Neue Termine 2026 im Rahmen des MADE IN HESSEN Festivals siehe dates & tickets
In an intimate living room setting, Eleonora L. Herder searches for the hidden echoes of her family history. Using documents and objects, she presents an alternative perspective on German-Jewish identity, in which the boundaries between politics and the private sphere, as well as between the roles of opera and perpetrator, blur. While one great-grandfather was a high-ranking National Socialist who marched alongside Adolf Hitler to the Feldherrnhalle during the 1923 Hitler Putsch in Munich, the other great-grandfather's family was forced to flee due to their Jewish heritage and was torn apart by the consequences of exile.
The fact that her grandparents, from two very different families, finally met in the 1950s, fell in love, and had eight children seals the beginning of a tragic family odyssey marked by silence and mental illness, leading from Como, Rome, and Barcelona to Santa Barbara, California. Eleonora L. Herder spent over ten years gathering material from archives and personal sources to break her family's silence. As she continually discovers new documents and photos and conducts further conversations, the text underlying the play changes from performance to performance.
The production creates a homely setting: Herder speaks directly to the audience, while performer Liese Lyon serves tea and biscuits, and Jonas Harksen provides musical accompaniment on the grand piano. A ghostly, echoing sound design breaks through the cozy salon atmosphere, creating a subtle sense of unease. The audience is invited to follow Herder's research process and to engage with the questions, doubts and uncertainties associated with it.
Language: German
Duration: approx. 75 minutes
Text and direction: Eleonora L. Herder Performance: Lela Herder, Jonas Harksen and Liese Lyon Piano: Jonas Harksen Dramaturgy and research: Tim Schuster Stage, costume & lighting: Marina Rengel Lucena Sound design and composition: Jonas Harksen Video: Ayla Pierrot Voice-over: Beatrice Magnus-Wiebel Creative Producer: Elena Polzer (honest work – independent cultural office) Production management: Martin Heise Video documentation: Angela Regius (Image Rush Collective) Graphics: Anna Pirot and Felix Kosok (Bureau 069)
In memory of Simon
Supported by the Cultural Office of the City of Frankfurt, the Hessian Ministry of Science and Art, the Rudolf Augstein Foundation and the Performing Arts Fund.
With kind support from Villa Gründergeist.
Andpartnersincrime receives multi-year funding from the city of Frankfurt am Main.
Neue Termine 2026 im Rahmen des MADE IN HESSEN Festivals
Donnerstag 28.05., 11:00h, Theateratelier 14H Offenbach, Aufführung Wohnzimmerversion für Schulklassen
The performance was enthusiastically received by audiences and the press in six sold-out performances in December 2023. The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung praised: “About the discomfort of living raises questions of identity that extend far beyond the circle of the family.”(Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung)
"Living on the Discomfort of Life" promises curious characters and beautiful photographs. It's an intimate evening event for all those who, just before Christmas, aren't in the mood for the typical, kitschy Christmas plays and instead are interested in current affairs and politics over a cup of tea, says Polzer. Journal Frankfurt
„Über das Unbehagen zu wohnen“ ist eine tastende Performance, eine berührende. Manches erkennt man aus der eignene Familie wieder, anderes klingt ziemlich wild.“ Frankfurter Rundschau
Zunächst ist es behaglich. Eine Recherche in die Familiengeschichte. Mit Dias. In einem Wohnzimmer. Eine Recherche, die immer wahr ist und immer skurriler wird. Zwei Familiengeschichten aus diametralen Richtungen, die sich in einer Generation treffen. Es wird unbehaglicher. Erinnerungskultur. Vom Unbehagen sprechen Sigmund Freud und Aleida Assmann und Eleonora Herder – und alle, die das Stück gesehen haben. Diesen Plot kann nur das Leben schreiben. Eine Geschichte über das Land, über Traumata, über Schweigen und Hartnäckigkeit. Augen auf, nachgefragt, immer noch. Dieses Stück ist eine Ermutigung zur Recherche – die nicht immer so viel zu Tage fördern wird. Jurytext des MADE. Festival Hessen
A production by andpartnersincrime and Mañana Bold as part of the program “Formations of Power – Performing Democracy”
July 28-30, 2023 // Free admission
Fast-forward to the year 2038, and theaters and parliaments have long been empty. Representative democracy is listed in history textbooks in the chapter "Forms of Government in the 19th and 20th Centuries."
What led to its collapse remains unclear: Was it the pandemic of the 2020s, which is now widely considered a blueprint for a post-democratic social order? Was it the so-called "free" market, which took over large parts of political decision-making from 1990 onwards? Was it the subsequent rise of authoritarian parties that undermined democracy from within? Or did we simply stop believing at some point in the ability to shape our present?
In pursuit of these questions, history professor Shahrzad Osterer and her research assistant Marc Behrens lead us through the ruins of Frankfurt's town hall.
Following their acclaimed online performance "The Parliament," andpartnersincrime are now opening the doors of the "real" Frankfurt City Hall to the public for the first time. On a roughly 90-minute walk through the Römer, they will show us the forgotten ruins of democracy, which until now were only accessible to a small group of insiders.
The tour is free and starts at the main entrance of the Frankfurt Historical Museum.
Text and artistic direction: Eleonora Herder Dramaturgy and research: Tim Schuster Performer and speaker: Shahrzad Osterer Composition, sound design, performance: Marc Behrens Live music: Sze Fong Yeong Design and stage design: Anna Sukhova Costume: Tanya Tverdokhlebova Live video technology and camera: Michelle Koprow Video documentation: Lukas Birkhofer Assistant: Joanna Plastrotmann Creative Producer: Elena Polzer (honest work) Public Relations: Tim Schuster & Joanna Plastrotmann With speeches by: Inga Bendukat, Stephan Siegler and Matthias Pees
A production by andpartnersincrime and Mañana Bold. The program Formations of "Power – Performing Democracy" is supported by the Kunstfonds Foundation and the Cultural Office of the City of Frankfurt am Main as part of the 175th anniversary of the National Assembly in the Paulskirche. The program's cooperation partners are the Paulskirche Network and the Lindley Lindenbergs Hotel. "After Democracy" is based on the production "DAS PARLAMENT," which was funded by the Cultural Office of the City of Frankfurt, the Hessian Ministry of Science and the Arts, and the Performing Arts Fund. It is an independent development within the curated program of the Mañana Bold e.V. art association during the Paulskirche Network's Days of Democracy. This new production is made possible and supported by the Kunstfonds Foundation and the Cultural Office of the City of Frankfurt.
In cooperation with Künstlerhaus Mousonturm and Historisches Museum Frankfurt
Supported by the Cultural Office of the City of Frankfurt, the Hessian Ministry of Science and Art and the Performing Arts Fund
"After Democracy seems, more than anything else, a plea for the theater. Not only as a civic institution and temple of culture, but above all as a social space where, night after night, season after season, the question of coexistence is renegotiated." Frankfurter Rundschau
„In der Performance „After Democracy“ wagen sich andpartnersincrime an ein ziemlich düsteres Gedankenexperiment, denn hier ist die Demokratie bereits gescheitert. Zeitzeug*innen kommen zu Wort und Herr- schaftssymbole der Römer-Architektur werden genauer in den Blick genommen. Was war repräsenta- tive Demokratie, wie hat sie funktioniert?“ Schirn Magazine
"The humor in the deliberately chaotic Walk certainly works. But the background is serious. [...] The play is a welcome and, above all, successful reminder that democracy can never be taken for granted." Frankfurter Rundschau
Mit einem Reisebus brechen Anpartnersincrime set off on a late summer trip through the Rhine-Main region in a coach, passing vineyards, medieval castles, and lovingly tended front gardens. In between, as if they were part of the landscape, young women in floral dresses with long braids, beaming smiles, and happy blonde children. Steaming apple pie is served, along with a little bit of blood-and-soil theory.
The image of the conservative full-time mother—so-called tradwives—is more successful than ever. Seemingly harmless, they spread anti-feminist ideologies that particularly appeal to young women. They increasingly function as a link between the conservative middle class and the right-wing extremist scene—as a fig leaf, a marketing tool, and a mediator all at once. Yet they are just one figure in the growing spectrum of right-wing female roles—from pro-life activists to aristocrats to organized neo-fascists. This development is also clearly evident in the Rhine-Main region, where the new right-wing extremist middle class originated with the founding of the AfD.
We'll embark on a search for an anti-feminist network. As part of a coffee tour, we'll visit contemporary and historical sites and engage in conversation with activists and scholars who are challenging these structures.
No coffee without a hangover. No trip without an abyss.
Language: German
Duration of each trip approx. 2.5 hours
Research and artistic direction: Eleonora L. Herder and Nepomuck (Inga) Bendukat
Performance: Anna Stiede
Drums: Teresa Riemann
Bus drivers: Nana and Piet from Solibus Berlin
Technical management and equipment: Martin Heise
Production: Benjamin Bay
Assistant: Dianna Djeddi
Graphic design: Anna Sukhova
Legal advice: Vivian Kube
With lectures and contributions by: Kim Engels, Dirk Kaesler, Andreas Kemper, Veronika Kracher, Juliane Lang, Philipp Polta, Teresa Riemann, Viktoria Rösch, Anna Stiede, the research group Rhein-Main Rechtsaußen, the regional office South of the advisory network Hesse, the choir of the OMAS GEGEN RECHTS Frankfurt and others.
A production by andpartnersincrime and the production house Naxos.
Initiated by the Kulturfonds Frankfurt RheinMain as part of World Design Capital 2026.
Supported by the Cultural Office of the City of Frankfurt and the Women’s Department of the City of Frankfurt am Main.
In Cooperation with Solibus eV Berlin, the Offenes Haus der Kulturen eV, the Frauen Museum Wiesbaden and the Southern Regional Office of the Hessen Advisory Network.
The research for this project was made possible by an Ottilie Roederstein scholarship from the Hessian Ministry of Science and Research, Arts and Culture.
PROGRAM: COFFEE TRIPS AGAINST ANTIFEMINISM
Friday, September 19, 2025 – 5:00 PM // Tour “Freya”_A coffee tour through tradwives and right-wing landscapes With Dr. Juliane Lang, Viktoria Rösch and the Southern Regional Office of the Hessen Advisory Network
Saturday, 20.09.2025 – 12:00 // Tour “Vitalia”_A coffee tour on the role and self-staging of women in the Reich Citizens’ Movement With Philipp Polta
🚌 Important: The Vitalia tour ends – unlike the others three bus tours – not at the Naxoshallen again, but in the Frankfurt Riederwald, Erlenbruch 94. From there you can reach:
🚇 U4 in 9 minutes to Merianplatz 🚇 U7 in 7 min. to Zoo stop
Saturday, September 20, 2025 – 4:30 p.m. // Tour "Emmi"_A coffee trip to the "Lebensbornheim Taunus" With Kim Engels (Frauen Museum Wiesbaden) and Prof. Dr. Dirk Kaesler (author and Lebensborn child)
Sunday, 21.09.2025 – 3:00 PM // Tour "Felicitas"_A coffee tour of German nobility and antifeminism With Dr. Andreas Kemper and the research collective Rhein-Main Rechtsaußen
Sunday, September 22, 2025 – 6:00 PM // Closing event with Veronika Kracherand the choir of OMAS GEGEN RECHTS Frankfurt
Start of the tours: Production house NAXOS, Waldschmidtstr. 19 60316 Frankfurt am Main
Admission: donation-based, duration of each ride approx. 2.5-3 hours
Access to the bus is via a ramp. The bus has a wheelchair-accessible parking space. To reserve one, please contact us in advance.
The main medium is sound and spoken German without translation into sign language.
Participation in the event is at your own risk and responsibility. The organizers assume no liability for damages beyond the scope of the organizer's statutory liability. This applies in particular to personal property damage and personal injury caused by the participants themselves or third parties.
If you have any further questions about the accessibility of the performance, please contact us: info@andpartnersincrime.org
An article from the Frankfurt Rundschau about the advance notice:
„Die Stimmung ist gut. Die Sonne hängt schon tief als der Bus sich in der Wittelsbacherallee in Bewegung setzt. Dabei steht die Heiterkeit im Kontrast zur Grausamkeit dieses Kapitels deutscher Geschichte, das Ziel dieser Reise ist.“ Frankfurt Allgemeine Zeitung
„To our right side the land persifliert die Form von Kaffeefahrten: „Ein scheinbar harmloser Tagesausflug, bei dem Menschen mit Kaffee Kuchen und Verkaufsversprechen umworben und oft getäuscht werden.“ Diese Ästhetik werde aufgegriffen, „reaktionär und freundlich zugleich“. Im Bus, gestellt vom Berliner Verein Solibus, liegen Häkeldeckchen auf den Polstern, schrill gemusterte Vorhänge flattern an den Fenstern, Reiseleiterin Eva im Etuikleid, dargestellt von der Performerin Anna Stiede, reicht Gebäck.“ Frankfurter Rundschau
for those who do not belong – Movements along the incomprehensible
PiratixUtopia (Audiowalk)
Production House Naxos, Frankfurt am Main, 2024
Premiere September 19, 2024
An audio walk about pirate ventures, vagabond detours, anarchist adventures and queer utopias.
What if we were to withdraw from the world's grasp? What if we learned to outsmart the capitalist order, to disappear into its loopholes? And yet still know how to navigate this managed world? Could we change the world without seizing power? Pirate-like?
Der Audiowalk lädt dazu ein, sich am Main entlang zu bewegen, auf der Kippe zwischen Land und Wasser entlang der Geschichten von ersten Seeräuberinnen, Anarchist*innen, piratischen Radiosendern, aber auch Gender Pirates und Vagabund*innen unserer Tage.
Far from the systems of order, alliances proliferate among those without recognizable identities, those without contours, those who remain disobedient. They send pirate radio messages, share knowledge of clandestine plans, secret hormone transfers, traces and gaps in the system; of vagrancy and of repeated adventures.
Rigged in the rigging. Climb aboard and disappear.
And they still don't know who we are.
An audio walk by andpartnersincrime
Idea and pirate knowledge: Inga Bendukat Direction, concept and text: Fanti Baum & Inga Bendukat Sound design & composition: Julia Mihaly
Audio voice: Alice Nogueira
Original sounds: Trailor Sparks, Tal, Inga Bendukat and Heide Platen
“Interlude Radio Libertatia” with material from Radio Corax.
Piratix on land and at sea: Alice Nogueira, Caterina Namuth, Christina Chatzopoulou, Fanti Baum, Inga Bendukat, Ira, Marah Frech, Max Stützle, Maya, Nadine Wagner, Sando Eismann, Sophia Bohnacker, Viktor Much & Yulia.
Accordion player: Lioba Brändle
Scenic space: Valeria Castaño Moreno
Costume: Nadine Wagner Card design: Sophia Bohnacker Audiovisual documentation: Esra Klein & Robert Schittko – MARS project room
Dramaturgical advice: Tim Schuster Production: honest work – free cultural office Production collaboration: Benjamin Bay
Public relations: Eleonora Lela Herder
Childcare: Pia Maurer
In complicity with: Trailor Sparks, Tal, Loki Loki Loksen Lol and Orlando.
Inga Bendukat is a theater scholar, freelance theater artist, and activist. Inga Bendukat has been a member of andpartnersincrime since 2023. Bendukat has taught theater studies in Frankfurt am Main and Vienna, among other places. Bendukat is currently working on her dissertation, "The Search for Queertopia. On Potential, But Porous, Theater Venues." In this dissertation, Bendukat explores the dismantling of ideologies from an anarchist, queer-feminist perspective and explores a "theater of de-subjugation," of resistance, and of solidarity-based practice.
Fanti Baum lives and works as an artist and theorist in Dortmund and Frankfurt. She operates in various constellations and develops performances, installations, dance pieces, and site-specific works. In 2020, she received the Artists' Prize of the City of Dortmund, and in 2022, together with Sebastian Klawiter, she won the Prize for Art in Public Space of the City of Munich. Together with Olivia Ebert, she directed the experimental theater, performance, and dance festival FAV18+20 in North Rhine-Westphalia, previously Frankfurt's site-specific festival. implant 2016.
Julia Mihaly is a composer working at the intersection of new music and performance art. She is part of the "Untere Reklamationsbehörde" collective and develops music-theatrical pieces for public spaces. Mihály recently composed a chamber opera for the Salzburg Pocket Opera Festival, which premiered in November 2023. She is currently working on new compositions for Đàn Bầu (monochord) and live electronics for the Hanoi musician NGÔ Trà My and the Berlin-based Ensemble Mosaik.
Alice Nogueira is a director, dramaturge and performer.
Alice Nogueira's work focuses on forms of deconstructed dramaturgy and collective creative processes. In recent years, Nogueira has deepened her research on the relationship between word and movement and how this relationship can be used to transform language. queer.
Valeria Castaño Moreno is a conceptual artist and scenographer whose work explores the traces of a post-internet and post-apocalyptic reality. She creates immersive, sensory spaces at the boundaries between the digital and analogue. She is currently researching the perception of nature in digital contexts. In 2024, she exhibited the installation "plastic memories," the interim result of two years of research into the artificial reproduction of naturalness.
Sophia Bohnacker She creates illustrations and short films in search of images for autonomous, queer, and deviant lives that (must) be lived today as an alternative to capitalist reality, and understands storytelling as a political practice and way of life. Sophia is involved in self-managed social cultural spaces in Frankfurt, lives collectively, and studies at the Offenbach School of Design.
Trailor Sparks is a speaker, performer, writer, radio host, and, above all, an anarchist in all of this. Trailor lives in a queer anarchist farm collective. He is part of the Freies Sender Kombinat Hamburg, where he has produced over 130 episodes of "Quarantimes – die Nachtschau" (Quarantimes – the Night Show) and gives workshops on queerness, militancy, relationship anarchy, and identity(ies).
A production by andpartnersincrime, in collaboration with the production house Naxos, the exhibition and cultural platform MARS Frankfurt e.V., and ehrliche arbeit – Freies Kulturbüro. Supported by the Cultural Office of the City of Frankfurt, the Hessian Ministry of Science and Research, Arts and Culture, the Women's Affairs Department of the City of Frankfurt am Main, and the Performing Arts Fund in the Production Funding program with funds from the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media.
Dates: Thursday: September 19, 2024, 6 p.m. Friday: 20.09.2024, 6 p.m. Saturday: 21.09.2024, 6 p.m., with childcare Sunday: 22.09.2024, 6 p.m., with childcare Monday: 23.09.2024, 6 p.m.,
Location & Directions: The performance starts at Westhafenplatz 1, 60327 Frankfurt am Main Take the U4 and U5 to Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof and the tram 16, 17 and 21 to Baseler Platz
Childcare: During the performances on Saturday and Sunday, we offer childcare for children between the ages of 3 and 7. Please register in advance at: benjamin@andpartnersincrime.org
Access information: The audio walk leads partially along unpaved paths and through wild vegetation, making it unfortunately not suitable for wheelchair users, strollers, or people with walking aids. Please remember to wear sturdy shoes and travel light. The main medium is sound and spoken German without sign language translation. If you have any questions about the accessibility of the performance, please contact us: benjamin@andpartnersincrime.org
Language: German with occasional quotations in English, Spanish and Portuguese
"'For those who do not belong' is the title of the audio walk created by Inga Bendukat and Fanti Baum for the performance collective andpartnersincrime, which takes the audience on a nearly two-hour stroll through impassable terrain. But at first, you might think you don't belong here. Not on the pier, where an armada of paper boats is just setting sail, not between the tracks in front of the thermal power plant, and certainly not on this path overgrown with butterbur and tree of heaven that the audience takes along the Main River. But a little bit of a desperado attitude is part of this piece." "Follow the Wind" by Christoph Schütte in: FAZ, September 23, 2024
"Tough love for this adventure" – Ms. Eckstein strolls, Instagram 25.09.2024
“At andpartnersincrime, it’s all about holding the flag high” – Hessenschau, 06.09.2024
In the production “On the Discomfort of Living,” which premiered at Schweizer5 in autumn 2023 and is now being adapted for the theater, director Eleonora L. Herder goes in search of the hidden echoes of her family history.
What is the silver teapot from a Jewish department store doing 73 years after its disappearance at Berlin's Spandau train station? How did amoebic dysentery, widespread in Sicily, become an accomplice to Nazi racial policy? What do the sleeping pills taken by the director's grandmother have to do with the death of Ingeborg Bachmann? Who carved the swastika on her great-grandfather's grave, and where is John Paul Getty III's ear today?
The lecture performance “On the Discomfort of Living” attempts to explore these and other pressing questions.
In a seemingly private living room setting, Herder uses documents and objects from her family to tell an alternative history of German-Jewish identity, in which the boundaries between the political and the private, between the stories of victim and perpetrator, blur. A restlessness repeatedly arises, and the question arises as to whether it is even possible to be at home.
Language: German
Duration: approx. 75 minutes
Performance: Despina Apostolou, Lela Herder and Liese Lyon Piano: Despina Apostolou Voice-over: Beatrice Magnus-Wiebel Text and direction: Eleonora L. Herder Dramaturgy and research: Tim Schuster Creative Producer: honest work – independent cultural office Stage, costume and lighting design: Marina Rengel Lucena Sound design and musical consulting: Jonas Harksen Production assistance and public relations: Joanna Plastrotmann Evening play leader: Maren Burger Graphics: Anna Pirot and Felix Kosok (Bureau 069) Location Scouting: Michelle Koprow Advice: Jan Mech
In memory of Simon
Supported by the Cultural Office of the City of Frankfurt, the Hessian Ministry of Science and Art, the Rudolf Augstein Foundation and the Performing Arts Fund.
With kind support from Villa Gründergeist.
Andpartnersincrime receives multi-year funding from the city of Frankfurt am Main.
Premiere: Schweizer5, Schweizer Straße 5, Frankfurt am Main,
Preview on November 31, 2023 at 7 p.m. Public premiere on December 1, 2023 at 7 p.m. Further performances on 1 December at 7 pm/ 2 December at 5.30 pm/ 3 December at 7 pm/ December 8th at 7 p.m. / December 9th at 5:30 p.m
"In my family," it says right at the beginning, "there's an incredible amount of talking. And yet it's characterized by silence." And suddenly you're talking, chatting, remembering, right in the middle of the performance." Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
"Living on the Discomfort of Life" promises curious characters and beautiful photographs. It's an intimate evening event for all those who, just before Christmas, aren't in the mood for the typical, kitschy Christmas plays and instead are interested in current affairs and politics over a cup of tea, says Polzer.
Journal Frankfurt
"'On the Discomfort of Living' is a tentative performance, a touching one. Some of it resonates with your own family, others sound pretty wild." Frankfurter Rundschau
Trailer On the Discomfort of Living (UA)
Video documentation On the discomfort of living (UA)
In Empty city andpartnersincrime juxtaposes Kassel's empty houses with the stories of those who no longer live there. The people, the evicted, the homeless. Through interviews with Kassel residents who are acutely threatened by eviction and displacement, they bring their experiences to the stage.
For the piece, andpartnersincrime, together with the film collective “Freelance Underground,” conducted investigative research into the connection between vacant properties and homelessness.
In a series of film interviews, director Eleonora Herder approaches the personal stories of Kassel residents who either lost their homes because they were evicted due to economic hardship, who were threatened with such eviction at a certain point in their lives, or who have been living without a permanent residence for some time.
On stage, the two investigative journalists Max (Marius Bistritzky) and Nika (Sandro Šutalo) shed light on the structural background of speculative vacancy and a "second wave" of gentrification currently affecting the city of Kassel. During their research, they come across increasingly controversial cases and dubious strategies of real estate and investment funds, as well as public housing companies. Not everything the two discover on stage is fiction...
As well as interviews with: Bettina v. Klopmann, Faowzia M., Hildegard Schwarz, Jenny Schirmer, Richard Brox, Siegfried Matzel, Tine Krauskopf, Ulrike Petschelt and “Nora”.
Direction / Texts / Costumes: Eleonora Herder
Direction / Research: Inga Bendukat
Dramaturgy: Katja Prussas
Set design: Johanne Schröder
Video documentation and editing: Michael Trammer and Raphael Knipping (Freelance Underground)
Music: Jan Mech
Assistant Director/ Evening Director: Tim Wittkop
Equipment Assistant: Kuan-Jung Lai
Prompter/ Production Internship: Anna Zoé Bellmann
Scientific assistance: Gabu Heindl, Vincent Hildenhagen, Nina Manz, Florine Schüschke.
An investigative theater piece by andpartnersincrime and Freelance Underground in cooperation with Kassel-based initiatives and the homeless. The performance is dedicated to WH22 and its fight for more open spaces.
This project was scientifically accompanied by a research semester on the topic of vacancy at the University of Kassel, FB06 Architecture – Urban Planning – Landscape Planning
andpartnersincrime is supported by the multi-year funding of the Cultural Office of the City of Frankfurt am Main
The premiere of the play "Empty City" at the Theater im Fridericianum was preceded by extensive research. The audience greeted the way the results were brought to the stage on Friday evening with enthusiastic applause. […] How was it? Stirring.
Hessian/Lower Saxony General, 22.05.2023, Mark-Christian von Busse
"You don't even grant the homeless the dirt under their fingernails," raps rapper Disaster. The Kassel State Theater wants to "pick out the dirt with toothpicks" with a theater evening and smear it on the lunches of those responsible. For this, they are working with Asphalt to seek out contemporary witnesses and those affected for interviews..
Asphalt magazine 03/2023, March 7, 2023, Ute Kahle
The media and performance group andpartnersincrime wants to contrast Kassel's empty houses with the stories of those who no longer live there.
Hessian/Lower Saxony General, March 9, 2023, Bettina Fraschke
For the theatre production “Empty City” (premiere 19 May), the Staatstheater Kassel is looking for people who want to talk about their experiences with evictions, the fear of homelessness and displacement and life on the street.
Online newspaper for the Schwalm-Eder district, February 24, 2023, Gerald Schmidtkunz
How to be not too careful, but full of care? The ada_kantine is an island of carers in contested territory. The future of the site is uncertain, but care work in the kitchen continues. What collective practices have emerged here in the past two and a half years? And to what extent can care work be critical of the system? For two days, we will discuss, dream, and cook together, design concrete utopias and crazy plans, chop vegetables, put on theater, dance, sweep the floor, and care for ourselves. And where is the rebellion from the kitchen?
Childcare available on site (Friday 3-8pm / Saturday 9am-8pm).
Concept and idea: Nouria Behloul, Inga Bendukat, Eleonora L. Herder and Tim Schuster Artistic Director: Eleonora L. Herder Dramaturgy and research: Inga Bendukat Political Strategy: Tim Schuster Performative moderation: Nouria Behloul Wall newspaper concept: Nouria Behloul Film: Michelle Koprow Phonothek of Radical Self-Care: Jana Bleckmann, Susanne Hübl, Sophia Igel and Johanna Steindorf Graphics and design: Victor Gorelik, Elise Pixel and Tatiana Tverdohlebova Creative Producer: Sven Rausch Production assistant and dramaturgy internship: Joanna Plastrotmann Public Relations: Tim Schuster Awareness: Saeed Sedaghat and Subin Childcare: The Collective Music: Screen printing: print now riot later Risography wall newspaper: Victor Gorelik, Elise Pixel and Tatiana Tverdohlebova
In complicity with the ada_kantine and all ada_istas
With contributions from:
ignite! Transformative Justice Collective, Manuela Zechner, Anarchist Health Collective Bern, Bojana Kunst, Valeria Graziano & The Pirate Care Project, Grandhotel Cosmopolis Augsburg, Michael Trammer from the film 'Eigenbedarf – Leben auf dem Schweudersitz', PAH Barcelona, Gabu Heindl, among others.
Grand Hotel Cosmopolis Augsburg
The Grandhotel Cosmopolis is a civic-supported space that uses artistic and activist tools to create sustainable living spaces in the city. In concrete terms, this means that a café run primarily by volunteers, studio spaces for artists and activist groups, an extraordinary hotel, event spaces, and accommodation for refugees all work together under one roof every day, living a utopia.
Manuela Zechner
Manuela Zechner is a researcher, cultural worker, and facilitator. She is co-founder of the relatively new Common Ecologies School, conducts the Earthcare Fieldcast with Bue Rübner-Hansen, and has directed the Future Archive Project since 2005. She works at the intersection of feminism/care and ecology, edited the book "Commoning Care and Collective Power" in 2021, and is currently a postdoc in the MovE research project at the University of Jena.
Ignite! Transformative Justice
Justice beyond the judiciary, police and prison: Transformative justice
Why do we talk so much about rejecting the police in our contexts, yet still call them again and again? Or are we completely at a loss as to how to act without them? And why, even after all these decades of feminist struggles, do we still have no established concepts for dealing with interpersonal and sexualized violence? We believe it is essential not only to use our theoretical rejection of the police and patriarchy as a sticker motif, but also to develop a practice that seeks and develops alternatives. We want to find a way of dealing with violence in our contexts that is not based on the principles of punitive logic and state violence, and we also want to take responsibility for the circumstances that enable interpersonal violence, even in emancipatory communities.
Valeria Graziano – Pirate Care Syllabus
Valeria Graziano is a cultural theorist, educator and organizer, currently based at the Center for Advanced Studies, University of Rijeka, Croatia. Over the years, she has been involved in numerous research initiatives across the cultural sector and social movements and collaborated with a number of international cultural institutions, including documenta14; Impulse Festival; MACBA; Arts Council of England and Van Abbemuseum. She is one of the convenors of the Pirate Care Syllabus (https://pirate.care). For a list of publications, see: https://hcommons.org/members/valerix/
Anarchist Health Collective Bern
We are a health collective from Bern, consisting of various people from the healthcare sector. We are all united by the desire for an inclusive healthcare system with low-threshold access and a multidimensional understanding of and for health. Among other things, we ask ourselves questions such as: How can postcolonial, anti-racist, and feminist attitudes and political stances be incorporated into our everyday work? But how can we also continually critically question these perspectives and our work and acquire new knowledge in order to develop new possibilities for action? For this reason, we also demand that issues such as structural forms of discrimination, interdisciplinarity, accessibility, equality, and hierarchy in the healthcare system be understood, reflected upon, and thus changed.
Bojana Art
Bojana Kunst is a philosopher, dramaturg and performance theoretician. She works as a professor at the Institute for Applied Theater Studies in Justus Liebig University Giessen, where she is leading an international master program Choreography and Performance. She was as a researcher at the University of Ljubljana and University of Antwerp (till 2009), and later guest professor at the University of Hamburg (2009 –2012). She lectured and organized seminars, workshops and laboratories in various academic institutions, theaters, artistic organizations across Europe, and worked continuously with the independent artistic initiatives, artists, groups and activists. Her research interest is contemporary performance and dance, arts theory and philosophy of contemporary art. She published Artist at Work, Proximity of Art and Capitalism, Zero Books, Winchester, London, 2015, and The Life of Art. Transversal Lines of Care, Ljubljana, 2021 (in Slovenian language).
Film: Sí se puede. Seven days at PAH Barcelona
The Platform for Affected People in Barcelona is a Spanish grassroots organization that takes direct action to stop evictions and advocates for housing rights. PAH was founded in Barcelona in February 2009 in response to the 2008 financial crisis. It has since become the main opposition to the government's housing policy and defends the right to decent housing for all. The activists oppose evictions due to foreclosure proceedings and founded an organization of mutual emotional, bureaucratic, and activist support. PAH has already prevented several evictions in Barcelona. The film "Sí se puede. Seven Days at PAH Barcelona" by Pau Faus chronicles the organization's daily life on any given week. The cameras focus on the organization's interior to show—besides the drama of the evictions—the enormous, invisible work that takes place within PAH. Spain 2014, Director: Pau Faus, 52 minutes
Gabu Heindl
Gabu Heindl is an architect, urban planner, and activist based in Vienna. Her architectural practice, GABU Heindl Architektur, focuses on public space and affordable housing. She teaches at the AA|Architectural Association London and, since September, has been a professor of Architecture, Urban Economy | Construction Economics and Project Development at the University of Kassel. Her most recent book is: Urban Conflicts, Radical Democracy in Architecture and Urban Planning (2020).
Phonothek of Radical Self-Care
Say no when something is too much crying to friends and getting hugs make an appointment in the calendar with yourself get drunk and dance wildly ...is that care work for you? Or how do you actually take care of yourself? Have you ever asked yourself whether taking care of your own needs can be radical? Perhaps it's even an important contribution to a caring social coexistence?
With these questions in mind, we set out to ask self-care experts—not just those featured in shampoo commercials. We strolled through drugstores and social media feeds, discussed things with political initiatives and self-help groups, and chatted with our friends. In the Phonothek, we invite you to listen for yourself to how self-care, between a pure survival strategy, a plea for consumerism, and radical political ambition, raises new questions for a caring urban community. The Phonothek is based on an artistic research project that operates at the intersection of performative sound art and feminist urban studies. The research collective currently includes Jana Bleckmann, Susanne Hübl, Sophia Igel, and Johanna Steindorf.
Film: Personal Use – Life on the Hot Seat
A film by Raphael Knipping and Michael Trammer. Postproduction: Hauke Dannenfeld. Narration: Ruth Bohsung. Running time: 37 minutes. Language: German. A freelance underground production.
Ina, Max, Carina, and several friends are homeless. In the midst of the coronavirus-affected winter of 2020, they sometimes have to sleep outdoors. They say that municipal emergency shelters offer no prospects. In the face of the impending cold, left-wing activists initially attempt to transform vacant municipal properties into housing for the homeless with a publicly announced occupation. However, the police immediately clear the premises. Suddenly, a new opportunity to escape life on the streets arises. Activists have secretly opened another vacant property. The friends have genuine personal needs and become squatters. For over a year, various people have lived in the secret occupation as if on a hot seat, constantly fearing the loss of the stability that a roof over their heads provides.
The individual program items can also be attended individually.
Friday, October 7, 2022
9 a.m.: Start of kitchen shift
10 a.m.: Welcome
10:30 a.m.: Vegetable chopping & lecture by Valeria Graziano (video)
11.30 a.m.: Setting up tables
12.30 p.m.: Onboarding: How do I become an ada_ista?
1 p.m. – 3 p.m.: Lunch
3 p.m.: Reflection session
3:30 p.m.: Clean-up together & Grandhotel Cosmopolis Augsburg
5 p.m.: Working in the dining room & lecture by Gabu Heindl
6 p.m.: Phonothek for radical self-care
7 p.m.: FILM: Personal Use. Life on the Ejection Seat. Followed by a discussion with the Director Michael Trammer
Saturday, October 8, 2022
9 a.m.: Start of kitchen shift
9 a.m.: Onboarding: How do I become an ada_ista?
9.30 a.m.: Welcome
10 a.m.: Vegetable chopping & lecture by Bojana Kunst
11 a.m.: Setting up tables & GoBanyo: Project shower bus
1 p.m. – 3 p.m.: Lunch
3 p.m.: Reflection session
3.30 pm: Film: 7 Days at PAH Barcelona & Coffee and Cake
4.30 p.m.: Work in the dining room & lecture by Manuela Zechner
6 p.m.: Anarchist Health Collective Bern: Workshop on alternative health centers
8 p.m.: Cleanup & final round // ada stays!
The program is being held in collaboration with: Anarchist Health Collective Bern, Bojana Kunst, Gabu Heindl, GoBanyo – Duschbus, Grandhotel Cosmopolis Augsburg, ignite! Transformative Justice Collective, Manuela Zechner, Michael Trammer from the film 'Eigenbedarf – Leben auf dem Schweudersitz', PAH Barcelona, Phonothek radicaler Selbst_Für_Sorge, Valeria Graziano & The Pirate Care Project, among others.
There is childcare!
The complete program booklet with all information is available here:
The 'Academy of Caregivers' is a cooperation between andpartnersincrime and ada_kantine and is part of the long-term project MaintenanceArt by andpartnersincrime to link care work and art.
Supported by the Performing Arts Fund with funds from the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media as part of NEUSTART KULTUR.
andpartnersincrime is supported by the multi-year funding of the Cultural Office of the City of Frankfurt am Main.
Academy of Radical Caregivers, a film by Michelle Koprow.
"Look at me."
"What d'you want?"
"Your eyes... Look in my eyes."
"I see myself in them. ... I must get changed." (Frank Wedekind)
Where the affirmation of oneself as a meaningful part of a community is lacking or insufficient for self-actualization plans, it must be done in a different way...
Lulu's gone. No one's seen her for a while. Geschwitz invites for dinner at her new apartment. An older building somewhere in Giessen. The guests are former, current and potential lovers of Lulu. A warm summer evening. A successful party: dancing, laughing, crying, bribing, lying and threatening. They fight for the few remaining glances and for their own place in a world in which everyone wants to be desired only as themselves and for their personal attributes. It becomes - in the end - erotic.
You weren't invited to the party, but none of this makes sense without you. So you're welcome to watch if you want to.
Previous performances: 23 & 24.07. and 28 to 31.07.2011, 19:30 hrs and additional performances 28 to 30.07., 24:00 hrs Venue: Ludwigstr. 28 in Giessen Admission: 7 € / 4 € reduced
With: Arne Köhler, Christoph Bovermann, Fabian Passarelli, Falk Rößler, Maria-Isabel Hagen & Nick-Julian Lehmann
Idea: Eleonora Herder
Direction: Eleonora Herder & Falk Rößler Dramatugry: Michaela Stolte Stage design: Sabine Born Music & sound design: Falk Rößler & Arne Köhler Production: Isabelle Zinsmaier Technical assistance: Jost von Harlessem
Imagine the following situation: it is later in the evening. You are sitting at a window. In an apartment across the street, you can see three rooms through the window: the bedroom, the dining room, the bathroom. In the flat in front of the window, there is a dinner, guests are invited, there is good food and lots of intrigue. Down the street, every now and then, there are some of the guests.
Some of them may even enter your house and suddenly talk to each other in the room next to you. You watch all this from your apartment. We, the people from the house across the street, follow the story. You watch and listen to us. And suddenly you realize: Not only you are watching. Suddenly we turn towards you, we address you directly, we stage ourselves just for you. Suddenly you are no longer a pervert, we are. And we abuse you in the worst possible way - because we need your glances.
And then, before you realize it, our erotic game turns once again. You become aware of your power. You keep us in suspense. You enjoy our impatience. You make us gasp...
The inspiration for our work is Frank Wedekind's double drama "Lulu", consisting of the two parts "Earth Spirit" and "Pandora's Box".
We deal freely with this material, in which we are especially interested in the figure of Lulu with her radical self-dramatization as well as the efforts of the other characters to capture this being and to get hold of it.
We are interested in understanding the figure of Lulu as a postmodern state; as a state of a society that largely abandons itself as a community. Instead, this society produces individuals who constantly present and market themselves as desirable and intimate übermen.
Lulu is postmodern because she knows that she is being observed and at the same time knows that this gaze defines her. Lulu is not (as it has been repeatedly claimed) a naive, 'natural' being who acts out the supposedly original femininity. Lulu is a master of "second-order observation" because she observes how others observe her and aligns her behavior accordingly.
Where self-affirmation as a meaningful part of a community is lacking or insufficient for self-actualization plans, this self-affirmation must be done in other ways. But on what should it be based, if not on the value that is placed on the person as such and apart from any community? It is a matter of gaining one's place in the world by being desired only as oneself and for one's own attributes. It is - after all - about eroticism. Eroticism, enactment and the production of desire as new paradigms of everyday life, because only as a permanently erotic being one can find a place in a world full of individualists. Only if I am desirable, I will be noticed and if necessary fulfill myself.
Lulu appears to us as perhaps one of the first famous theatrical figures to perform this postmodern constellation. The fact that Lulu may be less a fear or hope inspiring female archetype, but rather embodies a new, postmodern way of behaving, is a rarely found interpretation of this figure. But this is precisely where our interest in Wedekind's double drama comes in.
Directed by Eleonora Herder and Falk Rößler Performers & Musicians: Maria-Isabel Hagen, Arne Köhler, Christoph Bovermann, Nick-Julian Lehmann, Fabian Passarelli, Falk Rößler Dramaturgy: Michaela Stolte Stage design: Sabine Born
If you want to watch the complete video recording of "LULU. To all our lovers" please contact us and we will be happy to send you a link.
"The piece not only has a unique quality, but is also packed with a multitude of ideas, creativity, and technical sensitivity for the successful realization of the elaborate production. The setting of the performance is certainly a phenomenon. The audience is not in the same room as the actors. They are not even in the same building."
(“Theater thriller with an unusual venue”, Gießner Allgemeine Zeitung, 25.07.2011)
"Directed by Eleonora Herder and Falk Rößler, a drama with an absent protagonist has emerged. They understand the character of Lulu as a postmodern state of a society that has given up on being a community. Rather, it's about staging oneself in such a way that the gazes and judgments of others define one's own personality. The gaze of others defines us; constant observation is what creates personality."
(Fiona Sara Schmidt: “Voyeurism as a Theater Concept,” Gießner Zeitung, July 25, 2011)
After the assembly ends, it's time to rehearse the assembly. Andpartnersincrime invites you to learn together – in the place where people have always preferred to gather: the kitchen. When do human needs become political? Who are the caretakers of the assembly? And who puts the salt in the soup? While situated knowledge emerges from shared resources, cooks, experts in political assembly, and plants have their say – in the Ada_Kantine in the former "Akademie der Arbeit" (Academy of Work) in Bockenheim. A place where residents, activists, and the homeless gather to test new forms of coexistence.
“The Academy” is a public research format and part of the long-term project “After the End of the Assembly,” in which the group andpartnersincrime explores forms of assembly.
In cooperation with ada_kantine and Künstlerhaus Mousonturm.
Supported by the Cultural Office of the City of Frankfurt and made possible by the Reload Scholarship of the Federal Cultural Foundation.
Concept and artistic direction: Eleonora Herder and Tim Schuster Research: Ceren Yildirim Design: Anna Sukhova Hosted by Melli Hepp and Saeed Sedaghat | Live Music by Anna Volgger Garrabou Sound design: Marc Behrens Video documentation: Julia Novacek Production manager: Mariya Barashka With lectures by: Bernd Belina, Inga Bendukat, Jana Bleckmann, Felix Broecker, Anna Lisa Jacobi and Alexis Passadakis Speakers at the adaist round table: Anya Sukhova, Osman Alhassan, Saeed Sedaghat, Regina, Franziska Mucha, Clara Speer, Rachidi, Rüdiger, Lisa Leiser Round table moderator: Yannick
A production by andpartnersincrime made possible by the Reload Fellowship of the German Federal Cultural Foundation and the Hessian Cultural Foundation's working grant. In cooperation with the Mousonturm Artists' House.
Supported by the Cultural Office of the City of Frankfurt and the Hessian Cultural Foundation’s work scholarship.
Made possible by the Reload Scholarship of the Federal Cultural Foundation
"The Academy of Assembly is intended to use the space between as a phase of discovery before something new emerges. This also includes testing coexistence, i.e., exploring forms of assembly."
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
"Andpartnersincrime has always brought together art, politics, current debates, and issues—but never as intensively as at the 'Ada-Kantine': both are interdependent."
"That lamppost over there tastes like you've bitten your lip or tongue. But you're only allowed to lick it in the summer. In the winter, you'll stick to it."
Quote from a resident in Grünau
Do you remember the days when you could flick traffic lights to green? When puddles after a summer storm were like large lakes and cracks in the hot asphalt were secret signs – if you stepped on them, you'd die instantly. Do you remember when you could blink the world away? When you could take off on a swing and fly over the entire neighborhood?
Equipped with tablets and headphones, led by a small tour guide, Anpartnersincrime with the audience through the Grünau housing estate, searching for hiding places, playgrounds, and vantage points. Videos of the surroundings pass by on the tablets, are directed, and shift. We see images from other times and hear various thoughts about this place. What opportunities for participation do children growing up here have, among prefabricated buildings, green meadows, and concrete benches? How do they make this space their own? And what might this place look like if it adapted to their needs?
#TurnTheWorldBlue #children's rights
Last summer, we embarked on a research trip to Grünau – the Leipzig district that was built in the 1970s as a great promise of modern housing for everyone, but is now denounced as a slab and problem area. We wanted to find out what it's like to grow up here, among prefabricated buildings, green meadows, and concrete benches. What opportunities for participation do children have in Grünau? How do they make this space their own? Can children's needs and system architecture be reconciled, or do they conflict with one another?
With all these questions in mind, we traveled to Grünau repeatedly, partnered with various youth and cultural centers, and met a wide variety of Grünau experts between the ages of 9 and 13, who shared their strategies for appropriating public space. The result was a video walk that leads the audience out of the theater and into Grünau's concrete labyrinths. Led by various little guides, the audience wanders through the district, looking for loopholes, playgrounds, and vantage points. They are encouraged to see their surroundings through the eyes of a child again and remember what it was like back when they could flick all the traffic lights to green. When the puddles after a summer thunderstorm were swimming lakes and the cracks in the hot asphalt were secret signs. When they could still take the tram to their next birthday so it would come faster. So get on board, we'll meet on November 20th!
Actresses Live Performance:Sinem Dinara Hartmann, Kira-Katharina Zimmermann Voice-Over: Miriam Klüh
CAST IN THE FILM: Guides: Sinem Dinara Hartmann, Malou Löffler, Ben Zeisler, Kira-Katharina Zimmermann Reporters: Sinem Dinara Hartmann, Malou Löffler, Ben Zeisler, Kira-Katharina Zimmermann
Natalie Hadarie, Anna Döhler, Finja Döhler, Timmy Eggert, Emilia Ehrenberg, Josephine Etumunu, Sinem Dinara Hartmann, Anton Hermann, Raciel, Carlos Ros, Fanny Schreiber, Saskia Schürmeier, Alina Stäbler, Oskar Stäbler, Diana Sulaimani, Anna Sophie Ulrich, Emily Wende
Artistic Director:Eleonora L. Herder Dramatugry:Nele Beinborn Video design + video production: Jos Diegel 1. Camera: Jos Diegel 2nd Camera: Michelle Koprow Cut:Jos Diegel, Michelle Koprow Features:Michelle Koprow Sound design + music: Jonas Harksen Production dramaturgy: Sarah Charlotte Becker
Choreography of the dance scenes in the film: Johanna Uhle, Mechthild Schade Pedagogical support: Marika Fleischhauer, Marie Molle, Paul Illner, Josefine Bartl Creative Producer: Sven Rausch
A production by andpartnersincrime in co-production with LOFFT – DAS THEATER. In cooperation with the Heizhaus youth center in Leipzig-Grünau, the Theatrium (großstadtKINDER eV), the Offener Freizeittreff Völkerfreundschaft eV, and the Leipzig public transport company LVB. Supported by the City of Leipzig – Cultural Office and the Performing Arts Fund with funds from the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media as part of the NEUSTART KULTUR program. andpartnersincrime receives multi-year funding from the City of Frankfurt am Main.
Everything passes by, Teaser 2022
Trailer EVERYTHING PASSES BY, Jos Diegel 2022
Everything passes by, complete documentation, Jos Diegel, 2022 (Password: Grünau4ever!)
