experimentation.
In this coffee talk, Bianca shares her experiences as a community dance artist and dance facilitator in the context of her work on the “False Farm”. The focus is on community building and her personal research questions about dance in rural spaces. Bianca lives and works in rural southern Germany and is currently studying a Masters in Dance: Participation, Communities, Activism at London Contemporary Dance School.
info.zoom – exchange, networking, faqs
get to know “tanz weit draußen”. Under this motto, we will be opening the doors to our monthly Info.zoom for the first time on October 18 from 10 to 11 am. From then on, this will take place every 3rd Friday of the month.
Everyone is welcome to come and find out more about the network, get to know us, ask questions and network. As a young network, we are particularly interested in what concerns you when it comes to dance in rural areas and regions.
The Info.Zoom is held alternately by the two project managers Jessica Buchholz and Pam Goroncy. Network partners from Aktion Tanz, Tanzregion Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, TanzSzene Baden-Württemberg, tanz.nord, fabrik Potsdam, Ponderosa, Szene 2wei and Tanz- und Theaterwerkstatt Ludwigsburg also regularly take part.
Roberto Casarotto (Bassano del Grappa, Venuto, Italy) on curating dance projects in north-eastern Italy
Roberto Casarotto is the co-director of »Aerowaves«, the European Platform for Dance promoting cross-border mobility of the work of emerging dance artists. He is also the initiator of »Dance Well« – Movement Research for Parkinson’s and other processes aimed at fostering participation in cultural activities both on a community and on an individual level. From 2006 to 2022, he was responsible for the dance projects and programs at »Centro per la Scena Contemporanea di Bassano del Grappa« (CSC) and »Operaestate Festival Veneto« in small cities and rural areas in the North East of Italy. He still develops international projects there now, supported by the EU Creative Europe and Erasmus + Programs, aimed at supporting artistic research, engaging local citizens and promoting artistic mobility and development in the field of dance. Prior to working for dance organizations, Roberto was a professional contemporary dancer.
In this Coffee Talk, Roberto will give insights into his wide range of experience in program creation and producing contemporary international dance in rural areas of northern Italy.
From participating in learning processes to attending performances during the weekend gatherings, “Implantieren ‘24” offers a variety of ways to get involved and, in collaboration with numerous partners, weaves a rich ecosystem of relationships.
“Implantieren ‘24” is a performing arts festival called “On the Ruins of the University.” Taking place on the former university campus in Bockenheim, Frankfurt, it explores what new things can grow from the ideological heritage and physical remains of the university. The festival questions how we can reinvent societal learning without exclusions and how can we learn from brokenness now, rather than just preparing for the future?
With its 13 projects, across venues in Neu-Isenburg, Offenbach and Frankfurt, the festival lays out an imaginary topography of a university in ruins. There are projects that delve into the dungeons of the university, where the Enlightenment persecuted heretics, objectors, and deviant bodies, questioning which forms of knowledge and which bodies have been excluded. And others that settle in the in-between and unused spaces, asking if it’s possible to gather without purpose and practice a new form of community. And also those that study how the campus can be transformed back to its literal meaning, a “field,” and how this transformation can help us reopen questions about the endangered ecologies we are part of today.
The theme of the “Verbindunngen fördern” conference “democracy and digitality” is the interfaces between democracy and digitality.
Experts from various disciplines will share their knowledge, experiences and strategies in the form of keynotes, impulses, workshops and exchange rounds and actively invite participants to test and reflect.
During a political soirée on the first day of the conference, politicians and experts from the independent scene are invited to publicly discuss the role of structural funding for democracy.
The event is also explicitly aimed at people who are not active in the performing arts but would like to exchange ideas and gain qualifications on these topics. The full program will follow shortly.
Registration via eventbrite
The registration deadline is November 4.
As part of the ATOLL Festival in Karlsruhe, the Kreationsbündnis für Zirkuskunst – Zirkus ON is presenting the 6th edition projects selected by a jury to a public audience for the first time.
The following work-in-progress pieces will be on show, each with a short
audience feedback format afterwards:
Hybrid by IceDanceTheater-Fusion
Lasterhaft by La Tanik
still.dependent by Hanschitz & Beierer
On the following day (19.9.), the alliance partners and mentors will meet with the artists. Based on the DasArts feedback methodology, the three projects will be discussed individually. Constructive feedback will be collected for further creation.
For the third time, the Netzwerk Freie Szene Saar is organizing the festival of independent performing arts in Saarland. From drama, music, dance, performance, sound art and live radio plays to children’s theater, everything the Saarland independent scene has to offer will be on display in and around the Erzhalle of the Völkinger Hütte World Cultural Heritage Site.
In the run-up to the festival, City Management Völklingen will host the STADTLABOR, which invites you to workshops, discussions and exchange formats to bring artists and city residents as well as art and everyday life together.
#Becoming active together
In this workshop as part of the training programme “Promoting democracy – qualifying with knowledge to act for a diverse society”, central fighting terms, rhetorical patterns and organized approaches of the right-wing culture war will be explained. In addition, possible courses of action for dealing with intimidation, hostility and threats are presented and discussed. Participants are given the space to present their experiences and reflect on situations in interactive exercises.
Art and culture represent an important field of action for right-wing extremism and populism to implement their political ideas. This is because this is where current social issues and conflicts are discussed and where there is room for controversial debates. What strategies does this cultural struggle from the right pursue? How can and should we react to it?
The aim of the event is to raise participants’ awareness of the strategies and facets of this cultural struggle on the one hand and to strengthen their confidence to act on the other.
Speakers: Kerstin Kuballa and Matthias Müller from the Mobile Counseling Service against Right-Wing Extremism Berlin (MBR).
The SPURENSUCHE 2024, the working meeting of the independent children’s and youth theaters, will take place on October 10th (from 2 p.m.) and October 11th (until 4 p.m.) in the Junges Theater Augsburg together with the PERSPEKTIV:WECHSEL alliance. After 2 years, the alliance, which is supported by “Verbindungen fördern”, has brought the following questions to the SPURENSUCHE:
What is the starting point of the German children’s and youth theatre festival scene in relation to diversification processes?
How can processes of critical debate about power find their way into artistic practice?
How do we create safer spaces that live up to their name?
What have we learned and what do we want to discuss with you?
#Act and Hold
In this workshop as part of the qualification program “Promoting democracy – using knowledge to qualify for action for a diverse society”, the participants work together with speakers from the Anne Frank Education Center to recognize the different forms and mechanisms of racism, to develop a self-reflective attitude and to take the perspectives of those affected seriously. Building on this, there is space for reflection and exchange on action strategies in the context of art and culture.
Racism is part of our everyday lives and our society. Whether visible or invisible – racism influences our relationships and coexistence and has a violent effect. However, the experiences of those affected are often not recognized. When dealing with racism, it is often the debates about language and images that unsettle many people. Many everyday terms and images have their origins in colonial racist ideas or are based on ideologies of inequality.
The seminar at the Anne Frank Education Centre offers the opportunity for discussion and exchange. It raises awareness of the different forms and mechanisms of racism, develops a self-reflective attitude and takes the perspectives of those affected seriously. Building on this, space is provided for reflection and exchange on action strategies in the context of art and culture.
Speakers: Anne Frank Education Centre
#Take action together
This experience exchange as part of the qualification program “Promoting democracy – qualifying with knowledge to act for a diverse society” takes place as a hybrid format at the THEATERNATUR FESTIVAL in the Harz Mountains. Together with the Landeszentrum Freies Theater Sachsen-Anhalt e. V., Frauke Wetzel (“Der Rahmen ist Programm”) and Jan Hendrik Hermann (THEATERNATUR FESTIVAL) will open a discussion framework and exchange moment for colleagues with curatorial responsibility for festivals, festivals or other public cultural events.
Diverse, empowering, open and safe cultural events are essential pillars of a democratic society – and cannot be taken for granted. How can festival organizers open up and maintain these democratic spaces through curation and event design? Which regional practices can be adapted in supra-regional exchange? What hurdles do the actors encounter in their respective working practices? Local and international festival organizers are invited to discuss these and other questions together in a moderated discussion.
The aim of the Experience Exchange is to provide a platform for networking and exchange between national and international festival organizers in order to discuss practical experiences, consider (joint) options for action and learn from each other. The promotion of democratic cooperation in the festival or event context forms the connecting element.
#Take action together
In this experience exchange as part of the qualification program “Promoting democracy – qualifying with knowledge to act for a diverse society”, Diana Wesser and Sandra Bringer from the Artist Lab “Celebrating festivals” share research results and strategies on festivals as performative acts with a focus on rural areas. Do right-wing groups use existing festivals to cultivate and expand their following? Can performing arts compete with right-wing groups and gain a new audience at village festivals? What overlaps are there with festivals? What strategies can be adapted for festival work in rural areas?
In the subsequent exchange, festival organizers are invited to share regional experiences and discuss supra-regional approaches.
background
Theatricality, fictionalization, assembly, play, stories and regional themes – these are festival components that can have a socio-political impact, strengthen communities and experience diversity in a positive way.
As part of the Artist Lab “Celebrating Festivals”, 2023 investigated how festivals work in rural areas. Village festivals and festivals in small towns in Brandenburg, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania were visited.
The Artist Lab “Feste Feiern” sees itself as a network of associates, interested people in rural areas, creators and co-creators that goes beyond the participating artists. “Feste Feiern” encourages people in rural areas to forge stronger relationships and open up spaces for encounters using the performing arts.
Zur Veranstaltung
The second experience exchange in the #Gemeinsam aktiv werden module will take place as a hybrid format at the Phoenix Theater Festival. Participation is possible in presence and digitally.
We also recommend participating in the face-to-face workshop at the Phoenix Theater Festival entitled “HACKATON Toolbox performing arts & activism – think, develop, act” and in the qualification and networking format at the THEATERNATUR FESTIVAL entitled “Creating democratic spaces and keeping them open in festival curation”. The formats can be combined in terms of content. There will be moments of exchange at all events, which are intended to promote supra-regional networking among festival organizers.
#Take action together
In this workshop, Sandra Bringer and Diana Wesser invite you to a practical think tank as part of the qualification program “Promoting Democracy – Qualifying with Knowledge for Action for a Diverse Society”. The aim is to explore the relationship between art and political activism and the extent to which the performing arts are useful as a tool, a channel and a place for socio-political democratic negotiation processes. The aim is to create a “performing arts & activism toolbox” oriented towards the common good.
Festivals act as central anchor points for a decentralized independent scene and offer low-threshold opportunities for exchange, contact and the activation of audiences in the independent performing arts. This is where the workshop comes in. It will take place at the Phoenix Theater Festival in Erfurt.
In a short input, Sandra Bringer and Diana Wesser will map the topic using examples of their own performative attitude and exemplary formats of other activists and artists. In the subsequent hackathon, smaller groups will develop their own performative and/or discursive formats in a theory-practice transfer. The ideas will be implemented on site in a practical self-experiment. The tools developed for events and festivals will then be made available online for everyone in line with the open source concept.
Following the presence workshop, a hybrid experience exchange entitled “Festivals and festival culture – countering the decline of democracy in rural areas through performance” will take place at the Phoenix Theater Festival. In addition to this, we also recommend taking part in the qualification and networking format as part of the THEATERNATUR FESTIVAL entitled “Creating democratic spaces and keeping them open in festival curation”.The formats can be combined in terms of content.
There will be moments of exchange at all events, which are intended to promote supra-regional networking among festival organizers.
Munich moves @ rodeo 2024. Here, radical cheerleading meets soft masculinity. Here, dancing in anatomy classes and singing about nursing are just part of the experience. Here, people come together to watch, talk, sleep, and celebrate diversity through shows, workshops, and parties, both in the Kreativquartier and across various venues throughout the city.
At rodeo 2024, the body is in the spotlight: whether seen as male or female, young or old, healthy or ill; conforming to norms or defying them; As a queer, virtual, or collective body. Bodies are more than just bones and skin—they are seismographs of our society, bearing the imprints of values, ideologies, and desires. How we perceive and treat bodies is an eminently political question. Recently, the growing right-wing movement has also targeted the body as a battleground, agitating against “gender ideology” and sexual self-determination.
This year’s Rodeo selection stands for diversity against these repressive policies. In their works, the artists celebrate resistance, rebellion, and defiance. They envision utopias for a better tomorrow while also exploring themes of weakness, exhaustion, and vulnerability.
How do we remain tender in times of brutalization? How can we make our echo chambers and bubbles permeable again? The 12 selected pieces are a plea for empathy and attentiveness—toward people and the world around us.
Like a phoenix rising from the ashes – that’s what they say when something that was thought to be dead rises again, when there is a new beginning for something that was already finished or when you get something back that you thought was lost. All of this applies to what PHOENIX e.V. wants to do with cultural sites that have been abandoned.
Lack of money, rationalization and mergers were the main reasons why deep wounds were torn by the abandonment or closure of entire buildings, especially in the new federal states. Cultural sites such as the Schauspielhaus in Erfurt were abandoned overnight and left to their own devices. Sites of collective memory and personal history rotted away in the middle of the city.
PHOENIX wants to revive such places – through sustainable and long-term artistic initiatives. By organizing and staging cultural events such as festivals, conferences, theater productions, performances, concerts, urban projects, exhibitions and symposia, PHOENIX aims to set an example, provide encouragement, support local actors and thus reposition culture in the city. This is not about commercial use, but exclusively about specifically expanding the cultural offer in the respective city.
When working together, there are hierarchies, whether we like it or not. Sometimes it has to do with individual ways of working, sometimes it is due to the responsibilities of tasks, or both. Hierarchies are not bad in themselves, unless they are denied, or they are not comprehensible. In any case, they require common, transparent agreements. In this workshop we would like to find out with the participants how hierarchies and unresolved power relations can be detected and addressed in the context of cooperation and which tools are needed for this.
The joint working session excel is a life (or at least a style) is more of an exchange platform for Excel nerds than a well-paced workshop. In this open format, we share individual problems and challenges that still concern us despite our knowledge of Excel. All participants are available to help each other in a mutual exchange.
The prerequisite for participation is therefore to bring your own issue or problem in working with Excel in the context of production work in the independent performing arts and to present it in an open exchange format.
In the digital companionship programme, one companion with transnational expertise supports one participant in the development and expansion of their own transnational working practice as a producer in the independent performing arts. The ten companionship duos will each spend six individual companionship sessions independently and self-organised in the digital space with a focus on personal exchange of experience and knowledge on transnational contexts and relationships. We will accompany the six individual sessions in the respective duo constellations with digital supporting events: a common kick-off and closing meeting, informal meetings between the companions and participants, a moderated reflection session and three public inputs on selected topics of the programme.
Time, money, and the involvement of experts are decisive factors in producing accessibility. To work as an anti-ableist producer, one constantly explores their scope for action and deals with different conditions.
The speakers will distinguish the two concepts and share criteria, using various examples from their own anti-ableist practice. In the workshop, we will work together to develop an understanding of how to plan accessibility measures for your own project with different time and budget constraints and implement them with experts.
In the workshop, the participants deal with power structures and (their own) privileges and develop strategies for mutual support in the hierarchical theater structures. They will also look at their own resources and how they can make use of them. How can I become sensitive to implicit exclusion and discrimination? How can I support colleagues who are subjected to racist attacks? How can I express criticism without jeopardizing my career?
The aim of the workshop is to unite theater makers through sensitization and to enable new forms of community in the field of theater.