Third Research Workshop: "Process and Unfold: The Conditions We Produce", 6th & 7th of February 2026

This workshop deals with the working methods that are being developed in the performing arts. Can best practices be identified here? And considering those works of art that critically examine colonialism, extractivism, or other forms of exploitation/subjugation in their very own modus operandi: How do their methods deal specifically with the existing asymmetries between artists from underprivileged structures and European institutions? What is the potential of artistic research for the transformation of art institutions and infrastructures in this regard?
Ultimately, however, there is also the question for artists themselves: How do you work? And quite simply: Why do you engage in the kind of criticism of, for example, neocolonial structures that you do, in and with art? What possibilities does this offer, and where does it encounter contradictions in your work and production conditions?
With these questions, the workshop investigates two fields: a) the processuality of theater and performance and b) and the discursive authority of institutions. Together, both fields create a tension between the open experiment with materials on the one side and the framing of art via themes, focal points, definitions, or trends on the other.

Workshop with Martine Dennewald (Tio’tia:ke/Mooniyang/Montréal), Mark Fleishman (Cape Town), Ekaterina Trachsel (Giessen) and Sandra Umathum (Wien)

In Cooperation with Tanzhaus NRW and Forum Freies Theater Düsseldorf as well as the  “We Are At Work” (Fonds Darstellende Künste and Bündnis Internationaler Produktionshäuser)

Start date: Friday, 6th of February 2026, 2.00pm

End date: Saturday, 7th of February 2026, 2.30pm

Venue: Tanzhaus NRW Düsseldorf and Forum Freies Theater Düsseldorf

Organization: Katharina Frölich, Leon Gabriel, Paul Umut Kahla, Balindile ka Ngcobo, Felipe dos Santos Boquimpani

Reader of abstracts here as PDF, including complete abstract of the workshop.

Programm:

Friday

2pm–2.45pm Leon Gabriel (Bochum) & Balindile ka Ngcobo (Bochum): Opening and Introduction

2.45pm–3.45pm Martine Dennewald (Tio’tia:ke/Mooniyang/Montréal): Decolonial Festival Practices – Joys and Pitfalls

4.15pm–5.15pm Mark Fleishman (Cape Town): Immanent Actions: The Work of Re-hearsing as Decolonial Artistic Research

[Contribution canceled due to illness] 5.15pm–6.15pm Ekaterina Trachsel (Giessen): The Empty Studio is never Empty – Doing, Teaching and Researching Rehearsal-Practices [Contribution canceled due to illness]

Saturday

9.30am–10am Morning Exchange

10am–10.45am Felipe dos Santos Boquimpani (Bochum): Theatre’s Decolonial Condition: Liberal Cultural Policies and Transnational Asymmetries (PhD Project Presentation)

11am–12.30pm Artistic Inputs by Cultural Academy Tarabya, Artists at Risk, and Irmeli Kokko (part of “We Are At Work”)

1pm–2pm Sandra Umathum (Wien): Giving What You Don’t Have: Some Thoughts on the Contradictory Conditions We Produce

2pm–2.30pm Closing