Experimental Toppings 2026

Performance

The street: a route of transport, a gathering place, a living space. Who does it belong to, and who is allowed to use it, and for what purpose? A greyish figure steps out of the shadows and reflects on spatial policies, tone policing, sunflower seeds. A performer invites you to spend some time with him and his thoughts. He isn’t particularly polite, perhaps smells a bit, and at some point he disappears again.

Text, Video and Acting: Paul Umut Kahla

Performance (14+)

How much longer will we have to keep playing at all this? An evening about absence, play and the silence of fathers.

On stage stands a mini table tennis table. 135 x 65 cm. A birthday present from a father that his son had no use for. He gave it to him for the first time when he was nine. Back then, it was still big and fully grown.

Now the table stands on stage and, together with the performer, observes the emotional silence between fathers and children.

What does this sport – this endless back-and-forth – tell us about these relationships? Between rallies, stories unfold about family holidays and the amazing abilities of octopuses – and about the things they’re not so good at: putting their feelings into words, for example.

Concept and Performance: Lukas Jakob Huber

Outside Eyes: Sophie Krambrich, Paul Simon

Performance

A live performance exploring the coexistence of different states of being. The performer acts as a catalyst between multiple realities.

Concept, Text, Video, Performance: Faezeh Mojahedtalab

Performance

A neurodivergent performer interacts through her body with a digital representation of her brain, which in turn can be influenced by another artist. Intellect meets impulse. Using motion capture, a durational performance is created that reveals inner processes to the outside world.

Concept & Performance: Anna E. Krasemann & Julian Ratay

Videoinstallation

Hani Mousavi’s video installation explores the sense of belonging and alienation. Traces of a feeling that cannot be grasped. Between closeness and distance, between external space and inner experience. Space becomes a place between the visible and the hidden.

Performance

Performance (14+)

Time is all yours. In this coaching session, you’ll be warmed up for the evening and put in the right frame of mind for your personal success. A holistic experience awaits you, striking a balance between power and serenity – a unique, interactive yoga session that bridges the gap between capitalist notions of success and spirituality. An excerpt from “Mallorca, Power and Wellness” by nologo kollektiv (2024).

Performance: Rosanna Veza Schardt

Performance

A live performance exploring the coexistence of different states of being. The performer acts as a catalyst between multiple realities.

Concept, Text, Video, Performance: Faezeh Mojahedtalab

Performance

For fifteen minutes, a space opens up in which the audience can read along live with what would otherwise remain hidden: an unfiltered stream of consciousness, typed in real time. Amidst typos, interruptions, translation errors and ‘error’ moments, a fragile self-portrait emerges in the process. The audience becomes visitors, old acquaintances, and is invited to glimpse an inner world that simultaneously reveals and eludes them. What is shared remains in the room. Or is it not?

Concept and Performance: Lisa Schäfer

Film (14+)

How should we talk about ancestors who committed war crimes? Who tells which stories? And why do we remember different things? Through discussions with her two uncles and her own mother – the direct descendants of her great-uncle Rudi – Katharina Frölich examines her own family narrative in the form of a documentary film.

The film seeks to make sense of things in a space between remembering and forgetting, suspicion and denial, and the ambivalent hope that one’s own family history was, after all, quite different.

The film was produced as part of the mentoring programme at Filmhaus Köln. Its production was funded by Filmhaus Köln, the City of Cologne and the Ministry of Culture and Science of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia.

VR-Hörspiel

An immersive environment in VR headsets: dormant memories, set pieces, everyday objects and musical excerpts invite to reflect on war, friendship and motherhood. The audience enters a world and chooses its own sequence, pace and, not least, a personal protagonist.

Note: The production contains spoken text and descriptions of war, bomb damage, death and grief, as well as original audio from an A&E department.

Artistic Direction and 3D-Objekte: Flynn Ohland

Female Voice: Faezeh Mojahedtalab

Male Voice: Lucas Sommer

Performance

A thick, unidentifiable “sludge” from an overturned garbage bin becomes the central image for inner and social states. Drawing on experiences from the catering industry, a performative narrative unfolds about work, exploitation and the feeling of being stuck in one’s own life. Amidst revulsion, humour and vulnerability, moments of longing for connection and humanity emerge.

Concept & Performance: Kira Marie Jockers

Audio-Installation

When you eat a cheese sandwich with your family at the dinner table, are you taking part in a ritual? Are you taking part in a ritual when you go to the canteen with your colleagues and order a pasta dish? And when you sit down on a park bench on a hot summer’s day with a spaghetti ice cream, are you taking part in a ritual?

In this audio installation, you become part of a ritual. Exclusive. Forbidden. Delicious. Amidst the gastronomic interplay of food, identity, tradition and community, you are invited to listen in on the back rooms of French restaurants. Can you hear birdsong? Or is it just Beethoven’s Fifth after all?

Performance

Katharina Frölich
has been living in Bochum since 2016; she is studying the MA programme Scenic Research at Ruhr University Bochum and works as an artist in the fields of performance and documentary film. In her artistic practice, she explores social and political issues, often adopting a documentary approach.

Lukas Jakob Huber
lives and works in Cologne. He first completed a Bachelor’s degree in Physics, followed by studying acting at the HfS “Ernst Busch” in Berlin. Since then, he has worked as an actor and performer at various theatres across the German-speaking world (including the Berliner Ensemble, Pfalztheater Kaiserslautern and Hebbel am Ufer). In his own work, he is interested in the interplay between autofictional narratives, memory and roles on stage.

Kira Marie Jockers
is a performer and writer and is currently studying the MA programme Scenic Research in Bochum. Her work spans theatre, film and performance. She has already been involved in various ensemble and festival projects. She is currently working at the Junges Theater Leverkusen and the Schauspielhaus Bochum. Her own short films have been screened at the FiSH Film Festival in Rostock and the REC in Berlin. Her artistic practice combines text, the body and experimentation.

Paul Umut Kahla
lives, works and does research in Bochum. He has been studying Theatre Studies and Performance Studies at master’s level since 2025, and has also been studying Scenic Research at Ruhr University since 2026. He writes, performs and produces, exploring themes that range from the autobiographical to the social. In 2024, he developed a performative work on fatherhood with the performance collective JEEP. He is currently particularly interested in choreography and spatial politics.

Anna E. Krasemann
is an experienced performing artist with 12 years of stage experience. In 2023, she received a Gender Research Award from the Centre for Gender Research and Diversity at the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz for her feminist-performance-based graduation production “Ophelia – BLABLA durch die Blume gesagt”. She has appeared in films, theatre productions and performances in various cities across Germany, Austria and the Netherlands. Her work with national labels and her involvement in theatre education have shaped her open, respectful and collaborative approach to her work. In her multimedia work, she strives to further develop her skills both on stage and behind the scenes, and to grow as an artist within a creative environment.

Faezeh Mojahedtalab
is an Iranian performance artist and theatre maker based in Germany. She studied acting and directing at the Tehran University of the Arts. In her work, she combines text, video, sound and performative situations to create atmospheric, often installation-based forms that bridge the gap between theatre and media art. Her works explore perception, political reality and the tensions between personal everyday life and social conditions.

Hani Mousavi
is studying the MA programme Scenic Research at Ruhr University Bochum and works as an artist in the fields of performance and film. She previously studied music and composition at the Tehran University of Art in Iran. Her work explores social and political issues; she questions and reflects on cultural and social norms as well as historical narratives. In addition, she explores mythical narratives, traditions, games, rules and structures, as well as intercultural experiences. A particular focus is placed on different forms of communication and on the ways in which meaning is constructed.

Flynn Ohland
has been studying Theatre Studies since 2025. During his studies, he worked as an assistant director and production assistant at various music theatres in the Ruhr region. His work explores a range of genres, from political performance art to contemporary music theatre.

Julian Ratay
is a design student from Dortmund. His work focuses on 3D design, with a particular interest in visual worlds and interactive design forms. In his work, he explores the connection between digital spaces, aesthetics and experience.

Lisa Schäfer
completed her bachelor’s degree in Theatre and Media Studies and was both thrilled and, in a way, not so thrilled. As someone on a quest, she has been studying Scenic Research since 2023. As a performer and artist (whatever that means), she works across multimedia, installation, film, post-dramatic, progressive and acoustic formats. In doing so, she repeatedly draws on her body and her experiences/memories as her own material. Her interests lie in the monstrous and taboo aspects of society, as well as in questioning her own existence within it. Her favourite stages are those that aren’t stages at all, and the places that could become stages. She has been part of the Kaleidoskop Kollektiv since 2020, a group of six women who are making waves in the Ruhr region with their feminist drive.

Rosanna Veza Schardt
studied Latin American Regional Studies and Modern History at the University of Cologne. She is a qualified circus educator and performer and is currently studying the MA programme Scenic Research at Ruhr University Bochum. Among other things, she is a member of the nologo collective and is involved in the development of various productions in the field of contemporary circus and physical theatre within the independent arts scene in North Rhine-Westphalia.

Luca Sommer
is studying journalism and public relations; as an actor and voice artist, he performs at the Musiktheater im Revier in Gelsenkirchen, most recently as a voice artist in “gen Z Don’t Cry” (directed by Wolfgang Mernardi). He is aiming for a career as an actor and voice artist.

Johanna Sowka
is an interdisciplinary artist who works across performance, installation, sound and film. In her artistic practice, she seeks out small points of intersection within broader discourses in order to question and expose normative perceptions. Johanna Sowka is also a member of the Kaleidoskop collective and the Kunst&Klatsch collective. She is currently furthering her thinking and practice within the MA programme Scenic Research at Ruhr University Bochum.

nologo kollektiv
is a collective of four female artists working in the fields of acting, theatre education, contemporary circus and physical theatre. They blend political, emotional and entertaining themes with narratives drawn from contemporary theatre and circus. With „Mallorca, Macht und Wellness“ (2024), they have created a piece that explores themes of longing, the atmosphere of a cruise ship and financial coaching.