F°LAB —
FESTIVAL FOR PERFORMING ARTS
11.10.–16.10.2024

Isabell Ratzinger was born in Mainz, Germany in 1996. In 2022 she received her Diploma in Art from the University of Art and Design Offenbach am Main. She has worked in Germany, Japan and Lithuania, including shows at Nassauischer Kunstverein Wiesbaden, Frankfurter Kunstverein, Kawagoe’s THE KURA AND CONTEMPORARY ART (Japan) and the Nida Art Colony (Lithuania). She repeatedly conducted public workshops as collective, artistic research such as BÜROFANTASIEN. FANTASTISCHES IM ARBEITSALLTAG („Office fantasies. Fantastic in everyday work”, 2018) or STEAL A KHAKI (2022). In 2023, Ratzinger received the NEUSTARTplus-grant of NEUSTARTKultur from the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media (BKM) and German foundation Stiftung Kunstfonds for her artistic research on displaced people from the region of former “East Prussia” (Lithuania and Russia). Ratzinger lives and works in Offenbach am Main, Germany.

Anda Kryeziu

Anda Kryeziu, born in 1993 in Kosovo, is a composer, performer and multimedia artist. Her music has been performed at various festivals, such as: ECLAT Festival, Munich Biennale, Neue Musik Rümlingen, Darmstädter Ferienkurse Monstra Sonora Valencia, November Music etc. In 2023 her Opera PERSONA based on the film by Ingmar Bergmann was premiered, as a cooperation between Theater Basel and Gare du Nord. She has received several scholarships and prizes, including the 69th Composition Prize of the City of Stuttgart 2024, the price of Contemporary Arts Alliance Berlin and the Akademie Musiktheater heute of the Deutsche Bank Stiftung. Her music is currently being released as a CD portrait by Edition Zeitgenössische Musik. At the moment she is working as a lecturer at the Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler Berlin. Her works focus on various genres such as instrumental music, multimedia and music theater.

Ensemble Modern

Ensemble Modern is a curious loudspeaker for music of our times: courageous, uncompromising, energetic. An essential, aesthetically polyglot amplifier for trend-setting sound concepts. It is one of the most well-known, leading current music formations in the world. Founded in 1980 and at home in Frankfurt am Main, 18 soloists currently determine the activities of this democratically organized ensemble. The musicians from nine countries jointly decide on artistic projects, partnerships with other artists and all financial matters. Its aesthetic spectrum includes musical theatre works, dance and multimedia projects, chamber music, ensemble and orchestral concerts. The Ensemble Modern gives approximately 100 concerts each year at renowned festivals and outstanding venues worldwide and rehearse an average of 70 new works every year, 20 of which are world premieres.

www.ensemble-modern.com

Lukas Nowok

Born 1993 in Donaueschingen. Thanks to his unceasing dedication to collaborating with many of the most active and innovative European sound artists, composers, collectives and ensembles in the field of contemporary music and performing arts, he has contributed to the development, implementation and performance of numerous concerts, operas, theatre plays, audio-visual installations and recordings at event locations and festivals all over the world. He has worked closely with artists and friends such as Chaya Czernowin, Brigitta Muntendorf, Anda Kryeziu, Sara Glojnaric, Marcus Schmickler, and Manos Tsangari. He is also a founder-member of the Matter of Facts Studio, an artists’ collective and label devoted to experimental music theatre and audio-visual installation art.

Luis Benz, born 1998, has been studying Stage and Costume Design at the HfG Offenbach under Prof. Heike Schuppelius since 2019.

Since 2008 Mobile Albania has been travelling in the most varied of outlandish vehicles along streets, towns and regions of Germany and Europe – always analogue, improvised and inviting. In NAHVERKEHR, it creates routes where none existed but are urgently required. Everyone is invited to a playful conquest of the street network above and beyond the concrete lanes – a new way of commuting between the daily round and alchemy.

Ioannis Mandafounis is a choreographer and the Artistic Director of the Dresden Frankfurt Dance Company (DFDC). Based on the choreographic method he has developed, Mandafounis’ work is characterized by a highly participatory approach and a constant search for innovative ways to involve the audience in his performances. Offering people an authentic and profound experience of dance, and thus bringing them closer to this art form, is the driving force behind his creativity.

Over the course of his career, Mandafounis has been commissioned to create pieces for a variety of international companies and his works have been performed at many renowned theaters worldwide.

Anda Kryeziu

Anda Kryeziu, born in 1993 in Kosovo, is a composer, performer and multimedia artist. Her music has been performed at various festivals, such as: ECLAT Festival, Munich Biennale, Neue Musik Rümlingen, Darmstädter Ferienkurse Monstra Sonora Valencia, November Music etc. In 2023 her Opera PERSONA based on the film by Ingmar Bergmann was premiered, as a cooperation between Theater Basel and Gare du Nord. She has received several scholarships and prizes, including the 69th Composition Prize of the City of Stuttgart 2024, the price of Contemporary Arts Alliance Berlin and the Akademie Musiktheater heute of the Deutsche Bank Stiftung. Her music is currently being released as a CD portrait by Edition Zeitgenössische Musik. At the moment she is working as a lecturer at the Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler Berlin. Her works focus on various genres such as instrumental music, multimedia and music theater.

Ensemble Modern

Ensemble Modern is a curious loudspeaker for music of our times: courageous, uncompromising, energetic. An essential, aesthetically polyglot amplifier for trend-setting sound concepts. It is one of the most well-known, leading current music formations in the world. Founded in 1980 and at home in Frankfurt am Main, 18 soloists currently determine the activities of this democratically organized ensemble. The musicians from nine countries jointly decide on artistic projects, partnerships with other artists and all financial matters. Its aesthetic spectrum includes musical theatre works, dance and multimedia projects, chamber music, ensemble and orchestral concerts. The Ensemble Modern gives approximately 100 concerts each year at renowned festivals and outstanding venues worldwide and rehearse an average of 70 new works every year, 20 of which are world premieres.

www.ensemble-modern.com

Lukas Nowok

Born 1993 in Donaueschingen. Thanks to his unceasing dedication to collaborating with many of the most active and innovative European sound artists, composers, collectives and ensembles in the field of contemporary music and performing arts, he has contributed to the development, implementation and performance of numerous concerts, operas, theatre plays, audio-visual installations and recordings at event locations and festivals all over the world. He has worked closely with artists and friends such as Chaya Czernowin, Brigitta Muntendorf, Anda Kryeziu, Sara Glojnaric, Marcus Schmickler, and Manos Tsangari. He is also a founder-member of the Matter of Facts Studio, an artists’ collective and label devoted to experimental music theatre and audio-visual installation art.

Isabell Ratzinger was born in Mainz, Germany in 1996. In 2022 she received her Diploma in Art from the University of Art and Design Offenbach am Main. She has worked in Germany, Japan and Lithuania, including shows at Nassauischer Kunstverein Wiesbaden, Frankfurter Kunstverein, Kawagoe’s THE KURA AND CONTEMPORARY ART (Japan) and the Nida Art Colony (Lithuania). She repeatedly conducted public workshops as collective, artistic research such as BÜROFANTASIEN. FANTASTISCHES IM ARBEITSALLTAG („Office fantasies. Fantastic in everyday work”, 2018) or STEAL A KHAKI (2022). In 2023, Ratzinger received the NEUSTARTplus-grant of NEUSTARTKultur from the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media (BKM) and German foundation Stiftung Kunstfonds for her artistic research on displaced people from the region of former “East Prussia” (Lithuania and Russia). Ratzinger lives and works in Offenbach am Main, Germany.

Lina Jebram, born in 2002, has been studying Art at the HfG Offenbach since 2022, specialising in Stage Design/Scenic Space with Prof. Heike Schuppelius.

This project was realized in 2023 through the collaboration of students at the department of Applied Theatre Studies under the direction of Lara-Marie Weine, who developed the concept as part of her bachelor thesis. Weine is especially interested in gestures, movement details and physical touch in everyday life. In this artistic work, she and the students look at and question the borders between people who are performing and people who are watching, and thus also the relationship between closeness and distance.

Amélie Haller (she/her) did a Master’s in Applied Theatre Studies in Gießen. She works as a free-lance artist, as curator of the “hunger eyes festival” and as a performer in the free arts scene in Vienna, Frankfurt, Marburg and Gießen. Her own artistic works range from performance via film to own texts. Together with Maren Ada Küpper she produces projects on the free arts scene under the company title “take the money and run GbR”.

Maren Ada Küpper (she/her) studied Applies Theatre Studies in Geißen. Her artistic focus is on performance, implementing media works in exhibition space and writing. Her works have been shown among others at Mousonturm Frankfurt, at the art Biennial in Schwabach and on the dance platform Tanzplattform Rhein-Main. Together with Amélie Haller she produces projects for the free arts scene under the company heading “take the money and run GbR”.

Ioannis Mandafounis is a choreographer and the Artistic Director of the Dresden Frankfurt Dance Company (DFDC). Based on the choreographic method he has developed, Mandafounis’ work is characterized by a highly participatory approach and a constant search for innovative ways to involve the audience in his performances. Offering people an authentic and profound experience of dance, and thus bringing them closer to this art form, is the driving force behind his creativity.

Over the course of his career, Mandafounis has been commissioned to create pieces for a variety of international companies and his works have been performed at many renowned theaters worldwide.

Boys* in Sync is a transdisciplinary international performance collective (DE/DK/SA/NO) focussing on the phenomenon of synchronicity in different social and cultural contexts. Among the permanent members are the puppeteer Ragni Halle (NO), the actors Jay Tebogo Fiskerstrand (ZA/NO) and Gregers Hansen (PL/NO), the dancer Jakob Krog (DK) and the director Dimon David Zeller (DE). The group has been working since 2019 with theatres such as the Sophiensaelen Berlin, the Husets Teater Copenhagen, the Schauspiel Leipzig and the National Theater Mannheim and has been invited to, among others, the Körber Studio Hamburg, the Fringe Festival Edinburgh, the Fast Forward Festival Dresden, the PAF Berlin and the Frie Felts Festival Copenhagen.

www.boysinsync.com

Tanna Chamberlain
With degrees, diplomas, and awards galore, interdisciplinary artist Tanna Chamberlain wows audiences from London to Birmingham with performances that make sliced bread seem like an afterthought. Commissioned by everyone who’s anyone, she’s a master of transforming deep theoretical concepts into engaging experiences that leave you questioning reality—and your taste in art.

[Group name] are a [Local place / Further away place] based [Genre] group formed in [Date], consisting of [Local place / Further away place] based [Speciality] [Full name] and [Local place / Further away place] based [Speciality] and [Speciality] [Full name] as well as [Other full name], [Other full name] and [Other full name] […]. They were both previously [Something else] that [Stopped/started] in [Date]. They released their first [Type of work], [Name of work], in [Date] to little success, but achieved acclaim with their second [Type of work], [Name of work], in [Date]. [Group name] have released a string of [Quality type of works] and [Type of work], including [Name of work], [Name of work] and [Name of work], before [Life event] in [Date].

www.tediouswork.de

Ruth Fühner (*1953) wrote her senior class thesis on Brecht’s play Mother Courage and her Children. While studying German she learned to love the music of Hanns Eisler, played in the Academic Orchestra, and on May 1^st sang his songs on a revolutionary truck. She came to Frankfurt in 1982 intending to become a Brecht singer. Something only came of this wish in 2019 when she joined the Academic Workers’ Songs Choir. In that context she took part in Oliver Augst’s production O ENDLESS IS THIS MISERY at the Frankfurt Künstler*innenhaus Mousonturm in 2023. In the intervening years she was active as an author, critic and presenter for the broadcaster Hessischer Rundfunk.

Oliver Augst (*1962), music, radio play and stage productions, various ensembles and collaborations, international concerts.
„Frankfurts zentraler Künstler im experimentellen Grenzbereich von Musik, Hörspiel, Literatur und Theater.“ (Matthias Pees, Berliner Festspiele).
“He is a musician that is crossing real boundaries. If you haven’t heard of him, it’s because he’s crossed a boundary that matters.” (Downtown NYC)

Trio L’Impolie

Saxophone: Simona Castria, Saxophon
Extended electric guitar: Benjamin Garson
Accordion: Julia Sinoimeri

They are called after the butterfly of the same name, Idaea aversata. At the same time, I’Impolie also means “the impolite one”. The trio formed in 2020, with a preference for improvisation and with John Zorn, Clara Ianotta, Toshio Hosokawa.

L’Impolie’s combination of timbres/acoustic colours is unusual and so the musicians got the idea of asking composers for new works for their trio, for example, Alexandre Singier. The band’s guitarist Benjamin Garson, also composes for L’Impolie. In their concerts, the three musicians forge a middle course between interpretation and improvisation.

Isabell Ratzinger was born in Mainz, Germany in 1996. In 2022 she received her Diploma in Art from the University of Art and Design Offenbach am Main. She has worked in Germany, Japan and Lithuania, including shows at Nassauischer Kunstverein Wiesbaden, Frankfurter Kunstverein, Kawagoe’s THE KURA AND CONTEMPORARY ART (Japan) and the Nida Art Colony (Lithuania). She repeatedly conducted public workshops as collective, artistic research such as BÜROFANTASIEN. FANTASTISCHES IM ARBEITSALLTAG („Office fantasies. Fantastic in everyday work”, 2018) or STEAL A KHAKI (2022). In 2023, Ratzinger received the NEUSTARTplus-grant of NEUSTARTKultur from the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media (BKM) and German foundation Stiftung Kunstfonds for her artistic research on displaced people from the region of former “East Prussia” (Lithuania and Russia). Ratzinger lives and works in Offenbach am Main, Germany.

Since 2011, theatre works by Susanne Zaun, Marion Schneider and colleagues have been produced under the label zaungäste. Currently the zaungäste include the performers ASJA, Judith Altmeyer, Ekaterine Giorgadze, Katharina Runte, Katharina Speckmann and Isabelle Zinsmaier.

Marion Schneider und Susanne Zaun got to know each other while doing Applied Theatre Studies in Gießen and realized that they complemented each other wonderfully: They are only agitated alternately, never simultaneously. They both have an analytical fixation on choral theatre. Together with their team, they deal with the organisational structures and pitfalls of choir work, as well as at the stereotypes of solo and durational performance. They have a joint interest in pop-cultural artefacts, the demise of the patriarchy, affirmative practices and the irritation that arises from the uncanny in the familiar.

Ekaterine Giorgadze was born in 1985 in Tbilisi, Georgia. She studied classical ballet at the Staatliche Ballettschule Berlin and modern and contemporary dance at the Folkwang Hochschule Essen. She looks back over a long career in dance, and complements the zaungäste with her performing and choreographic abilities. Her main focus is always on appropriation, transformation and deconstruction of movement material, which can be seen with different eyes through a new framing and can develop its own artistic position in the overall event.

More in-depth group and individual biographies can be found at:
https://www.zaungaestekollektiv.com/uber-uns (in German language)

This project was realized in 2023 through the collaboration of students at the department of Applied Theatre Studies under the direction of Lara-Marie Weine, who developed the concept as part of her bachelor thesis. Weine is especially interested in gestures, movement details and physical touch in everyday life. In this artistic work, she and the students look at and question the borders between people who are performing and people who are watching, and thus also the relationship between closeness and distance.

Amélie Haller (she/her) did a Master’s in Applied Theatre Studies in Gießen. She works as a free-lance artist, as curator of the “hunger eyes festival” and as a performer in the free arts scene in Vienna, Frankfurt, Marburg and Gießen. Her own artistic works range from performance via film to own texts. Together with Maren Ada Küpper she produces projects on the free arts scene under the company title “take the money and run GbR”.

Maren Ada Küpper (she/her) studied Applies Theatre Studies in Geißen. Her artistic focus is on performance, implementing media works in exhibition space and writing. Her works have been shown among others at Mousonturm Frankfurt, at the art Biennial in Schwabach and on the dance platform Tanzplattform Rhein-Main. Together with Amélie Haller she produces projects for the free arts scene under the company heading “take the money and run GbR”.

Lina Jebram, born in 2002, has been studying Art at the HfG Offenbach since 2022, specialising in Stage Design/Scenic Space with Prof. Heike Schuppelius.

Since 2008 Mobile Albania has been travelling in the most varied of outlandish vehicles along streets, towns and regions of Germany and Europe – always analogue, improvised and inviting. In NAHVERKEHR, it creates routes where none existed but are urgently required. Everyone is invited to a playful conquest of the street network above and beyond the concrete lanes – a new way of commuting between the daily round and alchemy.

Ioannis Mandafounis is a choreographer and the Artistic Director of the Dresden Frankfurt Dance Company (DFDC). Based on the choreographic method he has developed, Mandafounis’ work is characterized by a highly participatory approach and a constant search for innovative ways to involve the audience in his performances. Offering people an authentic and profound experience of dance, and thus bringing them closer to this art form, is the driving force behind his creativity.

Over the course of his career, Mandafounis has been commissioned to create pieces for a variety of international companies and his works have been performed at many renowned theaters worldwide.

Ruth Fühner (*1953) wrote her senior class thesis on Brecht’s play Mother Courage and her Children. While studying German she learned to love the music of Hanns Eisler, played in the Academic Orchestra, and on May 1^st sang his songs on a revolutionary truck. She came to Frankfurt in 1982 intending to become a Brecht singer. Something only came of this wish in 2019 when she joined the Academic Workers’ Songs Choir. In that context she took part in Oliver Augst’s production O ENDLESS IS THIS MISERY at the Frankfurt Künstler*innenhaus Mousonturm in 2023. In the intervening years she was active as an author, critic and presenter for the broadcaster Hessischer Rundfunk.

Oliver Augst (*1962), music, radio play and stage productions, various ensembles and collaborations, international concerts.
„Frankfurts zentraler Künstler im experimentellen Grenzbereich von Musik, Hörspiel, Literatur und Theater.“ (Matthias Pees, Berliner Festspiele).
“He is a musician that is crossing real boundaries. If you haven’t heard of him, it’s because he’s crossed a boundary that matters.” (Downtown NYC)

Trio L’Impolie

Saxophone: Simona Castria, Saxophon
Extended electric guitar: Benjamin Garson
Accordion: Julia Sinoimeri

They are called after the butterfly of the same name, Idaea aversata. At the same time, I’Impolie also means “the impolite one”. The trio formed in 2020, with a preference for improvisation and with John Zorn, Clara Ianotta, Toshio Hosokawa.

L’Impolie’s combination of timbres/acoustic colours is unusual and so the musicians got the idea of asking composers for new works for their trio, for example, Alexandre Singier. The band’s guitarist Benjamin Garson, also composes for L’Impolie. In their concerts, the three musicians forge a middle course between interpretation and improvisation.

Since 2011, theatre works by Susanne Zaun, Marion Schneider and colleagues have been produced under the label zaungäste. Currently the zaungäste include the performers ASJA, Judith Altmeyer, Ekaterine Giorgadze, Katharina Runte, Katharina Speckmann and Isabelle Zinsmaier.

Marion Schneider und Susanne Zaun got to know each other while doing Applied Theatre Studies in Gießen and realized that they complemented each other wonderfully: They are only agitated alternately, never simultaneously. They both have an analytical fixation on choral theatre. Together with their team, they deal with the organisational structures and pitfalls of choir work, as well as at the stereotypes of solo and durational performance. They have a joint interest in pop-cultural artefacts, the demise of the patriarchy, affirmative practices and the irritation that arises from the uncanny in the familiar.

Ekaterine Giorgadze was born in 1985 in Tbilisi, Georgia. She studied classical ballet at the Staatliche Ballettschule Berlin and modern and contemporary dance at the Folkwang Hochschule Essen. She looks back over a long career in dance, and complements the zaungäste with her performing and choreographic abilities. Her main focus is always on appropriation, transformation and deconstruction of movement material, which can be seen with different eyes through a new framing and can develop its own artistic position in the overall event.

More in-depth group and individual biographies can be found at:
https://www.zaungaestekollektiv.com/uber-uns (in German language)

Rike Zöllner is a freelance costume designer.
She studied costume design (MA), theater and literary studies (BA) in Great Britain and France and has since then worked in the fields of dance, performance as well as opera in various countries. In her past projects she has worked with, among others, Dimitris Papaioannou, Xan Dye, Ben Wright, Alesandra Seutin, Colette Sadler and Tim Etchells, for and with ensembles such as Tanztheater Wuppertal, Scottish Dance Theater, Malmö Opera and Candoco. Since October 2022, she has been doing her doctorate on contemporary costume dramaturgy and costume-led performances at the Offenbach University of Design and has also been working there as a research assistant in the art history department.

Verena Steiner is a choreographer, dancer, musician and educator. The Austrian-born artist studied contemporary dance (BA) in Linz, Austria and performance studies (MA) at the University of Hamburg.
In 2023, she was accepted at the Zurich University of Arts as a participant in the PEERS program for her artistic and scientific work and dedicated herself to her research focus: “Monstering” – the monstrous as a choreographic, subversive practice.
Previous performances include: Kampnagel Hamburg, Impulstanz Vienna, New Museum New York City, The Art Gallery Vienna, MPA Berlin. Her production UNGEHEUER – a dance piece for everyone from the age of five and over– premiered at Kampnagel in 2021 and is currently touring for the 4th year. In her educational activities, she teaches contemporary dance, with a focus on healing and regeneration through movement, and participates in artistic and educational projects to support children and young people.

Boys* in Sync is a transdisciplinary international performance collective (DE/DK/SA/NO) focussing on the phenomenon of synchronicity in different social and cultural contexts. Among the permanent members are the puppeteer Ragni Halle (NO), the actors Jay Tebogo Fiskerstrand (ZA/NO) and Gregers Hansen (PL/NO), the dancer Jakob Krog (DK) and the director Dimon David Zeller (DE). The group has been working since 2019 with theatres such as the Sophiensaelen Berlin, the Husets Teater Copenhagen, the Schauspiel Leipzig and the National Theater Mannheim and has been invited to, among others, the Körber Studio Hamburg, the Fringe Festival Edinburgh, the Fast Forward Festival Dresden, the PAF Berlin and the Frie Felts Festival Copenhagen.

www.boysinsync.com

Linda Jiayun Gao-Lenders (*1995), no pronouns, is a post-migrant-Chinese performer and sound artist. Linda works at the intersections between auto-/ethnographic biography work and musical-choreographic scores. In Linda’s work, the focus lies on (post-)socialist remembrance work and feminist practices of listening. Linda’s most recent project was the performative audio walk F_R_ICTION IN THE SPACE BE_TWEEN in collaboration with Janis Jirotka, that premiered in Hamburg in March 2023. Taking female European travel writers as a starting point, the audio walk examines colonial remnants, counter narratives and the relationship of the human body to its (urban) surroundings. Furthermore, Linda participated in the performance JESSE JAMES ODER WAS DER KOMMUNISMUS WAR, that dealt with post-social memories from the perspective of two generations. The piece premiered in 2021 at Lichthof Theatre Hamburg and was invited to the 8th issue of “Hauptsache Frei” Festival. From 2022 to 2022, Linda was fellow of the writer’s lab „Vergangenheit vorhersagen” (predicting the past) at the Schauspielhaus Düsseldorf, promoted by the “360° – Fonds für Kulturen der neuen Stadtgesellschaft”. Currently, Linda studies Applied Theatre Studies in Gießen.

Anik Todtenhaupt (*2001), grew up in Berlin where she gathered extensive stage experience at the Berliner Volksbühne and the Deutsche Theater from an early age. She has been doing Applied Theatre Studies in Gießen since 2021. In the context of her studies she was part of several performances, including PANDORA’S HEART, with which she was invited to the “radikal jung” festival at the Munich Volkstheater.

Ruth Fühner (*1953) wrote her senior class thesis on Brecht’s play Mother Courage and her Children. While studying German she learned to love the music of Hanns Eisler, played in the Academic Orchestra, and on May 1^st sang his songs on a revolutionary truck. She came to Frankfurt in 1982 intending to become a Brecht singer. Something only came of this wish in 2019 when she joined the Academic Workers’ Songs Choir. In that context she took part in Oliver Augst’s production O ENDLESS IS THIS MISERY at the Frankfurt Künstler*innenhaus Mousonturm in 2023. In the intervening years she was active as an author, critic and presenter for the broadcaster Hessischer Rundfunk.

Oliver Augst (*1962), music, radio play and stage productions, various ensembles and collaborations, international concerts.
„Frankfurts zentraler Künstler im experimentellen Grenzbereich von Musik, Hörspiel, Literatur und Theater.“ (Matthias Pees, Berliner Festspiele).
“He is a musician that is crossing real boundaries. If you haven’t heard of him, it’s because he’s crossed a boundary that matters.” (Downtown NYC)

Trio L’Impolie

Saxophone: Simona Castria, Saxophon
Extended electric guitar: Benjamin Garson
Accordion: Julia Sinoimeri

They are called after the butterfly of the same name, Idaea aversata. At the same time, I’Impolie also means “the impolite one”. The trio formed in 2020, with a preference for improvisation and with John Zorn, Clara Ianotta, Toshio Hosokawa.

L’Impolie’s combination of timbres/acoustic colours is unusual and so the musicians got the idea of asking composers for new works for their trio, for example, Alexandre Singier. The band’s guitarist Benjamin Garson, also composes for L’Impolie. In their concerts, the three musicians forge a middle course between interpretation and improvisation.

Isabell Ratzinger was born in Mainz, Germany in 1996. In 2022 she received her Diploma in Art from the University of Art and Design Offenbach am Main. She has worked in Germany, Japan and Lithuania, including shows at Nassauischer Kunstverein Wiesbaden, Frankfurter Kunstverein, Kawagoe’s THE KURA AND CONTEMPORARY ART (Japan) and the Nida Art Colony (Lithuania). She repeatedly conducted public workshops as collective, artistic research such as BÜROFANTASIEN. FANTASTISCHES IM ARBEITSALLTAG („Office fantasies. Fantastic in everyday work”, 2018) or STEAL A KHAKI (2022). In 2023, Ratzinger received the NEUSTARTplus-grant of NEUSTARTKultur from the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media (BKM) and German foundation Stiftung Kunstfonds for her artistic research on displaced people from the region of former “East Prussia” (Lithuania and Russia). Ratzinger lives and works in Offenbach am Main, Germany.

Ruth Fühner (*1953) wrote her senior class thesis on Brecht’s play Mother Courage and her Children. While studying German she learned to love the music of Hanns Eisler, played in the Academic Orchestra, and on May 1^st sang his songs on a revolutionary truck. She came to Frankfurt in 1982 intending to become a Brecht singer. Something only came of this wish in 2019 when she joined the Academic Workers’ Songs Choir. In that context she took part in Oliver Augst’s production O ENDLESS IS THIS MISERY at the Frankfurt Künstler*innenhaus Mousonturm in 2023. In the intervening years she was active as an author, critic and presenter for the broadcaster Hessischer Rundfunk.

Oliver Augst (*1962), music, radio play and stage productions, various ensembles and collaborations, international concerts.
„Frankfurts zentraler Künstler im experimentellen Grenzbereich von Musik, Hörspiel, Literatur und Theater.“ (Matthias Pees, Berliner Festspiele).
“He is a musician that is crossing real boundaries. If you haven’t heard of him, it’s because he’s crossed a boundary that matters.” (Downtown NYC)

Trio L’Impolie

Saxophone: Simona Castria, Saxophon
Extended electric guitar: Benjamin Garson
Accordion: Julia Sinoimeri

They are called after the butterfly of the same name, Idaea aversata. At the same time, I’Impolie also means “the impolite one”. The trio formed in 2020, with a preference for improvisation and with John Zorn, Clara Ianotta, Toshio Hosokawa.

L’Impolie’s combination of timbres/acoustic colours is unusual and so the musicians got the idea of asking composers for new works for their trio, for example, Alexandre Singier. The band’s guitarist Benjamin Garson, also composes for L’Impolie. In their concerts, the three musicians forge a middle course between interpretation and improvisation.

Eslam Elnebishy is a choreographer and dancer, born and raised in Cairo and currently based between Frankfurt and Cairo. His choreographic works explore a connection between spoken language and the body, with an interest in questioning the current structures of the dance scene, how it operates, and an interest in storytelling and narration of personal stories of the performers and their positions in that scene. He is a graduate of Maat|CCDC contemporary dance school in Cairo, Egypt, and studied in the year-long program at the Cairo Institute of Liberal Arts and Sciences (CILAS) 2016. Since 2020, he has been doing the master’s program “Choreography and Performance” at Justus Liebig-University in Gießen, Germany. Since 2017, he has created works, like: 205 Questions about dance, Solo with others, Just tell me the truth!, Self Portrait, Taking Place, I’m not talking to you, Don’t watch, Go back to your seat, Please!, Once, it was a dream, Troubled Butterflies, Again and again and again.

Sarah Altherr is a freelance dancer, choreographer and singer. She was born in Nuremberg in 1996 and grew up in France, Italy and Switzerland. At the age of 13, she moved to Mainz, where she completed her high school diploma and her training as a ballet dancer. In 2015 she became a dancer at the Mecklenburgische Staatstheater in Schwerin. In 2017, she danced in the Ballets de France in Toulouse. From 2018 to 2022, Sarah Altherr was a member of the ballet ensemble at the Theater Lüneburg. She currently lives, dances and creates in Frankfurt.

Jeanne Eschert grew up in a circus in Cologne, is often confined to bed due to chronic illness, studied Applied Theatre Sciences in Gießen and Economic Geography in Frankfurt am Main and gave up performing magic. Since the premiere in 2023, through magic workshops for queers and with the exhibition TRICK ME at the Sommerblutkulturfestival in Cologne however, magic has re-entered her life. Currently she is trying to find ways to bring her bed-wrinkles onto the stage during the artists-residency offered by Uferstudios Berlin.

Ruth Fühner (*1953) wrote her senior class thesis on Brecht’s play Mother Courage and her Children. While studying German she learned to love the music of Hanns Eisler, played in the Academic Orchestra, and on May 1^st sang his songs on a revolutionary truck. She came to Frankfurt in 1982 intending to become a Brecht singer. Something only came of this wish in 2019 when she joined the Academic Workers’ Songs Choir. In that context she took part in Oliver Augst’s production O ENDLESS IS THIS MISERY at the Frankfurt Künstler*innenhaus Mousonturm in 2023. In the intervening years she was active as an author, critic and presenter for the broadcaster Hessischer Rundfunk.

Oliver Augst (*1962), music, radio play and stage productions, various ensembles and collaborations, international concerts.
„Frankfurts zentraler Künstler im experimentellen Grenzbereich von Musik, Hörspiel, Literatur und Theater.“ (Matthias Pees, Berliner Festspiele).
“He is a musician that is crossing real boundaries. If you haven’t heard of him, it’s because he’s crossed a boundary that matters.” (Downtown NYC)

Trio L’Impolie

Saxophone: Simona Castria, Saxophon
Extended electric guitar: Benjamin Garson
Accordion: Julia Sinoimeri

They are called after the butterfly of the same name, Idaea aversata. At the same time, I’Impolie also means “the impolite one”. The trio formed in 2020, with a preference for improvisation and with John Zorn, Clara Ianotta, Toshio Hosokawa.

L’Impolie’s combination of timbres/acoustic colours is unusual and so the musicians got the idea of asking composers for new works for their trio, for example, Alexandre Singier. The band’s guitarist Benjamin Garson, also composes for L’Impolie. In their concerts, the three musicians forge a middle course between interpretation and improvisation.

Ruth Fühner (*1953) wrote her senior class thesis on Brecht’s play Mother Courage and her Children. While studying German she learned to love the music of Hanns Eisler, played in the Academic Orchestra, and on May 1^st sang his songs on a revolutionary truck. She came to Frankfurt in 1982 intending to become a Brecht singer. Something only came of this wish in 2019 when she joined the Academic Workers’ Songs Choir. In that context she took part in Oliver Augst’s production O ENDLESS IS THIS MISERY at the Frankfurt Künstler*innenhaus Mousonturm in 2023. In the intervening years she was active as an author, critic and presenter for the broadcaster Hessischer Rundfunk.

Oliver Augst (*1962), music, radio play and stage productions, various ensembles and collaborations, international concerts.
„Frankfurts zentraler Künstler im experimentellen Grenzbereich von Musik, Hörspiel, Literatur und Theater.“ (Matthias Pees, Berliner Festspiele).
“He is a musician that is crossing real boundaries. If you haven’t heard of him, it’s because he’s crossed a boundary that matters.” (Downtown NYC)

Trio L’Impolie

Saxophone: Simona Castria, Saxophon
Extended electric guitar: Benjamin Garson
Accordion: Julia Sinoimeri

They are called after the butterfly of the same name, Idaea aversata. At the same time, I’Impolie also means “the impolite one”. The trio formed in 2020, with a preference for improvisation and with John Zorn, Clara Ianotta, Toshio Hosokawa.

L’Impolie’s combination of timbres/acoustic colours is unusual and so the musicians got the idea of asking composers for new works for their trio, for example, Alexandre Singier. The band’s guitarist Benjamin Garson, also composes for L’Impolie. In their concerts, the three musicians forge a middle course between interpretation and improvisation.