Cie. La Pendue has already impressed the at.tension audience several times with their magic. Now they are back with their new, highly relevant puppet theatre piece. The brilliant duo reinterpret the thousand-year-old fairytale "The Girl Without Hands", which was once written by the Brothers Grimm. The tale presents the puppeteer with a beautiful paradox: she becomes the hands of the handless girl and thus tells the story of the heroine's struggle for freedom.
Immersed in a plastic tide, we will be led to the very essence of this object that is the ring. We will lose ourselves in its immensity. As we go along, the space will be transformed. The emptiness of the stage will be replaced by plastic and colour. The hoops will become more and more important until we are engulfed by their very presence. Could this be a laboratory in which we create and destroy, where we see ourselves as the riders of a universe that we do not end up controlling ?
This internationally acclaimed performance takes us into a magical world of tulle, tears and toilet paper. Experience a heartbreaking, hilarious clown play about loneliness, hope and the search for "the right one". As the longing for true love seems to be the burden of our time, the protagonist Greta rehearses the arrival of the so-called one once a week in order to be prepared for the worst. Will she be lucky today?
This grandiose circus concert is a witty and furious celebration of our former vibrant lives. The two artists Elice and Chloé met while training at circus school - 18 years later they met again on a home trainer in a rehabilitation centre. Together they compare which bones they have broken and which injuries they have sustained. Together they rekindle the fire, full of humour and vulnerability.
Two jugglers on a treadmill: they jog, run, cannot get off, while a musician drives them through a series of experiments. "Runners" deals with the perceived and real speed of time. The central players in the show are two relentless treadmills, which are conducted by the musician like his musical instruments. A grotesquely comical game between the three protagonists gets going and takes its course.
Unfortunately, the event has to be canceled due to injury. „Stek“ conjure up the noise and smoke of the street. With stunts, music, acrobatics, juggling and clowning, „Stek“ brings to life a universe outside of convention. In a whirlpool of jubilant madness, grim black humour and improvisation, these clowns, as outcast marginal figures, tell of the invisible in society. In their turbulent everyday life with chases, jumps and somersaults over containers, life can be worth a piece of bread (Stek). Thanks to a frenzied lust for life, the motto is: Get on with it, whatever the cost!
A political, touching choreography between charged energy and powerful silence. It is the third work in Toonga's acclaimed trilogy, which calls for change and for overcoming the stigmas that society has towards BIPoC. This time, the focus is on the invisible and underrepresented lives of Black women. A danced portrait of struggle, strength and survival - full of anger, resilience and support.
A bold, acrobatic odyssey through the border areas of mental health, queerness, rage and the space race of the 21st century. The solo is a vulnerable and deeply personal intervention on what it means to take up space, to show oneself and to be seen. The solo navigates grandly between the personal and the political in a mixture of autobiography, lip-sync, video and aerial performance.
"We juggle, we sing, we are good ... What more could you want?!!!" But this juggling girl and boy band have missed their chance of fame. With a fuck-off mentality, they piss against the wind and confront the uncertainty of the future with a present of experiments. A subversive juggling concert with hundreds of tennis balls, turbulent encounters and self-produced music. Their aesthetic is raw, experimental and full of mistakes.
Brain-teasers of amazement and tricks of dubious quality. Welcome to the double show: "Terrible for President" and "No Magic" each present their 30 best minutes of nonsense. In "Terrible for President", nothing is true and everything is allowed. A glorification of paradox and contradiction with half lies and half stories. "No Magic" delivers a show that conceals nothing and presents itself so parodically that it becomes serious. With stunts and contortions that cause instant confusion. P.S. Bring a phone with Telegram installed.
"No intention - just Tourette's, Christian Hempel sends ahead quickly when he is among people. His rants and motorised outbursts cannot be controlled. Tourette's syndrome seeks confrontation and leads to conflict. This spin-off of the production of "Chinchilla Arschloch, waswas" tells of the fear of losing control and verbal attacks.And asks the question of what normality actually is. How much unintentionality can theatre withstand?
In a captivating mix "The Chosen Haram" deals with sexuality, faith, addiction and relationships – on two Chinese poles and with a pulsating soundtrack. It depicts the social, cultural and personal challenges of a relationship between two gay men. The play is based on the personal experiences of artist Sadiq Ali and interviews with members of the LGBTQ+ community who identify as (former) Muslims.
A circus full of dirt, glittering vegetables, ginger antlers and potato DJs. Inka and Imogen, officially known as the "Fake Fucking Farmers", invite you to a punk fashion farm: between fashion and farming, they seek the best of both worlds. This contradiction makes sense. A provocative, absurd performance that playfully combines circus, live sound installations and performance art.With the recommendation: Roll around in the mud more often!
What (in)visible legacies do we carry around with us? An inherited ivory tooth becomes the occasion for a search for responsibility in a society whose colonial legacy still resides in museums, cellars and bodies. Between mourning rituals, the search for family traces and speculative science fiction, the artists make the fleshless heritage tangible. Each of them individually and all of them together seek an attitude, a view of the tooth and its time.
‘Robbers in the hotel’ An immersive experience between the rooms, based on a novel by Vicki Baum. Come to the Grand Hotel, get your keys and check in. The Chapeau Club invites you on a surreal journey across three floors. There will be canapés!
A modest band accompanies a funeral ceremony. But this time neither the priest nor the deceased turn up. The musicians spend the seemingly endless, uncomfortable waiting time with the mourners who have arrived. With trumpet, euphonium and drums, the trio transforms the dramatic situation into a comedy of accidents. Three marvellous clowns make us laugh about life and death with the simplest of means.
"Pacemaker" is recommended for people whose heart rate reaches abnormal highs.The piece sends megahertz straight to the centre of your guts and gives you goose bumps. Marcelo Nunes explores the limits of his body through powerful and spectacular body control. He steps onto a carpet of broken glass and rubs, scratches and dances across the shards. A moving fakir performance that stabs into the body like a splinter.
The powerful production fuses hip-hop and dabke. The starting point for Souhail Marchiche and Mehdi Meghari's choreographic work is a snapshot of the Balata camp on the West Bank. The circular scenography embodies the concentric and collective power of traditional dances. The exuberant energy of the dancers are an expression of resilience, an entertaining celebration of life despite all its contradictions.
The encounter between the monumental, enigmatic sculpture "Le Grand Faune" by Paul Dardé, which was created in 1920, and the dancer Lisandre Casazza gives rise to a dance of metamorphosis. In an intense physicality, the dancer herself seems to take on the form of the faun. Both the choreography and the soundtrack are imbued with the laughter of the faun sculpture: It shakes the body and sets it in seismic motion.
"One Shot" - it's a must when the two Belgian artists throw axes through the air. The friends push each other to ever greater challenges until one of them becomes the target. Accompanied by live music, dance and circus mingle with the manipulation of axes and acrobatics on the Chinese Pole. An astonishing test of balance and dexterity coupled with the unpredictability of the objects.
Join in the excitement of the Belgian showdown: brothers Sander and Jordaan De Cuyper compete against each other in a juggling match and deliver maximum tension in the ultimate duel. Enthusiastic fans cheer them on, a strict referee tries to keep order and a biased reporter makes this fast-paced sporting event as exciting as a championship final. The brothers not only challenge each other with every throw, but also the rules of the game.
"Fantôme" tells the story of a child who inadvertently brings about a revolt and the collapse of a totalitarian system in a combination of poetic animated film, live music and object theatre. A visually and acoustically moving experience that inspires the imagination with its dreamlike narrative style. Escape reality for a moment and let yourself and the entire audience be carried away by this poetic uprising.
Become an actor yourself in this interactive circus experience: here you can influence the course of the highly acrobatic show with your impulses, reactions or rebellion. Full of humour and a willingness to take risks, the collective uncovers the absurdities of social coexistence. Driven by the question of whether we can find a way to live together as equals? An immersive experience with swinging trapeze, teeterboard and live music.
A highly topical and bittersweetly ironic object theatre about the legacy of colonialism. Between past exploitation and current discrimination, colonial conquest is dissected. The body serves as a stage, a landscape, an object to be conquered, subjugated and taken possession of. Based on the personal stories of the two performers, the piece tells of colonisation as a legacy that affects us all.
A feminist and internationalist hip-hop that celebrates dialogue, encounters and the different influences of dance. The six dancers from Cyprus, Italy, Greece, France and Bolivia have inspired „MeríDio“ - each with their own choreographic style, codes and body languages. An energetic homage to the women in hip-hop who have chosen dance as a means of artistic expression and enrich it.
The sheep are back in Lärz - the favourites of the very first at.tension! Meet three healthy ewes and a young ram as they graze. Observe their daily routine of feeding, milking and shearing. This surreal, wordless live installation shows a carefully studied insight into the behaviour of sheep. The mesmerising performance twists perception in surprising ways and takes audience interaction to a new level.
A man balances a long, thin stick on different parts of his body, setting it in motion. At the same time, a television tries to influence the audience's perception by telling them what they should see. Is what we read what we see? The performance questions the audience's sense of control through playful provocations. A witty and clever show that explores the concepts of meaning.
A reflection on the multiple versions of our ever-changing bodies and the dimensions they inhabit.
The trio has set itself the task of presenting a musical spectacle. Meagre sounds emanate from scantily assembled instruments. They experiment with everyday objects, fall back on musical half-knowledge and pull out all the stops to deliver an impressive experience. A musical monument and an ode to mediocrity that soon turns into virtuoso chaos. A fusion of object theatre and music for the whole family.
The play sketches a dystopian scenario after the not-too-distant climate collapse. The earth's surface is almost uninhabitable and life takes place underground, where personal freedom must be sacrified for safety. Are there still alternatives in this world before the abyss? Miniature models, paper figures, cameras, screens and music are cleverly combined in this unique live cinema to create a captivating theatrical experience.
Two brilliant pieces of object theatre with everyday objects at one table: "Jonathan" is a wild epic with apples, a set of knives and a chopping board. A green apple born to red parents sets off on a long journey, only to realise that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. "The Blue Table" reveals surprising facts about the exciting mating habits of garden snails and answers the puzzling question of where birds disappear to when the lake freezes over. Told with plastic bag swans, kitchen towel snails and teaspoon herrings.
In a fusion of contemporary circus, dance and sound art, Sandra Hanschitz and Joël Beierer surrender to the process of letting go. The central element is the Cyr Wheel, with which the two performers engage on both an artistic and sonic level. From rough sounds to fine beats, the show is accompanied by the sounds of the Cyr Wheel. A powerful cycle of devotion, holding on and letting go.
Jarmila Lee-Lou and Zinnia Nomura present two contemporary circus pieces that deal with body norms: “Seide & Stahl” (Silk & Steel) explores the disciplinary and gender-specific contradictions between aerial artistry and weight training. The performance, inspired by feminist criticism of body norms, examines the self- and external exploitation of FLINTA* bodies. "betweeness" addresses the pressure exerted by social media: What happens when our body optimisation crosses the line into the grotesque?
Up-to-date insights into the colourful world of flora and fauna. Important theses on habitats in the wild. Real research results from international encyclopaedia science. Relevant analyses of the anatomy of the planet. New answers to the question of why the fucking animals can't just leave humans alone.
This dance on the asphalt shows the attacks and prejudices to which black bodies are subjected. "Born to Protest" refutes these and instead shows their fragility, vulnerability and the struggle to constantly prove themselves. An intense and confronting show against racism, with four strong dancers and the empowering energy of hip-hop. The show is the second part of Joseph Toonga's trilogy highlighting black excellence.
The two materials, coffee and sugar in different physical states, determine the stage action. German immigration histories in Central America and the continuing colonial structures as well as the unbroken consumption of both products are negotiated based on the states of these ingredients. Biographical material, contemporary historical sources, video fragments and live music are used to create a visually powerful, sensual production with a dense content.
A pagan myth, a beautiful monster, an in-between creature of woman-man and animal-humanoid. Lophius is the name of the character who literally invites the audience to taste his fish head. This performance uses physical theatre as a language of absurdity and black humour. The raw material of this show is a real fish, which is eaten by the audience at the end: Lophius Piscatorius, known as anglerfish or monkfish.
Acrobatic flights of fancy and humorous absurdities in seven suicidal acts and 25 costumes on the flying trapeze! Three performers explore the absurd complexity of human existence and question life. In a firework display of death variations, they try to understand the meaning of life. The acrobatic trio delivers a clever and fast-paced tragicomedy with plenty of humour and grandiose characters, full of surprising twists.
A surrealistic puppet show between black comedy and absurd theatre, with grotesque puppets and dark humour. Noose is the day when you realise that you are not experiencing what you wanted. The moment when your world collapses and the noose tightens around your neck because until then you thought you would live. On a small stage, our lives are exposed - the lives that were never lived.
A perfectly orchestrated DIY symphony between contemporary circus and craft obsession. The trio combines their passion for tools, fresh wood and object manipulation. Without words, they tell of the human desire for work, the process from the initial vision to the finished workpiece, the tragedy of labour and the relationship between man and machine. An ingenious performance between clouds of sawdust.
The pedals rotate around the wheels, the wheels rotate around the space and envelop the spectators in a unique vortex. Imbalance and the search for balance take centre stage here. The circle in which the two artistic cyclists revolve is drawn ever tighter. "Duet" leaves any form of linear narrative behind, driven by the conviction that circus and dance owe no explanations.
Dust off your most dazzling outfit and get carried away dancing to 70sdisco music. Here, performance and dance party merge in the style of Bal Moderne. Bal Moderne is aimed at people who have no professional dance training but still love to move. The principle is simple: professional dancers and choreographers teach the audience short movement sequences and then everyone dances together. Disco, baby!
Peter Trabner follows in the footsteps of the philosopher Diogenes of Sinope - he climbs into his barrel and takes out what our society throws away. What drives people in today's turbocapitalist age? Why do we get rid of surplus things only to accumulate new ones? Is what Diogenes demanded in ancient Greece still possible today - to renounce consumption? A solo full of improvisation talent and sparkling spontaneity.