Reut Shemesh

I am pain and pleasure; I am rage, safety, and death. I am guilt and mercy. I am armed, and I am a muse. I am milk, the beginning, silence, everything, and nothing. I am hate and revenge. I am misery and life.

Anger, Android, Ritual. Motherhood. In her latest work, choreographer Reut Shemesh and her team conjure the figure of the mother as a hybrid of a dragon, cyborg, and a nourisher: fierce and resilient, unapologetic and often tired. A body of contradictions: exhausted yet unstoppable, fragile yet unyielding.

Reut Shemesh collaborates with performers of various genders, ages, and life experiences to challenge traditional views of motherhood. Personal stories clash with societal stereotypes and clichés that often define motherhood, exposing the gap between lived reality and idealized roles. She explores the ambivalence of bringing a child into a brutal world, the desire to find purpose through motherhood, and the emotional weight of mirrored identities and gendered expectations within mother-daughter relationships.

ELECTRAS extends her exploration of the theme that originally started with her piece Bad Mothers (2022), commissioned by Theater Oberhausen.

Reut Shemesh is an Israeli with Iranian and Iraqi origins, a choreographer and media artist, and has lived in Cologne with her family for over ten years. She holds a B.A. from the ArtEZ Institute of the Arts in Arnhem (NL) and a postgraduate degree from the Academy of Media Arts (KHM) in Cologne (DE). Under the leitmotif of Uniforms, Reut Shemesh’s work explores clichés and portraiture. She understands identity as a story we tell ourselves—and in which we ultimately rediscover, reenact, dance, and embody traces of very different stories. Her pieces have been shown at venues including Tanzplattform Deutschland, Impulse Theater Festival, and tanz nrw, and have toured various international festivals and venues in Europe, Israel, and the USA. Her youth piece ULTRA (2023), a co-creation with the Belgian production company f ABULEUS, toured various cities in the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, and Denmark for two years. Her commissions include ANACONDA (2025) for the dance ensemble at Theater Gießen, ESTHER (2024), which most recently opened the tanz nrw Festival 2025, and Bad Mothers (2022) for Theater Oberhausen. She was also selected as one of three artists to realize a new project as part of the newly conceived program New Commissioners – Art Commissioned by Citizens.

In November 2025, tanzhaus nrw Düsseldorf will present her latest piece, ELECTRAS.
Reut Shemesh was a Factory Artist at tanzhaus nrw in Düsseldorf, an artist in residence at K3 at Kampnagel in Hamburg, and has been awarded many times for her work. She regularly lectures at various colleges and universities and, together with dramaturge Matthias Quabbe, has published the book Symmetry, Alibis and Intuition, which explores her choreographic methodology and language.

She is currently receiving top-level dance funding from the state of North Rhine-Westphalia and four-year project funding from the city of Cologne.

www.reutshemesh.com

Duration: approximatly 60 minutes

Childcare on Sun 23.11.

In cooperation with Reut Shemesh, we are offering childcare for children aged 3 and above during the performance of ELECTRAS on Sunday, 23 November, from 6:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. Childcare is available from 5:00 p.m. until 8:00 p.m. at the latest. Registration is open until Thursday, 20 November, by email to ticketservice@tanzhaus-nrw.de.

Please note: This performance is not suitable for children. There are scary and loud moments during the performance. The performance on Sunday, 23 November at 6 p.m. is not a family performance.