“We are the state!”
Lectures and talk series
August 06 – 09, 2025
Each event runs from 18:30 to 19:30 H
Free admission
In German and English
The Sun King, Louis XIV, is credited with the saying “L'état, c'est moi!” – a phrase that stands for the absolutist ruling system like no other. In the face of authoritarian movements and individualized claims to leadership, we in democratic societies could confidently reply: “We are the state!”
But how can this “we” be maintained and strengthened? What role do individuals, citizens and participants in democracy play in the social and political structure? What role can art - especially dance and performance in public spaces – play in making democracy more tangible?
The lecture and talk series, as part of the TANZWERKSTATT EUROPA, is dedicated to these questions. Sociologists, political scientists, dance and performance theorists and artists open up their perspectives on coexistence and invite us to enter into a dialog about the basic conditions of coexistence – and about how we want to reevaluate our society.
Wed August 6, Muffatcafé
Isabel Gahren, researcher, transformation expert, and Radikale Tochter
Courage Muscle Impulse Keynote
Since 2019, Radikale Töchter (Radical Daughters) have been inspiring powerful, unconventional forms of political participation. Their training program, which combines action, art, and politics, is designed to spark change – to show how easy it can be to take action and stand up for democracy, human rights, and social justice.
Building on the idea of the “courage muscle,” Isabel Gahren gives an impulse keynote in which she presents the work of Radikale Töchter and uses examples to provide fascinating insights into their approaches and methods of action art and artistic activism.
When she is not giving workshops for Radikale Töchter, Isabel Gahren leads projects at betterplace lab with a focus on feminism, resilience, collective impact, and wellbeing. In these projects, she conducts applied research on the skills that individuals and civil society organizations need in order to remain actionable in the face of the meta-crisis. Prior to that, Isabel Gahren studied politics and ethnology (B.A.) in Hamburg and documentary film (M.A.) in Barcelona. She has made magazine features for the arte programs Tracks, Metropolis, and Chick, accompanied organizations in their transformation, founded one herself (Future Challenges), is passionate about karaoke, and is otherwise all focused on her daughter.
Thu August 7, HochX Theater und Live Art
Ceren Oran, dancer, choreographer, and sound painter, in conversation with Walter Heun, Artistic Director of TANZWERKSTATT EUROPA
“This is not just dancing”
Ceren Oran's work is guided by the belief that contemporary dance as an art form and practice can and should be accessible to everyone. With this in mind, her company Ceren Oran & Moving Borders focuses on performance formats that often enable direct encounters with the audience, such as performances in public spaces. The relationship between the individual and society, the question of connection and community play a prominent role in Oran's work. The choreographer uses the body to reflect on social conditions, such as the effects of the pandemic in “The Urge” or the sharing of emotions and exhaustion in the 11-day durational performance “Who is Frau Troffea?”. In her first Munich work, “Heimat...los!”, she deals with the theme of migration and identity breaks that can occur between one’s “old” and “new” homes. The evening premiered in 2015, when the so-called “refugee crisis” on the Balkan route was reaching its peak. Ceren Oran talks to Walter Heun, artistic director of TANZWERKSTATT EUROPA, about her work and the political dimension of dance in public space.
Ceren Oran works as a freelance dancer, choreographer, and sound painter. She has lived in Munich since 2015, where she founded the company Ceren Oran & Moving Borders in 2021 with Karolína Hejnová and a core collective of multidisciplinary artists. Her pieces for young audiences, such as “Spiel im Spiel,” “Schön Anders,” and “Elefant aus dem Ei,” and her full-length stage productions, such as “Shard,” “Relationshifts,” and “The Urge,” tour internationally. In 2022, she was awarded the Dance Promotion Prize of the City of Munich. Her piece “GUTE WUT” was nominated for the German theater award DER FAUST 2025 in the category of theater direction for young audiences. Ceren Oran is a member of Tanztendenz München e.V. and the Explore Dance Network and works closely with Tanzbüro München and Fokus Tanz. As a founding and board member, she is also involved in the global network Assitej International: Young Dance Network.
Fri August 8, Muffatcafé
Jan Deck, dramaturge, director, and curator
Making political theater in times of rising fascism
About 15 years after its publication, Jan Deck revisits his text “Making Political Theater”. In times of resurgent fascism, is the (self-) reflection on theater still necessarily a basis for politics? Or should theater focus more on political issues? Or is this a false dichotomy today?
Jan Deck is a political scientist who lives in Frankfurt am Main and works as a freelance dramaturge, director, and curator, notably as a founding member of the performance group profikollektion. He is also the managing director of laPROF Hessen e.V. As an editor and author, he is concerned with various aspects of art and society.
Sat August 9, Muffatcafé
Sandra Noeth, professor at the Berlin University of the Arts, curator, and dramaturge
A Matter of Scale. What does it take for a Body to become Evidence?
Bodies lie at the heart of political decision-making processes. They are agents and participants in political action, such as civil protest and demonstration, and are also subject to surveillance and discipline. As documents and witnesses, they provide visceral, somatic and physical evidence for ongoing societal negotiations, and they are powerful surfaces onto which desires, fantasies and stereotypes are projected, revealing what drives our individual and collective actions.
In this lecture, Sandra Noeth will examine the relationship between the body and the state through the lens of international humanitarian law, and consider the ambivalent status of the body within this framework. She will therefore discuss basic legal concepts such as bodily integrity, the principle of distinction, and the idea of self-ownership in relation to artworks from performance and choreography. How can artistic strategies help us to understand the unequal protection of bodies under the law? How can art shift scale from overarching and often abstract and difficult-to-grasp concepts such as ‘freedom’, ‘democracy’ and ‘dignity’ to concrete (counter-) strategies that negotiate our participation in the social and political realm?
Sandra Noeth is a professor at the HZT Berlin/Berlin University of the Arts, and a practicing curator and dramaturge. She specializes in body-based research in the arts, in society, and politics. Recent projects focused the role, status and agency of bodies in bordering processes; the relation between arts, bodies and unequal politics of protection; the embodiment of violence; the ambivalent status of the body in international humanitarian law. She is the author of Resilient Bodies, Residual Effects. Borders and Collectivity from Lebanon and Palestine (transcript, 2019) as well as a co-editor of Breathe. Critical Investigations into the Inequalities of Life (with J. Janša, 2023) and Shielding: Body-based Studies on Integrity and Protection (with J. Janša and S. Umathum, 2024). Sandra was Head of Dramaturgy and Research at Tanzquartier Wien (2009–2014) and worked as an educator with SKH-Stockholm University of the Arts and Ashkal Alwan Beirut, among others.