Theater im Depot

Have you ever experienced something inexplicable? Something that transcends your imagination, your idea of rational order? Do you believe in miracles?

Over the past six months, the äöü collective has conducted intensive research on miracles. Their research took them to marketplaces in Essen, newspaper advertisements in Dortmund, strange encounters with people, myths, and works of art, and to places in Germany, Italy, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Portugal where miracles are said to have happened.

In this performative research insight, they now reveal their findings: they open the previously unopened bags full of souvenirs, read from their travel diaries and research findings, listen to sound recordings they have collected, and talk about the search for what cannot be found physically. This improvisational performance creates a space in which miracles can take shape.

The performance is the conclusion of several months of research on miracles and serves as preparation for äöü's next performative project, which will premiere on May 8, 2026, at the Theater im Depot Dortmund.

○About the artists

äöü (Patricia Bechtold / Johannes Karl)

äöü – that's two for starters: the theater and performance collective founded in 2018 on a regional train between Bochum and Giessen by Patricia Bechtold and Johannes Karl. Even before founding äöü, they had developed joint projects at the Zimmertheater Tübingen, bringing together spoken theater, dance, and performance. They founded äöü in the context of their (post-)post-dramatic master's programs (Scenic Research Bochum & Applied Theater Studies Giessen). Since then, they have been working continuously in this constellation from Bochum.

Their greatest source of inspiration and subject of research is everyday life. That which is so omnipresent that it is easily overlooked. They collect and explore everyday objects, form them into formations on stage, relate to them through their own bodies, and draw relationship structures between and to the objects. Using elements from language, visual arts, dance, and theory, they transform everyday finds into sensual, abstract narrative spaces. Their work lies between performance, theater, and installation, but they also shamelessly draw on other genres when their subject of research calls for it. Collaboration on an equal footing with other artists is essential to their working method. äöü is therefore always two plus.

Her works have been and continue to be shown at various festivals in North Rhine-Westphalia and beyond, for example her installation A B S A T Z at Atelier No. 63 at PACT Zollverein and at the HTA Day 2020 in Frankfurt am Main, and her operetta performance “Aus dem Innenleben eines Staubsaugerbeutels” (From the Inner Life of a Vacuum Cleaner Bag) at the FAVORITEN Festival 2020 in Dortmund, the MADE Festival Hessen 2022, HAUPTSACHE FREI #7 in Hamburg, and the Fritz Wortelmann Prize 2021 in Bochum. In 2022, the performance “Aus dem Innenleben eines Staubsaugerbeutels” won the jury prize at the MADE Festival in Kassel. In 2023, they won the Ostholz Prize for their artistic intervention “Waldbaden//auf Kur” (Forest Bathing//On a Cure).

Annäherung an das Loch in der Oberfläche

äöü

○About the artists

äöü (Patricia Bechtold / Johannes Karl)

○Co-Producers and Funding